#just thinking about the accident is insane

[filthyguts]

sketchbook doodles as it’s 4 am so I thought maybe . I’d share my specific kira headcanons from my twit thread. Strap in its unda the cut and it’s a lot because I’m normal about him whatever

- HATES dogs due to an incident from when he was a kid, slight phobia

- I’m always 50/50 on this but I like the headcanon of kira potentially having a type of albinism, both his parents carried the gene

-he’s superstitious, on account of his mother being VERY superstitious, which probably didn’t help with any compulsions he was dealing with internally as a kid and into adulthood

-Liked to burn ants and bigger bugs with a magnifying glass as a kid

-surprisingly low pain tolerance

-Has never kissed another person (until he kissed shinobu on the cheek during BTD)

this extends to other things do with this information what you will *large sign in flashing lights that says VIRGINNNNNN*

-he does not know how to kiss. because he hasn't done it to an actual living breathing person, if he were too in earnest it's intense he's all teeth and tongue it would be literally terrible, but he does give sweet knuckle kisses

he can give a polite cheek kiss but if he had to do one of the lips he’d be cooked like it would be over for him he might bite your tongue off on accident(or..?) like ur better off sticking two fingers in his mouth and hoping for the best instead of getting your lip ripped off

-absolutely LOVES the smell of a fresh coat of nail polish, doesn't care that it makes him light headed

-super veiny hands and wrists one paper cut and it's over for him

-killer queen feels really cold to touch, but its arms and hands are hot

-average at playing the violin, does dabble from time to time in the quiet of his home but it's not very often

-yes we know he sucks fingers but he also likes to likely gnaw because he likes the texture on his teeth (not in a cannibal way though he thinks the idea of actually eating flesh is disgusting and irresponsable)

-just really loves neutrals and easter colors, designer suits all the way obvi

-when he first gained killer queen (I hc he was about 19) it always looked like this pic below with the exposed skull, only when he started to better mask his homicidal tendencies and urges did KQ gain its "mask"" and how we see it now

-despite his obvious feline affiliations he doesn't want a pet cat, the hair getting everywhere would drive him crazy (plus he's got killer queen

-kira didn't name killer queen himself, the only time it ever spoke to him was once. when he first manifested KQ after the arrow, Killed Queen told Kira it's name quietly while standing behind him, this scared the shit out of him, which sounds badass and spooky but was also probably subconsciously because Kira had a Queen CD he purchased a year prior that he liked WELL UR JUST SEVENTEEN AND ALL YOU WANNA DO IS DISAPPEAR

-occasionally drinks (that's canon) but meaning he likes to get winedrunk with his girlfriends on special occasions, or socially drinks when forced to go out for company outings, once came home decently hammered and almost phoned a travel agency to get a one way plane ticket to France to see the Mona Lisa ,

did not follow through with this when he woke up the next morning. The idea of seeing her at the Louvre is almost too much for him, feels like touching an exposed nerve.

-is 100% having sloppy makeout sessions with his severed hand girlfriend with candles, dim lighting, and mood records + thinks it's the peak of romance and gets giddy about it like someone with their first crush. Because he's insane

-can feel a phantom sense for Sheer Heart Attack, no pain due to its durability, but can feel the heat tracking in his hand and it readying to explode once it’s found its target. The tracking feels like a tingling sensation to him akin to a compass, like a pulling. and the explosion feels like a pleasant blossom of warmth

-loves the subtle flavor of different lotions (not freshly applied) that linger on the skin, salty fruity fragrant and slightly chemically is his favorite. ��

- tries to be incredibly Normal when going for routine dental checkups and cleanings for obvious reasons. When he was in his early 20s and didn’t quite have his urges and homicidal tendencies in check- one of his early victims was a dental hygienist

-his dad(yoshihiro) was into cheesy action movies and would often take kira when he was a kid to the theater, kira didn’t really care for it overall, the explosions were always cool though.

He doesn’t watch movies often but he doesn’t mind drama and romance.

