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secret-engima · 2 days
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I have tea and a soap box let's spill something shall we (Wakfu Rant)
*sips tea*
I've been in this fandom for like. A month? more? Depends on how long it took me to work through the show. I've not actually interacted with the *fandom* at all, just the canon stuff and my own spiralling insanity. But while I'm here I might as well make enemies /s. Therefore:
Oropo is a much more compelling character deserving of redemption than Qilby. Qilby:
Had a loving literal goddess mom and a bunch of loving siblings.
A beautiful planet and thriving culture he could go anywhere and do anything on
The capability of going into space without any technological aids once he got bored of the Eliatrope world and started to suffer the effects of his eidietic memory thing. We know for a fact that Eliatropes and their dragon sibs literally don't need so much as a helmet to vibe in space, they could have gone out there any time, explored the cosmos a bit, found cool things as souvenirs and brought them back to show off to his siblings.
While this is very clumsily and blatantly retconned in s4, in s2 Qilby is very open and blatant about the fact he willingly picked a fight with Orgonax with the INTENTION of forcing his entire people to flee their world into space just so he would have more company than Shinonome. An entire world and no doubt thousands of Eliatropes and who knows what pieces of their history and culture were lost because this man, and I remind you again that s2 Qilby taunts Yugo with this fact no matter how s4 woobified him, wanted to FORCE his people to join him in space rather than just let manning the fuck up and going out there with his sister on a buddy roadtrip.
Seems very convinced that some or all of his specimens in his lab are the last of their kinds, which at best means he intentionally targeted dying species on alien worlds to capture and put into jars for literal eternity which is all kinds of animal cruelty (assuming some of them aren't sentient!!) and at worst means he is the reason they are the last of their kind because Qilby wanted his souvenir to be Unique.
when his people finally found a new world to settle on and be happy and try to reclaim their culture, he instigated a SECOND GENOCIDE, this one taking out not only their home world but literally every. living. adult Eliatrope (and dragon considering the propensity for dragons to have Eliatrope twins as stated in s1). Literally thousands if not millions of people are dead, thousands of children are orphaned and left trapped in a realm where they cannot *grow up*, the vast majority of his own siblings are dead and oh look at that. He's stuck in sensory deprivation hell. Man. If only there was some course of action he could have taken that would not have led to him fighting his own siblings, losing his arm, and getting stuck in the white void of horribleness. Man this truly is a tragedy of fate. Definitely no way he could have gone back into space without the Zinit. Definitely could not have just hopped on Shinonome's back with a packed lunch and gone out there on his own knowing he would have a loving family to come back to whenever he got lonely. Man.
upon breaking out of the White Void Of Horrible he is even more mentally unstable (and yes I know he's mentally ill during the above events, that does not excuse his actions when he is aware enough of them to gloat about them to yugo later) and immediately decides that he's going to kill this entire world in order to leave and he's going to take his siblings and the few surviving eliatrope kids with him by force.
has ANYONE other than me noticed the incredibly dark and horrific implications of him apparently planning to kill Phaerys and Yugo (and Adamai likely). Yugo says he couldn't go through with it and I'll believe that, but the fact he apparently consciously PLANNED it. Am I the only one who saw that scene and went "if he kills them, then they go back to the dofus and hatch without any memories, which means he will be able to RAISE AND GROOM THEM in the Zinit to believe that whatever Qilby says is right and do whatever he wants, like galavant in space for eternity".
S4 can retcon as much as it likes to make the Orgonax thing an accident and Qilby a mama's boy (which I freely admit was funny and I would have enjoyed in any other villain), but going off s2 and moving into s3 I REALLY cannot see why people like him more and hate Oropo.
And even if we DO count s4's retcon that made the first incident an accident the SECOND WAS STILL DAMN WELL INTENTIONAL. And Qilby is still responsible for the death of thousands twiceover on top of the death of an entire culture. All of Eliatrope history, culture, science, medicine, *music*, *STORIES*, it's all gone save for whatever the Emrub kids happen to remember (and the kids will not remember it accurately because they are children). All their architecture is destroyed, all their native cuisine is GONE and so are the ingredients to make them. All because Qilby wanted to force them into space WHEN THEY DID NOT WANT TO GO and HE COULD HAVE GONE ON HIS OWN AT ANY POINT WITH SHINONOME.
Speaking of Oropo! Let's look at what we know about him for comparison!
