#this hurts so good;;;;; augh;;;;;!

[a-mason]

An old, yellowed letter worn around the edges lay on the small thing Mason was calling a bed in the secret basement of the Rook. The paper was neatly folded, but wrinkled as if crumpled, but saved, for whatever reason.

A messy “Mason” was scribbled on the front in what was clearly Wood’s handwriting, but not as confident as it was now, as if written a while ago.

It read as follows in faded ink,

“Dear Mason,

too formal.

Hope you’re having a good day Alex,

feels stale and we haven’t gone by first names in years?? the fuck are you doing get it together frank

Hi Mason,

oh fuck it

Hey you big bastard,

I think I’m in love with you

I want to kiss you but just a little bit not like anything super gay or anything hahaha you know

fuck i suck ass at this

I’ve got shit to say to you. Actually important shit, not just stupid jokes and stuff like usual. You’ve heard the rumors of what’s going on in Vietnam, the whole civil war deal, communism spreading everywhere and all that. Shit’s going down, and we might actually get shipped off or something according to the news.

Don’t know about yours, but my pop’s pissed. Says it’s bullshit to send young men off just to die in a war we don’t have any real reason to get into. But that’s besides the point.

Just in case we do go to Vietnam or whatever, and one of us gets injured or anything, I just wanted to tell you that. I

fuuuuuuck

We’re just really close, and I just like you. Not like a brother. Not that I wouldn’t want us to be close like brothers but like not fucking incesty, just close in a different kinda way, you get me?

why would he get it you’re just rambling?? jesus christ

Look, ever since training and our letters, I just can’t really get your dumb ass off my mind, and I guess I’m just trying to say that I think I’m fucking in love with you and I don’t know how it would work since both our dads would strangle us and the army would kick us out but you can just ignore this and pretend I never said anything or just stop talking to me because I would get it but I just really really really like you for some reason and your stupid jokes and that nasty gel shit you put in your hair everyday and the dumbass way you always held your gun weird or would punch me if I said something a little too funny about you and I just

scrap this. you sound like a goddamn mess

- Woods”

Below the main writing of the letter, there were added notes, clearly from much more present, with Woods’ current sloppy but better handwriting present. The only question was how he’d gotten the letter down here. The paper was stained with a bit of ink from some kind of liquid that must’ve hit the paper, leaving it a bit crinkly in certain spots.

The new addition read,

“Hey asshole,

Surprised I still had this thing, practically had to dig this shit outta the bottom of my bag I found buried in my locker at my old work. Thought I’d burned all the letters I’d written like this, guess not.

Younger me was a fucking mess, but it’s not like I’m much better. At least I have the ability to say I know that I love you, even if sometimes it still scares me.

I don’t think you know how much you really mean to me, you idiot. You were always there for me, hell, you protected me even after I fucking attacked you over just a misunderstanding, and didn’t even complain about it. You carried me through snow and cold just to keep me alive when I should’ve died because of my own stupid fucking mind torturing me into making bad decisions.

I’m glad I get to have you in this world, that I get the chance to learn from my mistakes, and grow even when I’m already grown as hell. I’ve already learned I have a long damn way to go, but I’m glad I get to spend the rest of it with you at my side. Even if it’s not all the retirement we’d been hoping for.

You’re fucking great. You’re selfless, brave, smartest fucker i know, not too bad looking, and not to mention the alleged 8 incher (No, I didn’t forget about that).

So yeah. Might’ve taken me 3 decades to finally get this sent to you. Hope you can forgive an old man?

With love, @ask-woods “

pen and ink were old friends of m████, folded letters a genuine safe space. he didn't realize the old envelope was there on his flattened mattress until much later in the night - well after everyone had supposedly gone to sleep and he was tired himself.

m████ smoothed a thumb over the wrinkles, tracing over the faded letters of his name. he turned it over in his hands, the thought of opening something so obviously aged hurt. though he knew it was from woods (it had to be from him - from the chicken scratch script and the crooked return address, it just screamed him) he couldn't help but brace himself for a scathing letter from his father.

he pushed up the lip of the envelope, gently fishing out the yellowed looseleaf, and sat himself up on the mattress.

scribbled out confessions, bitterness at himself, preserved on the page a younger woods wrestled with himself and lost; the risks and the shame too much for him then. m████ stung with the memories many coded love letters had he never sent himself.

the low drone and trill of old machinery and computers filled in the silence. he was loved. the confirmation seeped into him and etched itself in his bones. he was loved, from polaroids and tidy cursive to the battlefield and beyond the grave. and knowing that truly hurt. he'd strangle his younger self for his cowardice if he could. and smack the younger woods upside the head for his cruelty to himself. but time marched forwards, and he and woods were old.

the postscript bled tenderness and understanding. woods' appreciation was felt, a slow stake to the heart. m████ chuckled at the complements (and flushed red at the mention of his size. of course frank would remember something like that.) asking for forgiveness was unnecessary when one was already forgiven.

m████ pushed himself up onto his feet. surely there was a notepad around here somewhere. woods is a clever man - and the rush in his chest was far too strong for his response to be straightforward.