-gets cold pretty easily

-scary good at walking quietly, like a cat stalking prey, when he started working at kameyu- he went to hand some documents to a coworker, startling them pretty bad bc they didn’t hear him come up- he IMMEDIATELY stopped doing that unconsciously after that incident, he makes sure his footsteps are “normal” are soft, not aggressive, but can hear heard enough.

- in the moment he likes the feeling of blood drying on his skin, but once the adrenaline wears off he’ll wrinkle his nose and be like >:// then hop in the bath to clean up(it’s usually not his bath)

-went to the same school Reimi Sugimoto attended in Morioh, never once did he hold a solid conversation with her, she only spoke to him briefly once about missed homework. But that’s not to say he didn’t know who she was. Eerie :(

- His SECOND favorite early spring, likes taking strolls along to coast with his girlfriends, enjoys the breeze.

But his FIRST favorite season is summer, when all the tourists come to Morioh. It’s easy for people traveling to simply disappear 😨

-aside from nail biting, had a compulsive skin picking habit as a child but this was quickly squashed by his mother who’d give him a swat on the wrist each time he was caught

-subconsciously wishes his girlfriends could grab him back- (this isn’t to say he wants to rest of the person though 🤢) a squeeze on the waist or shoulder would probably do him good but it’s not like he consciously yearns for this- it would shatter his otherwise perfect lived fantasy and setup of control 😒

-his favorite finger is tied between either the pointer or the ring finger. He likes being able to bend the fingers and do what he wants, relishes in the subtle crack of the joints 🤢

anddddd that’s all for now. hell isn’t hot enough for him

[lycanpunk666]

Out of topic but who the fuck is Jimmy and what he have done?? (I just know he's probably a horrible person and is hated by half of the fandom)

Genuinely horrible disgusting guy. Okay so explaining all of this essentially involves every Mouthwashing spoiler conceivable but essentially the plot of mouth washing is centered around Jimmy and his horrible, selfish decisions. And I'm going to need you to think critically about his character and read my whole post and not just highlight a couple of words and immediately disengage. The cast consists of a 5-person team of people making a cargo delivery (Curly the Captain, Anya the Nurse, Jimmy the Co-Pilot, Swansea the Mechanic, and Daisuke the Intern) through space on a trip that was supposed to last about a year and a half or so. Jimmy sexually assaulted Anya (foreshadowed first with Anya mentioning to Curly in a flashback saying something along the lines of "Did you know that the nurse's office is locked but the bedrooms aren't?") leaving her pregnant. This is the catalyst for every single event in the game through a bunch of chain reactions, but essentially, Anya ended up telling Curly, who said he'd do anything to protect her but ended up trying to just keep things "neutral" after talking to Jimmy, who said he'd "fix things" because he's mainly spiraling about what would happen to HIM once they landed, and started ranting to Curly about a story the news would make about nobody on the ship surviving the trip in some tragic accident. Curly doesn't think Jimmy's serious and he's generally trying to figure out a way to defuse the situation and he's willing to sweep a lot of what's going on under the rug for his friend. Jimmy ends up crashing the ship on purpose, resulting in the fire that permanently disfigured and disabled curly and left him unable to speak (Jimmy framed him for crashing the ship, and Curly, not being able to speak, not being able to convince anyone otherwise. But people don't hate Curly at all on the ship, since to them, he's a good captain. Jimmy's not too pleased about this whole situation at all but he keeps talking about how he's responsible for everything because he's the captain now (and he's being haunted by hallucinations of crying babies and horses) and he's deliberately avoiding everything that has to do with thinking critically about what he did to Anya and is instead focusing on what he did to Curly especially. The crew slowly starves and slowly goes insane, there's pretty much nothing to eat anymore but the cargo they have, mouthwash, something specific happens but I don't entirely remember what (I think it was Anya trying to OD on purpose to abort her pregnancy and ending up dying) but it resulted in Daisuke getting injured to the point of no recovery and getting PUT DOWN by Swansea, Jimmy shooting Swansea in the head, and one of the last scenes in the game involves Jimmy cutting off Curly's leg and feeding it to him. My description here is genuinely not doing the game justice, there's a lot more to it and a lot more nuances that I missed here ("I hope this hurts", the lack of autonomy with the painkillers, the surprise birthday party, Jimmy's obsession with Curly that's a bit more subtle, the fact that Anya's character is purposefully muted due to Jimmy's perspective of her in the game, there's so much more) but yeah holy moly this game is insane. (It's less of a game and more of an interactive movie) Jimmy is such an insanely interesting character, he's like a train wreck given human form. Absolutely understandable that people hate him. But by god it is sssssSSSSSSO repetitive to hear nothing BUT how much people hate him.