Was created by accident and is intimately aware of it.
was thrown back in time and lived most if not all of his life perpetually terrified of changing history or accidentally erasing himself and his siblings
Not only saw all of his siblings die off over the years but had their energy absorb into him in something that is no doubt extremely traumatizing to undergo. if any of you have watched the Oropo-centric ova, man for a mastermind manipulator he sure do look like he wanna cry and throw up and curl in a little ball when two of his siblings die in front of him and he is forced to assimilate their life energy.
"Supposedly" staged several key villain creation events which I personally press x to doubt because it's so clunky when mixed in with s1 and s2 lore BUT if we graciously assume that he did then gee. can't possibly be a factor of the third bullet point and his terror of erasing the timeline with his own existence can it? Can't possibly be Oropo falling into Every Heroic Time Travel Trope Ever where the hero ensures a certain event happens in order to maintain the timeline in key points hm? Even if it's a bad idea?
Has been successfully and lovingly married? partnered? mated? to a badass half-dragon wife for literal centuries and every time they are on screen together before the Dramatic Amalia Bullshit they are loving and balanced and give off so many Old Married Vibes and then THEY RESUME that dynamic for the few seconds on screen they have before they both die.
Adopts and raises hundreds of orphaned demigods who apparently were more than happy to live in the Tower and follow him throughout their lives, and in fact show no sign of abuse or manipulation in their behavior until the finale when Anakam decides it's time for everyone to think Oropo is horrible
is actively DYING when we meet him and not just dying but faced with the prospect that there is no happy ending for him. He will never see his loved ones in the afterlife, he will never know peace, he will be assimilated by his creator Yugo and at *best* be essentially digested into raw wakfu and at *worst* be a ghost stuck in the head of a man he has extremely complicated and negative feelings about for the above time travel and sibling trauma.
Adamai EXPLICITLY MENTIONS THAT OROPO IN S3 IS ACTING OUT OF CHARACTER when he goes into his more Blatant Villain Moments. Which sure, could be "the mask" falling to reveal someone "oooo evil" but isn't it far more likely he's acting out of character because he's dying and having a crisis about it.
canonically hates violence, but was so desperate to ensure his loved ones would have a better world he was willing to resort to turning himself into a suicide bomber to "create a better world". Was this a good idea? no. but ppl apparently love to point out how Qilby is mentally unstable to justify his behavior soooooo like. Why is that excuse not applicable to the guy who's literally spent his entire life being uncertain he's even real and has a right to exist but is real enough to DIE and never see the people he loves again and therefor go off the rails in his attempts to make something better for them?
in s4, the same season that makes Qilby sympathetic so if you count that as canon then by gods you better count the Oropo moments as canon, Oropo gives Yugo a reprieve from the literal life sucking torture he's in, helps him get a new outfit, and lets Bouillon play fight him (because again, Oropo hates Doing Violence) to keep him distracted and SANE while his body is being horribly tortured. In the end Yugo even confirms they are real and a part of him which is literally all Oropo wanted in his dying speech if you rewatch the finale and boil down his fury to its bullet points (he is a clone without a future and literally says stuff along the lines of just wanting to be REAL and wanting Yugo to ACKNOWLEDGE him).
For a supposed mastermind villain who wanted Yugo dead Yugo sure does seem Super Duper Alive in the months/two years/whatever timeline Ankama is using this hot second since he created the clones and was therefore *no longer necessary* for Oropo to keep alive.
At the end of the day Qilby actively chose HIMSELF over the wellbeing of others and got multiple siblings killed as well as two worlds and an entire civilization/culture wiped out. OROPO set himself on a path of similar destruction and then ACTIVELY TURNED BACK because he was faced with the choice of his ambitions or HIS LOVED ONES and he PRIORITIZED THEIR LIVES OVER HIS OWN AND HIS OWN GOALS where as Qilby not only did not do that, he didn't do it TWICE. TWICE. Oropo's death count is miniscule and he chose to sacrifice himself rather than lose the people he was doing this for and Echo knew he would make that choice, which means she also knew his love of them was genuine. You cannot compare that to Qilby and tell me Qilby is in any way better.
Okay rant over I'm going back to planning my wakfu canon rewrite and my various Echo/Oropo oneshots thank you and good day.
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secret-engima · 2 days
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So.
Wakfu amiright?
Guess
Where
I've been lol
(gentle reminder all my ao3 links are locked to ao3 users only)
Also patreon! I am still updating my patreon :D!
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secret-engima · 2 days
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Hey, are you ok? I haven’t seen you post in a while so I’m a bit worried.
