y’all KNOW i go hard for those evil!aus but tbh…… caleb and fjord’s relationship has and always will be a relationship built on mutual respect and curiosity. they’re both 100% aware of and acknowledge that they’ve both got some shady stuff to work out on their own respective times and while they both want to know more they’re both playing their cards close to their chest.
i talked about what caleb gained out of their most recent interaction but that exchange of information was two-ways: now fjord has more understanding of caleb as a person as well. caleb asked him for a favor. what is that favor? when will it come? what is caleb trying to do with it? with him? he has no clue, but it’s a callback to one of the first things caleb said back when they were just starting to get to know each other in the early episodes: caleb is a man who likes to take calculated risks. in this, fjord is caleb’s calculated risk. what the potential reward is fjord has no idea. but fjord is recently familiar with the concept of taking risks for questionable and powerful rewards, and fjord’s curious to see how this risk of his pans out.
they’re both on the level with each other. they’ve got an understanding. they know that any time they want to poke and prod at powers beyond their knowledge to gain that knowledge, they’ve got a partner in crime. they’ve got someone who’s willing to pause at the edge of the abyss and peer into it together.
doesn’t mean that they’re going to jump into the abyss, of course. just that they’ve got someone else willing to test the waters and tempt disaster just to see what would happen.
the most fascinating part of today’s episode was the fact that caleb absolutely left EVERYTHING they did 100% up to fjord
all he said was “i’m always curious” when prompted by fjord, and that’s an extremely noncommittal answer. yes, he’s interested, but interest does not exactly equate to action, and note how caleb does not make a single move to spill blood until he has the go-ahead from fjord
every single step of the ritual they almost completed was spaced out in between with caleb stopping, turning to fjord, and asking “what do YOU want to do?”
i find that absolutely fascinating, because even though fjord made all his choices 100% of his own free will, caleb was still 100% manipulating him at the same time
i don’t mean that in the way that liam was manipulating travis ofc i mean this in the context of the story; caleb went into that whole scene with an end goal: he wanted fjord to agree to help him with a task later on if he, caleb, right then, risked his life to indulge in fjord’s curiosity
caleb is ALWAYS curious. this is obvious to anyone who’s seen his character in the show for ten minutes, but he’s also, by consequence, learned to temper that curiosity with practicality. he’s always weighing the risks and the rewards and anytime he does anything that could place him or the team in harm it’s ONLY because he thinks that whatever he might gain by doing so tips the scales in favor of profit and not loss. the scene by the ritual table was him asking fjord that very same question: how far are you willing to go in your quest for knowledge? where does your priority lie? in risking it all, or in choosing to forego that all and remain as you are, with the tempting promise of new knowledge just out of reach?
and caleb got two things out of that bargain: he got a favor from fjord, and he also got a deeper understanding of fjord’s motives. fjord is new to power, and deeply curious about it, he’s got a hunger for understanding that caleb finds mirrored in himself, but fjord is also at his core a good person. he’s got morals that guide him far more strongly than any eldritch being ever could. and now caleb knows that fjord can be pushed to explore things far outside his comfort zone, to spill blood in the name of discovery, but fjord won’t (or won’t right now) take that final step to true power if it means risking the lives of those under his protection. and caleb is smart. he’s spent his whole childhood training under someone who molded him into the type of person who can pull at people’s strings and push their buttons to make them do what they want, and caleb knows that a good man’s promise is a more tempting reward that any risky blood ritual could ever deter him from.
GOD I LOVE THIS DYNAMIC. it’s just so ENDLESSLY fascinating to me.
I forgot in all my screaming about pleading the fifth, how much I adored Travis’ answer to why he had Fjord be in his early 30s T-T. As someone closing in on 30 very rapidly, I feel like it’s so important to tell stories about how you can discover and rediscover yourself at any age, that the thing you’re meant to do, or the thing you’re going to be really good at might not appear to you as a teen or early 20s. And there just aren’t a lot of stories like that out there which are also fantasy/adventure based.
It’s just… great to see. As someone who reached 21 and hadn’t found their niche and was like ‘guess my life is over and i’ll be mediocre forever’ and now as someone who found the thing I want to do at 28 and am just getting off the ground. It means a lot, and it will mean a lot to loads of people, having a character like Fjord to watch as he is finding who he is and what he is meant to do a little later in life than we’re generally programmed to think we should.
I rib on him a lot, but I adore him and Travis plays him so wonderfully and with such nuance. I’m so glad we have him.
i think about how fjord’s only other reference to having had sex was with someone who ‘wasn’t special’ to him
i think about how he’s been so terrified and bad with heavy flirting and sexual situations and not knowing how to deal with them
i think about how this thing with avantika is a mas he’s putting on like he’s always put on his entire life. a mask of ‘i am not a threat’ a mask of ‘i am not here to make a fuss’ a mask of ‘i am orphan with no family and no other form of defense except to make you believe that i am not someone you should bother taking advantage of.’
i think about how not only is he trying to learn more about what’s happened to him but he is also now the only thing keeping avantika from throwing his friends off the boat because without him they are nothing but dead weight she cannot trust.
so he sleeps with her. to get where he wants to be. to make sure relations stay easy breezy. and because she’s attractive and wants him and okay she’s also ten different shades of fuckin’ weird but it’s all a lot and it’s a lot and his wisdom is so low.
and i think about all of that and i just progressively feel worse and worse for him in this bizarre leadership/dubcon position he has landed himself in.
i worry about his past and i worry about his present and i worry about his future.
When Fjord gets frustrated with the rest of the group he turns to ask Molly to back him up only to remember as the name is falling out of his mouth that Molly is dead.
How often does Fjord accidentally call Caduceus Molly? How hard does the loss of his roommate affect him? When they go to sleep at night does Fjord say “Goodnight Molly” to Caduceus? TO WHAT EXTENT DOES THIS AFFECT CAPTAIN FJORD TUSKTOOTH?
The cool part, and by cool I of course mean deeply upsetting, about Fjord calling Caduceus by Molly’s name is that it absolutely tracks for Fjord and Molly’s relationship.
For all the ridiculous shenanigans Molly got up to, there were points where the group was too bugfuck ridiculous even for him, and those were usually points when they’d be too bugfuck ridiculous even for Fjord.
Trying to talk Jester and Nott out of Fluffernutter probably took him right back to standing with Molly watching everyone else trying to steal the dodecahedron for no apparent reason.
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