[frogandbird]

oo ok i have a lot hold on.

raph: has absolutely massive lungs so she can hold her breath for a long ass time. she can slow her heart/body down in order ro like sneak around and not have pesky things like heart beats giving her away. can/has retractable spikes/claws on tail/fingers/toes. post kraang she develops gills and a scream similar to Primes (temp lock down of mistics/nimpo. not affective on other ‘hive’ members). very strong since of smell/taste, but very willing to eat anything. has scars teeth so if she breaks a tooth eating sm she’s not supposed to (caugh caugh her phone in that one ep) she can just pull it out and have a new one in a few days. also a living garbage can and can eat literally anything. poisons that attack through digestion are very weak to her. not completely immune but the amount needed for her makes it kind of pointless. downside is the same goes for meds :( needs like 3x the food her siblings do, so like 6x more then a human too. contradictory, she can go weeks wo food and water but she gets very sluggish after a week or so. once her scales are cut, it takes a long time clot over and is at the biggest risk of bleeding out should she get a major injury. She is also very easy to topple should you trip her tail. (should you head canon her w a tail lol) her scales are also so though it’s hard to feel things/pain. bc of that she tends to keep a invisible cover of nimpo to be able to feel things properly (personally think her nimpo is very sensitive to feel so she doesn’t kill someone on accident) but that means she is very easy to mistic attacks (mystics/nimpo leach onto more mystics/nimpo in my brain (also part of the reason the kraang could take over, but also the reason she could break free)). needs to soak often in order to make she she doesn’t over work her body, being so big makes it hard w to fight gravity sometimes.

Donnie: can breathe through their shell, better in clean water but still. bones are very fragile/rubbery(idk if that’s the right word lol), making them even more flexible then the avrage human. can also slow their heartbeat but not to the same extent Raph can. post kraang ship they gain the ability to communicate w other ‘hive’ members and technology (this gives them a headache after a bit but is very useful). strongest sense of sight/6th/feel out of all the siblings, can not taste a lot of things but texture can and will make them abandon most foods. also very very sensitive to anything tuching them, preferring silks and very soft cotton (or hugs from fam, scales and well cared for fur is fine most days). so sensitive to air currents and temperatures it’s kind of insane. eats the least out of their sibs, can go mouths wo food and weeks wo water. only eats once a day and that to much sometimes. like the others meds/poisons have litte\le affect. like raph, they have claws that can retract (but unlike her they are out by default). clots the fastest out of all the siblings, at almost no risk of bleeding out, but of internal blood clots do has to be careful about that. the least sensitive of mistics, but 2ed best user of nimpo. can dehighdrate very quickly. needs only 4 hours of sleep, has a physically bigger brain then the others too. overthinking is a common and big problem. scales are also very thin, hence the feel thing.

Leo: needs hearing aids, but has very strong eyes. scatterbrained was intended to be able to keep track of hundreds of people and thousands of pounds ok supplies but that did not turn out being useful in the good timeline (unless you count overthinking much like his twin). 2ed biggest brain but he don’t like using it lol. weak joints but very, very fast. has longest arms too, letting him run on four limbs should he feel so inclined (he hates doing it). gets sick the easiest but also takes meds the best. had the slowest healing factor as his body wants speed/strangth over health. only needs 3 hours of sleep at most, a few 10min cat naps over the day is often more then needed. post kraang his joints are even worse, and can not duck into shell unless he wants to risk a lot of pain and shifting his shell. (idk i don’t have a lot of thoughts on leo unlike most of the fandom)