[sticks-stones-sonic-insanity]

Something something Robotnik spent so much of his life having to make joy for himself on his own that he didn't realise Stone was important to him until Gerald tried to kill him and shattered his pre-concieved notions of what love was.

Being an orphan had a part in how he perceived the idea of love. He never had any friends, no romantic partners, because to him, there was no expectation that someone would inherently love him just for the sake of it. He was 'undesirable'. So, he entertained himself with his creations, and with his own personality.

He latched onto the chance to connect with his grandfather in Sonic 3 because to him, that relationship is where he expected to find someone who loved him on the basis that they were family.

Stone brought him happiness in ways so simple...

so unique...

so realistic...

that it wasn't until he was about to die that Robotnik clocked it as genuine care and affection. Something that Gerald never felt for him, and only Stone had ever given him.

So safe to say they make me insane actually

[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.)

[sammygender]

its so so insane how dean has like. the huge fanbase he does. he is AWFUL!!!! i love him truly but im known for loving awful characters in fandoms im used to characters who act like him being viciously hated!!! and the only explanation i can think of is that hes played by jensen ackles (aka pretty white man). theres the fact that the narrative favours dean a lot when hes not actually right (a la s4) but thats not just it because dean is pretty clear-cut presesnted as getting morally greyer to the point of antihero territory in like s9 (where im at) at least. and Yet. he is unproblematic ally king to all??? supportive brother of the century??? Girl what???? do you know who dean winchester is? he is a controlling possessive clingy manipulative aggressive unstable thirty five year old who cant grow past his own damage and never really will because the narrative is perpetuated by the cycles he keeps perpetuating

[waltzing-rats]

Ok so for the past months my brain has been screaming nothing but Demon Slayer so i scrounged up this poster of basically an ‘Everybody lives and theyre all happy’ au. Redesigning them was honestly such a pain but still fun 😭

[mymarifae]

hsr's a great game it's like "hey here's this guy who's a cyborg cowboy of all things isn't that fun. look at how wild and flamboyant and entertaining he is! an automatic censor was installed into his universal translator when he got his rockin robot bod so he can't swear anymore and this is especially funny in the cn and jp text of the game because his swears are replaced with things like sweetie, baby, and cutie."

"also his entire homeland was wiped out by the intergalactic capitalistic monolith that's been cruelly siphoning valuable resources from countless planets with little to absolutely no regard for the residents. they spared nothing once their boss gave them the go ahead to use military force. not even his baby daughter, who had just barely learned how to walk."

"he never got the chance to erect a grave for her. or the other loved ones he lost."

[iwritenarrativesandstuff]

I really hope that the second season of dead boy detectives allows Charles to properly unpack some of the baggage from his life because god he has a lot to process and work through without either being viscerally reminded of his trauma or putting himself in peril for the people he loves every fucking episode

[solargeist]

the Canaries remind me of the Watchers

the teleportation magic also reminds me of portal magic

bonus kabru's experience being raised by an elf being like evo grian's experience

[yanderespamton78]

The Guy

ough sorry for low quality image and pooey colours GOD my drawing tablet it brighter DAMN so we are going to pretend the colours are bright

based off of this

also @voidshrubsquared i most definitely would have forgotten to make this if you didnt reblog my post so here

[surreal-duck]

i love transgenderism im so glad girls are real

[giddlygoat]

good news everyone…. i have a bed frame now 🫶

i still need to decorate the walls and do some more organizing, but !!!! this is my favorite bed frame out of my grandpa’s house, and i’m so happy to have it!

[soundsofastar]

rant ab the tech industry in the tags read if u want

[silent-sentinels]

i need everyone to understand that i am trying my best and i hate every second of it.

[starpros-sunshine]

also the range <33333

[mbat]

yknow what im sick of the words good person and bad person its a very annoying way to categorize things actually

[skunkes]

guess who was not in the right emotional state to finish watching lars and the real girl