#this episode is going to hurt

[luimagines]

*AHEM* Hello! It is I! Royal 👑 Anon, I have heard you need creative juices! Well my peon and friend, do I have a story for you!

[What would happen if Time only stayed at Malon's house. And his real home is the castle, where Zelda rules in his absence. He is king in title, not in marriage.]

"So... This is where you live?!" (Y/N) screams in shock, watching as servants scatter about and take their belongings. Time chuckles at his companions, watching with a patient smile at Queen Zelda coming to greet them. She bows and greets the group.

"I must say, you are strong group indeed. Especially if Link is the one managing you all." The queen jokes lightly, a white long glove covering her giggles.

(Y/N) stared at Time's Zelda with hints of envy. She wore a beautiful gown and lovely gold crown sitting atop her clean braided hair. (Y/N) on the other hand felt disgusting in the woman's presence. She wasn't, ashamed, per-say... Just, out of place. When was the last time the group had actually showered?

Hell,, when was the last time she got her hair nice and done?

The queen scans over the group as her eyes land on (Y/N). Zelda shoots a look at Time, a hopeful look overcoming her features. "So, your highness..." Zelda drawls out the word to make sure to catch the attention of the king.

"In your letters, I've heard of all the tales of the group. They were very.. Intriguing." She states smugly, her heels gliding gracefully to (Y/N)'s side. "Well, my king. I'm sure you and your group need to rest before the feast tonight. I shall take this one for myself for the evening."

Zelda smiles innocently, her hands gently gripping (Y/N) sides. Time shoots Zelda a look that made the whole group shake to the core. Yet the female ruler smiles ruefully, leading a star struck (Y/N) away from the males.

Time was about to go after them, yet Sailor stopped right in front of him. Demanding answers like the curious child he was.

(Y/N) found herself in queen Zelda's room after the bath she had. Servants had gathered materials for things (Y/N) couldn't understand. Before the servants could do more, Zelda had asked them to leave.

Grabbing a brush, the queen did her best to untangle her (h/c). But the brush broke after a few strokes. (Y/N) laughs it off as Zelda apologized worriedly.

"(Y/N), I have heard of you. From are king, or.. Whom you call, "Time," he mentioned you many times in his letters." Zelda giggles, patting down the flowy skirt of (Y/N)'s dress she had been given to wear. "Really? Huh. Does he complain?"

"No, not at all. He speaks fondly of all your group. I bet he would name one the Linka as his successor as king if he could."

"But... Wouldn't that be twilight? Or is this a different time or Time?" (Y/N) ponders aloud. Zelda shook her head, shrugging off your response.

"But, I digress. You'll be the next queen I presume from how he writes of you."

"What..?"

"Oh, are you not comfortable as taking the title. Because it's-"

"NO! It's just- that is.. A lot to take in."

Zelda smiled, patting her hand in a kind manner. "There is still time to figure things out. The King- I mean, Time. He'll understand. Honestly, I bet he'd do anything for you. Might even wage a war to keep you safe."

Zelda laughs, while you smile at the thought. He'd go through all that for you. That's a bit much, though, it showed he cares.

Soon, the queen picked up a crown bigger than her own, a small veil attached at the end.

"I bet Link is dying to see you. He probably thinks I've kept you all to myself, hah, silly fool."

"My queen, the king is outside the door. It's time for the banquet!" A servant knocked, as Zelda leads you out. Finding yourself standing in front of Time in the doorway. Looking as regal as a king should be. His armor nowhere in sight as his hair was slicked in a way to show off his scar on his eye.

Time bows like a gentleman, regarding Zelda and you as he holds out his arm to you.

Do you accept the hand of the The King Time?

[Ohoho!! I hope this piece helps everyone's creativity juices!]

....My heart... help... completely shot through...

I'm in a state. I love him.

I'd love to have a dance with King Time at least... Just once...

[egophiliac]

What do you think of Rook's savanaclaw card? <333

I didn't get him (and I need to save my keys for Silver's birthday, sob) so I looked up his groovy, and I'm not over how incredibly dramatic and epic and cool it looks in direct contrast to the absolutely ridiculous context. just look at that dynamic action and his majestic sparkling tears and keep in mind that this is pretty much right after a bunch of characters have been dance battling for his soul.

and then even the actual moment of the groovy is just like

this is NOT a negative in the slightest, I love it all, this truly was an incredible update in so many ways

[lilnasxvevo]

I love you Monkey D. Luffy I love you protecting the power of friendship through the power of incredible violence

[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.)

[lesbiradshaw]

lovers’ quarrel <3

[favlie]

I'm rewatchig atla again and, as expected, i'm full of zutara feelings. Forever hopeful that this time they will be canon. ♥ -- Please do not repost/use without asking first! ♥

[phobiacoms]

I just... love them a lot.

[chaosgenasi]

Please describe to me how you regain yourself. How do you wanna subdue this?

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Truth and revenge is best served cold.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[bmblboop]

Me: It's okay, I expected grieving. Everything sucks and it's chaotic and we are just setting up the pieces for a grand return. My heart feels things but surely I can wait until the end of-

Ren: How did you do it, Jaune?

Me: FUUUUUCK

[ewwww-what]

Abernant sister reunion, out like lights :(

flat color under the cut

[bisexualfbiagents]

You of all people should realize that sometimes motivations for behavior can be more complex and mysterious than tracing them back to one single childhood experience.

THE X FILES GIF MEME [2/9] SCENES from Oubliette (3.08)

[egophiliac]

well, I can't say I expected the new chapter to feature Idia (metaphorically) going to (metaphorical) hell, getting a pep talk from his (metaphorical) Phantom brother which helps him finally move on once and for all from his brother's death, and (metaphorically) overblotting again to fight his way back out of (metaphorical) hell, only to have his darkest fear (non-metaphorically) come true when his mom goes through his computer and finds all his secret files. but I am glad it did!

also this is all a flashback for the purpose of explaining to our group what the heck is going on (whether or not any of it is getting through is another matter)

[little-pondhead]

Overwhelming Urges

—

Technus curses Danny after he spends a little too long in Soup Jail.

Until Danny can break the curse, every piece of technology he touches will react badly-come to life, try to eat him, send his embarrassing Facebook photos to all his coworkers, delete his high score on Doomed, etc. He’s miserable.

And because he uses technology quite often to help him with his rogues, Danny has had to do things the old fashioned way by physically manhandling all the ghosts that come through the portal. It’s been putting a damper on everyone’s moods, but Technus refuses to release the curse.

(At least he can turn intangible, so the buildings he visits don’t try to burn him alive. Technically, he’s not touching anything!)

Danny’s coworkers eventually get involved when Victor Stone, AKA Cyborg, locks eyes with him at a Justice League meeting and immediately tries to shoot him.

[t-u-i-t-c]

ROBIN FURUYA as Takashi Iwanaga Love is Better the Second Time Around (2024) │01x05

[shima-draws]

My brain: Haha yeah I dunno if I’ll ever get into One Piece I mean it’s so long and such a huge dedication timewise—

Me, already 13 episodes in: Um. Well,