Mikey: ironically the worst since of taste and feel out of the sibs, but very good hearing and eyes. also very flexible with rubbery (still the wrong word but idk what other word to use) bones/shell. thick scales letting him be almost completely fire proff and it takes nearly as much to cut/bruise him as it dose raph. has a mental affect that tells others to let down their guard and listen to the kid, for good or for bad. is the best at storing and using mistics/nimpo but it can/will eat them out from the inside out should he not use it properly (this following the pattern of his vains). gets very, very sleepy over the winter as his body shuts down. unlike raph and donnie this is not controlable and can be mildly dangrous if not fed/hydrayed enough. needs to eat the most often out of his siblings and is the one who needs to eat 3 times a day, unlike raph its not amount but time. can not prosses meat, at all. had the hardest time keeping to the rules of the univers due to his mistics/nimpo.

can you tell raph and donnie are the ones who i am fixated the most on rn? anyway, take thr pile of headcanons

Does anyone have headcanons for the Rise Turtles on like, 'Modified Biology' kind of headcanons.

Not just accelerated healing, and high resistance to poisoning/medicine. Though they are still applicable.

I've seen the whole Leo was engineered to need less sleep headcanon, which was not realized and just thought to be insomnia.

Maybe Raph, Donnie, and Leo have a kind of internal filter system that helps with swimming in contaminated water.

Okay, Mikey is a bit hard to figure what to add that would work, but maybe the Psychologist thing was kinda implanted to make it easier to get others to listen to him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Like I have an out there one for my AU Turtles, where when they ingest a poison, it secretes out into their saliva, so their bite is way more dangerous. Though it also acts as a roundabout way of injecting 'medicine' into the other turtles.

Though it does have the weirdness of them needing to essentially take medicine twice before their body realizes that it needs the medicine for itself. Aka they have to swallow their medicine filled saliva so that it will take effect. They're still basically immune to poison.

Yes, I made a pretty gross trait, but I wanted to find a way to nerf a character in a way that fits.

[what-the-fuck-khr]

bro Jeremy Renner might never walk again if he can even keep his leg jesus fucking christ. like I heard the accident when it happened but holy shit. plus blunt chest trauma and is still in ICU…

[starry-bi-sky]

don't you want to be a cult leader? - danyal al ghul au

this is mostly a joke post but i thought it was funny and had to share so--

his first mistake was, obviously, inheriting his father's inability to see an injustice and stand still. -- actually, danyal's first mistake was his lair being so big. a mountainous island with a large temple in the center resembling his old home in Nanda Parbat? With sprawling foliage and rivers and streams and waterfalls galore? What was he going to do with all that space? Let it go to waste? He had plants there! Native trees of the ghost zone growing from the soil! He couldn't let it all be left unchecked!

So naturally after helping a fellow teenage assassin ghost -- who he later learns is named Akihiko, -- from Walker of all people, he sent them over to hang low at his lair until it was safe enough for them to wander around the Zone. Walker couldn't get through Danyal's astrofield if his life depended on it, and trust him -- he's tried. Danny was clearing out debris from his stupid transport vans for weeks.

Honestly it wasn't so bad, he and Aki really quickly became fast friends and Danny loves having a sparring partner close to his level again -- he hasn't had this much fun fighting since he left the League. Aki was very dedicated and levelheaded, the both of them clicked really well because of it.

Nonono, the real trouble began after Danyal met some long-passed League members and allowed them to come join his island as well. Apparently they had made a few enemies of the zone, and maybe Danyal still felt some loyalty to the League. He couldn't just let them be left to rot. Their zealotry could be overlooked so long as they kept it contained and helped him take care of his island.

And it.. snowballs from there? He meets a teen squire aptly calling himself Ambroise -- whether that was his living name or not is yet to be seen -- who died during feudal france, who is just about as dramatic and passionate as every french stereotype makes them out to be. He calls Danyal "my moon and great muse" -- which is both flattering and little uncomfortable, but Danyal's grown up in the League as the Grandson of the Demon Head, he is used to mild worship. he passes it off as nothing more, nothing less. -- and while his energy is overwhelming on the worst of days, he helps Danny draw out of his shell more in ways that Sam and Tucker still struggle with.