Sorry for the delay and any worry I caused! I'm doing okay. Just taking a break from Tumblr in some respects and busy with other rl projects in others :). I recently took up jewelry making as a hobby and it's been fun, but time consuming, so that's partly where I've been.
Also been scrambling to make sure I have a backlog of stories for my Patreon. Not that I need to scramble, I *have* several months' worth. But I fret so I want it to be a bigger backlog just in case.
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secret-engima · 2 days
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Me when I go through all of the AMOSC posts and almost sob at 1:12 am.
Anywhomst! I have a questionay :3
If/When AMOSC continues towards the earth ark, will we get to see any reference of the Rescue Team on Griffin Rock? Since it’s confirmed that TFP and RB are in the same timeline.
When AMOSC eventually crawls out of the burnout hole and we get to earth, I would honestly love to do a reference to the Rescue Team. Not sure how it fits in the notes, but if I can swing it that would be very cute imo.
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secret-engima · 2 days
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Soooo, I've been trawling the internet for good transformers' fics to read (well, listen to really txt to speech has ruined me) at work and across your AMOSC verse, and I really loved it! I know it's been a couple of years and more than a few projects ago, but any plans for the story left? Either way, I just wanted to say thanks for writing it ^_^
There are some plans! As I've stated in other places, I got *severe* burnout on AMOSC and I'm still trying to figure out where to pick up the pieces from that. The lack of new official TF content I actually enjoy hasn't helped, but I do not consider it abandoned :).
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secret-engima · 2 days
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Hey. Wanted to check in and see if you were okay. Noticed you haven't posted in a while.
If things in IRL are rough, I have a Thrown to Wolves question to distract you with. If you want.
What would happen if Regis got hurt - like, on death's door hurt but Regis managed to kill the person who did it before they could hurt anybody else - ? How would Wolves crew react?
I hope everything's going okay and you're just taking a break from social media. If not, I hope my question was a sufficient distraction.
Sending well wishes!💕
Hi! Yeah I'm okay. I'm just doing a social media break because of rl/writing/getting dragged into new fandoms/tumblr being a pain to navigate these days for me :). But that's sweet of you to ask.
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secret-engima · 3 months
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Thank you Benny
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secret-engima · 3 months
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I miss them. c':
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secret-engima · 3 months
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Love thissssssss!!
You might not need another au but do you want it?
Think of how much fun it would be, Sola and Ardyn snarking at each other in the middle of the throne room and before the entire court.
The resemblance is uncanny.
You can track which of the nobles noticed it by how much they pale, their polite masks turning a little bit tense.
You. Are an enabling gremlin.
Plopping this in the Combined Retinue Nox/Sola au, because this is what my brain finally decided to spit out at 2 in the morning.
@secret-engima have an early Christmas present, I guess?
.
“If I have to dress up, Uncle,” his niece tells him fiercely, “then so do you.”
Ardyn raises a brow from the bench he’s languidly lounging on, watching his Tailor circle Sola with sharp eyes as she tugs on the black fabric of the dress she’s wrangled Sola into wearing for her upcoming Coming of Age, unfazed by the equally black scowl on the princess’ face.
Beside him, Nox is firmly pretending to nap on his Shield’s shoulder. Axis has his gaze glued to the book in his hand.
It seems he’ll have no allies from that quarter.
Admittedly, Ardyn had perhaps been enjoying Sola’s irritation too much, and hadn’t bothered to smother his growing amusement with every dark mutter Sola had made about protocol and where the court could shove said protocol.
He gives Sola an indulgent smirk. “I highly doubt I’m on the guest list, my dear. Given the current state of international politics.”
Not that he’d let the lack of an invitation stop him from attending his niece and nephew’s birthday party.
From the glare Sola levels at the mirror, and the minute stiffening of Nox’s spine, Ardyn has the feeling his niblings will ensure he is invited, regardless of anyone else’s feelings on the matter.
Nox’s eyes actually open a sliver when Sola’s magic abruptly curls, all mischievous glee with an edge of bared teeth. His nephew warily eyes his twin and the grin growing on her face.
Ardyn does not share Nox’s apprehension. He rather thinks his niece should smile like that more often.
“A suit for your Uncle, then?” Penelopeia asks archly.
“If you would be so kind.” Sola replies before Ardyn can protest. Sola’s blue eyes narrow on him through the mirror. “Black for the shirt, instead of the suit, I think. Gold as an accent color, but otherwise I have full faith in your judgment.”
To Penelopeia’s credit, his Tailor pauses for but a moment. “Of course, Your Highness.”