Him and Aki butt heads a lot, but the two seem to hold the other in at least some positive regard, so Danny doesn't worry too much about them fighting while he's gone. It only becomes a mild issue when Aki also begins calling Danny "my moon". It's a little sweet, so Danyal brushes it off.

Then he takes in a troupe of ghosts some time after he defeats Pariah Dark and they begin calling him "great one" just as the yetis do in the far frozen. This is where he meets the twins -- a pair of sibling ghosts who call themselves Trixie and Missy (short for Trick and Mislead) -- who aren't quite as passionate as Ambroise but more energetic than Aki. Eventually they also start calling Danyal "my moon" and attach themselves to his hip, even within the living. They like to hide in his shadow and cause trouble for the rest of the students. He makes sure they don't hurt anyone.

He's pretty sure Aki is jealous, same with Ambroise, but he can't be too certain other than the fact that they become much more lingering (re: clingy) whenever he visits the island.. Something he's trying to do much more often these days due to the increasing amount of people living there now. Since when did he become so popular?

Then there's Pēnelópeia from the Greater Athens, who ran away from home and joined his Island after he ran into her while she was being chased by Skulker -- and he's pretty sure the reason was because of her chimeric appearance. Her strange eyes and mismatched wings and lion's tail and talons. She assimilates into his friend group very easily, she gets along well with Ambroise and Trixie and Danny usually finds the three of them climbing the trees to pluck the most fruit from the top. They can fly and he knows it, but they prefer to climb.

Then finally there's silent poet Akkara who comes from ancient mesopotamia, who gets along most with Aki -- which is no surprise there considering their similar personality dispositions. he watches Aki and Danyal fight each other and leaves comments on this or that that he notices. He writes Danyal poems on clay tablets and leaves them by his room.

They're one big mismatched group of outcasts, and Danny's got the other ghosts on his island to tend to, because they're living on his island and he wants to be hospitable even if he struggles with that. But he spends the most of his time with them.

Sam and Tucker are making fun of him. Tucker jokingly tells him 'careful Danny, at this rate you're gonna start a cult'. Danny really wishes he had taken that joke more seriously.

He just. keeps. collecting people. Wayward souls lost in the zone, looking for shelter or refuge from something or other -- whether that be another hostile ghost, or a past afterlife, or just a purpose. Danyal finds them, he takes them in, offers them a place on his island until they are ready to leave. Many seldom do. He's not complaining -- he has the space, and it feels like it's only ever growing.

His close friends, his "inner circle" as he's heard the others call them, keep insistently calling him "my moon". He starts calling them his stars, because then it only feels fair. They're his stars, this is his constellation. It becomes a thing; little star halos begin forming behind their heads, picking them out from the rest. He loves them so much, it's hard to place. Sam and Tucker are also his stars, but they reside in the living realm, they're his tie to Life. Meanwhile, his friends here know what it's like to be dead, and sometimes its nice to relate.

Those living on his island keep calling him "Great One" and he's beginning to notice zealotry in their care for his island. He really, deeply appreciates it. His close friends gain nicknames -- as his stars, it's only natural for him to pick them out from the cluster in the skies. Akihiko, his Sirius and bright star. Trix and Missy, Castor and Pollux, the twins and troublemakers. Ambroise, his zealous Antares and close friend. Penelopeia, chimeric and loyal Vega. And Akkara, his Arcturus and strength.

It's ridiculous how long it takes for him to notice; he is, of course, a deadly trained assassin. He is meant to be observant -- and normally he is! But somehow this becomes a blind spot. One that becomes too big to be dealt with by the time he realizes it.

He should've noticed when Aki, his Sirius, stood beside him one day while Danyal looked over his island and saw the sprawling spirits carrying on about their afterlife and bowing to him as they saw him, and said: "I looked down into the depths when I met you; I couldn't measure it." They aren't one for flowing prose, it took him so off guard he was silent for over a minute before he finally spoke.

Danyal should've recognized devotion for what it is, and yet he didn't. He should've recognized it when Antares began spouting praises about him, crowing about his radiance and resplendence to the heavens. He just brushed it off as Ambroise being Ambroise. He should've recognized it when Trix and Missy nearly broke Dash's leg after he knocked Danyal's books out of his hands, he excused it as them being protective. Of them coming from times where such violence may have been customary -- after all, that's what he used to be like. What he was still like, sometimes, when his emotions nearly got the better of him.

He should've noticed it when the people living on his island followed his word like gospel, looked at him like he hung the stars in the sky. When his friends gifted him a shawl with the moon phases delicately embroidered into it, with silver, shimmering thread and moving stars lovingly stitched into it. Their constellations seen clear as day in the dark fabric. When he found small shrines dedicated to him -- but they lacked any image of him beyond stones carved to look like moons, so he ignored it. When the religious imagery began popping up.

He really, really should've noticed it when a bunch of cultists accidentally summoned Antares, and Antares had turned to him when he arrived and called them heretics. But he was so centered on the fact that they had kidnapped one of his stars, that he hadn't paid much attention to what Ambroise had said.

Sages say that faith is blind, they should also say faith in you is even blinder.

It really only hits him one afternoon while he's sitting in Sam's room studying with Tucker, Missy and Trixie lounging at his feet, Aki sat on his right, Penelopeia braiding his hair, Ambroise draped against him, and Akkara lurking over him. Its one of the rare few times they're all in one room together.

It hits him like a bolt of lightning. He looks up from his textbook. "Oh Ancients," he says in no amounting shock. Everyone looks up to him.

"I've become my grandfather."

[hiding-under-the-willow]

anyways. What

[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.)

[aspennntree]

must be horrifying to wake up dead

[citrine-elephant]

the krauser/leon parallels thing. with krauser being what leon could have turned into if he turned into... hehee... his own resident evil-

anyways, so what if leon got injured in a similar way that drove krauser towards bad boy hours (i believe...? his arm injury...?)

taking leon's entire arm. yoink.

[galedekarios]

the plagiarist posting an "apology" to creators, including myself, who he has ripped for months on end despite us asking him not to while he still has us all blocked is... a choice

[greasydumbfuck]

guy having a very normal reaction to punisher max

[md-confessions]

Sometimes I wonder if Alice holds any sort of grudge against Yeva too since, from Alice’s perspective, she also left her and everyone else in that labs to die like Nori. Speaking of, how did Alice come to the conclusion that Nori just abandoned everyone instead of just assuming she was eaten by sentinels? Does camp 98.7 have security cameras Alice can access from the labs?

.

[stoleyourgender]

what if drumbot brian was magnetic. what if every mech's mechanism was magnetic. WHAT IF.

[caffeinatedopossum]

I feel like I'm going to throw up, there's something so wrong with me and with the world. It's not okay, how can anyone be okay

[mcybree]

did you know that scott hit jimmy more times in 3l than anybody else, including the person that literally killed him? scott hit jimmy 13 times (2 accidental), skizz killed jimmy with one shot. anyways i think i'm gonna bite drywall

REALLY FUNNY ASK.

[ratatatastic]

scare the hoes more and keep yapping about ekky (& others) getting used to maffhew, it delights me. and say even more about how sasha handles this feral and sweet omega that gets dropped into his orbit. smth smth “feels like i’ve known him 10 years” or whatever vows sasha recited to the press, cameras, and god

apparently we are taking more tumblr user ratatatastic abo yap thoughts for 500 may god hear our screams up wherever he is. big man in the sky you fuckin owe me one.

i think theres so much in particular to say in concerns of 1619 and how quickly they gelled irl but even more so in an abo au

ive always enjoyed when people assign matthew stronger scents that take getting used to if you don't like it already and i know ive read a fic where his scent notes did skew towards stronger cinnamon foods/drinks

anyways on that note it wouldnt surprise me that sasha takes so easy to this spicy little omega.

Like of course he does, he smells like the pastries he used to eat back at home, the pastries he eats now because he's found an established Finnish bakery down here that makes them homemade every morning, the bakery he likes to frequent with the other Finns when he can.

Is it ever a wonder that the cute omega that sent him such a terribly sweet text when the trade news broke out (you know, after the initial excitement worn off because Sasha does chuckle at memory of the brash "Fucking, right!" that pinged on his phone the very first time from an unknown number) smells like... home... No matter all the rumours that have swirled around Matthew, the rumours Sasha has personally experienced himself playing against him...he smells nostalgic. Like Sasha could be at home right now—you know, home home—lounging outside his cottage with tea and pastries on the little table that he's set out. The warm cinnamon that wafts from the typically sterile room they've assigned for pressers smells divine, for lack of a better word. It smells indulgent. Because Sasha can't have those homely pastries all the time, what, with his training regiment.

It's why he doesn't quite believe it that Matthew's the one that's the centre of it all. He's absolutely convinced he's hallucinating because the season is about to start and he's had to cut back on all his favourite sweets as much as it pains him to but for the betterment of the team? He'd do anything. And yet despite the way he rubs at his nose to at least try to clear it, he smells that cinnamon. That cinnamon that's definitely coming from new omega they traded over who's laughing so obnoxiously at the lectern they have set up that if his scent didn't catch your attention, his loud mannerisms certainly did. His voice is practically bouncing off the walls in big loud echoes that should hurt Sasha’s ears. Emphasis on should. As it is he finds his heart melting more than it should instead.

It's been quite a long time since someone's scent has moved him this much. All the people that have, have been in his life for so long he's forgotten what it's like to feel instant scent compatibility. His nostrils are flaring and he's trying his best not to open his mouth to huff in big gulps of it because it's rather impolite to be so obviously scenting the new guy. It could be misconstrued as Sasha taking offence to the new presence in the room.

Some part of his brain is still trying to catch up to the idea that Matthew even smells at all because the first time he met him (down here for some joint offseason ice-time) he didn't particularly smell like much, if at all really. Whether it's because he put on blockers to not intrude on pack territory until he smelled more like them, or he was still on suppressants even in the summer, Sasha wasn't sure and he definitely wasn't going to ask about it.

Known him for 10 years? He feels like he's known him his whole life. But 10's a safe number, 10's a number that won't scare off this new omega, right? 10's a number that conveys "As Captain I want this to work out, I'm opening up my pack for you, I won't shun you, you're welcome here," and not "If I stick my nose in your neck right now to scent you, they're gonna have to forcibly evict me from the new home I've found in you, and it's not gonna be a pretty outcome."

It's also why he's a little nervous when Media Day is over because despite how much it dragged along in years past it practically blitzed by and now Sasha has to—

You know, properly scent the new addition. Give them the purring acceptance of their Pack leader's scent to carry with them. And it's nothing big, it's just some chaste wrist rubbing... something subtle and not too overwhelming for everyone: the pack, and the newcomer alike. It's not like Sasha is going to mouth at Matthew's neck glands. He doesn't think he can even handle that right now but that's a problem for future Sasha—for when Matthew is really part of the pack and not like a goldfish in a plastic bag being dunked into an aquarium to get used to the water temperature. He just has to rub his wrist against his, it's like basic Alpha etiquette. It'll be fine, mostly. He hopes.

And it's as anticlimactic as he thought it'd be: gentle reintroductions and reignited chatter of excitement about the new season that's about to start... maybe just with the new lingering scent of sweet and spice in the background as if someone lit up a candle without Sasha even noticing it. It's a struggle to keep his eyes from closing from how heavy they feel, from how relaxed he feels in the presence of this new omega he knows has pissed him off on several occasions as composed as he was about it.

Matthew presents his wrist in a flourish successfully managing to divert his attention back to what they're supposed to be doing all alone like this in the dressing room like this, "I'm sure you've been dying to do this huh, Cap?"

Sweat starts to break out at the back of his neck. He knows? Sasha doesn't think he's been sending off any signals that could've hinted otherwise but Sasha admits that he's well out of practise, he hasn't had to reign in his scent this much in such a long time, and maybe Matthew picked up his weird fixation—

Matthew waggles his eyebrows for extra effect an offbeat later when the joke doesn't seem to land the way he wanted it to.

Oh, thank Christ, he's just teasing him. It's a joke. He doesn't actually mean it in the way Sasha thought he meant.

"Yes. Yes, I have," Sasha chuckles in relief, shaking his head at Matthew's attempt to lighten the mood.

"10 years, or so I've heard, bud."

"You heard? Uh, listened to the..." he trails off.

"Kinda hard not to when the setup made it sound like you were in the middle of the Earth, my guy. I don't think my ears are ever gonna recover from that."

"It's the first day for everyone," Sasha lightly chastises, not particularly aggrieved at all but wanting to keep up the banter to stall for time, so he can prepare himself. Quite honestly he feels like travelled back in time to the young anxious Alpha he was breaking out into the league for the first time.

"Be gentle, I bruise easily."

"Right, gentle. I'll treat you better than my clothes on the delicate cycle."

"Is that supposed to be a line?" Matthew says in glee, his voice pitching into incredulity.

"Line like fishing?"

"Oh, come on! You know what I'm talking about! You've been in this country long enough to pick up on that!"

"Yes, yes, that."

Matthew shoves at his shoulder playfully. "Just go on and do the thing already."

"Doing the thing."

Matthew snorts but his wrist is limp in Sasha’s hold. And as much as it was a dumb joke he does feel delicate between his fingers like that. So delicate that when he rubs his own wrist against his—to transfer over their pack scent—he feels like he's going to break it if he holds onto it for too long. It's why he drops it as quick as he took it, hands scrambling to his sides in an effort to remain polite but also to get a handle on himself so his pheromones don't go haywire with the new stimulus. It's a bit of a losing battle because he knows his scent just. But he can play it off as the excitement of an Alpha being able to claim another member to his pack, it's a possessive kind of thing.

"Well, see you around! Call it a hunch but I have a feeling we'll be seeing more of each other." And the joke wasn't funny the first time, truly the equivalent of leaning on the office fax machine and going "You come here often?" to your coworkers who just want to get their work done—and just as sleazy too with the greasy grin Matthew has permanently stuck to his face but Sasha still laughs like he did the first time he heard it.

And it's only now that Matthew is gone that Sasha realises the room smells strongly of cinnamon, so potent that anyone with a working nose would be able to tell that. Like Matthew was doing his best to ease Sasha’s obvious nerves when Sasha should've been the one to calm the omega who's been uprooted from their own pack and thrown into a completely new environment, himself.

"Jesus, it reeks in here. Smells like cinnamon," Aaron wrinkles his nose, wandering back in after his own media duties were done, finding Sasha all alone in the locker rooms.

"It does?" Like he can't tell the room smells like the equivalent of someone knocking over a Yankee Candle into an open fire.

"Yeah, like an awful lot." Aaron scrunching up his nose, trying to fight off an incoming sneeze. "It's strong," he says without thinking, swallows before his eyes shift over to Sasha and then to the floor, "Not bad just... strong..." The I can get used to it is left unspoken between them.

"I like it," Sasha admits because if Aaron is confessing to things without thinking then he might as well too. They've known each other long enough.

"I can tell." Aaron snorts, "You reek too."

Sasha lets out a questioning little noise, tilts his head to the side as he silently urges Aaron to continue.

"You have no idea what cinnamon and cardamom smell like together, do you? I feel like I walked into a bakery when I should be at the gym right now."

"Is that bad?"

"For you? No, of course not," Aaron's eyes soften, and while his scent wasn't anywhere close to abrasive, it does lighten up just a tad bit in the presence of his pack Alpha. "For me? I'd rather dunk my head in a bucket of coffee beans." A bit of an exaggeration on Aaron's part but the wry grin he has on really adds to the fact he's just joking—just a little, maybe there's some truth hidden in there. He knows how Aaron is, the way he tries to downplay anytime he bristles about something. Peace and vibes, and all that.

So Sasha can joke as well, "Forsy's stall is over there," and motions his head towards it across the room.

"Oh, hilarious."

"If I was funny I would say jock."

"You know, what? I think I will hit the gym today, thanks for reminding me."

"Mmm, anytime." And when Aaron's half out the door he adds, "Ask the staff where they put the jerseys we used today!"

"I'm going! To the gym!" he echoes back, not bothering to turn around as he shuffles down the hall in a hurry, and decidedly not going in the direction of the gym. It's not surprising when he hears chatter pick up and shoes scuffing briskly into the direction of the laundry rooms.