Ardyn gives Sola a long look. His niece knows very well protocol prohibits him from wearing black. He is neither a (known) member of the royal family nor in sworn service to them. Sola cares little for protocol and tradition, especially when it gets in her way, but even she can’t get away with flouting such an old and respected tradition. Not like this. “Niece.” He warns.
Sola raises her chin, defiant. “Do you trust me?”
Ardyn sighs. Smiles reassuringly at the fierce girl who’s been Nox and Ardyn’s staunchest supporter these past near three years. “Yes.”
Sola nods, and that is that.
.
Copia Egestas adores her Queen.
Sola’s last minute changes to the twins’ Coming of Age gave her a solid week of extra work to do - with help from Ignis, who volunteered on account of her being nearly six months pregnant - hunting through the Archives and preparing her arguments before she and Sola sat down in front of the King and finally told him exactly who would be presenting his daughter at her Coming of Age. Presenting both his children, in fact.
Unsurprisingly, Regis was not pleased. But between Sola’s staunch refusal to change her mind and Copia’s presented precedents, he reluctantly conceded.
Now, eyeing everyone as they wait to enter the ballroom, Copia can only feel a vicious anticipation.
Nox and Sola make a striking pair in black and gold. Both of them have their hair carefully pulled back, decorated further with gold. Nox still wears his usual earrings, the only silver on him as he’d declined the offer for golden versions, and Sola has mirrored him with a set of earrings arranged in the opposite ears. Not the same earrings, but the studs and climber are similar enough in shape to achieve the desired effect.
Copia’s sleeveless black dress is cut to flatter her pregnant figure, a gold shawl for her shoulders because six months pregnant and she gets uncomfortably warm now that the summer months are upon them, which also why she’s elected for an updo instead of letting her thick curls tumble loose. Unlike Sola, Copia is in comfortable flats instead of heels, again on account of being pregnant.
Axis is in a black suit jacket with gold details, and his Clan’s purple and green tartan. His hair’s been styled back from his face, but otherwise remains free.
Axis isn’t the only one wearing purple and green. Nox has the shifting purple-green galahdite in his ears, hair, and decorating his cufflinks. Sola’s chosen a selection of amethysts and emeralds to decorate her gold jewelry, while Copia had been gifted a pair of ebony hair sticks topped with amethyst and emerald carved cabochons.
(Copia knows just enough about Galahdian culture to know to tell Penny the goal, and follow the woman’s instructions on how to support Axis without overstepping cultural boundaries. The result, she is told, is a careful blend of Lucian and Galahdian color codes, but Copia has never seen Axis struck speechless before so she makes a mental note to commend Penny and her recommended jewelers for their hard work.)
With Ardyn, however, Penny has evidently decided to take refuge in audacity.
The suit is a lovely shade of dark purple, decorated with an intricate pattern of - much to Copia’s amusement - peacock feathers. At a glance they could be mistaken for phoenix feathers, certainly, but Copia knows her birds, and those feathers belong to the phoenix’s non-magical dramatic cousins. Studded at the eye of each feather are small galahdite stones to match Nox and Axis.
Under the suit, Ardyn’s shirt is black, which will no doubt give the Court conniptions and the press a field day, despite them following protocol to a T. Instead of a traditional tie, Ardyn’s kept his usual scarf, but in a rich green. How it doesn’t clash with the purple, Copia doesn’t know, but she knows Ardyn’s vest is a matching shade of green. Ardyn has a gold and galahdite lapel pin, linked by a fine gold chain to a paired piece on the front of his breast pocket.
The master of ceremonies glances over at them, expression half-expectant, half-despairing.
It turns to resignation when Ardyn and Sola gift him identical smirks.
Nox sighs.
Copia hides a grin behind her hand. Oh yes, tonight is going to be so very entertaining, with uncle and niece actively working together.
She wonders how many people will notice the family resemblance before the end of the night?
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secret-engima · 3 months
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So I Did A Thing
And that thing was go a wee bit insane for the new year and update 4 fics and post 3 more! So rather than spam everyone with individual posts for each update, here's a list of em!!
A Heart Once Hardened (Hopes, One Day)
BNHA multichap set in the Feather-Light and Ember-Bright verse. Get your newest free dose of Enji and Dabi angst here >:3.
Good Luck Bead
Non-canon CfR oneshot where Nyx faceplants into the past and succeeds in not running into any Plot Important Characters for- less than five minutes.
A Fairytale (That's Full of Charm)
If anyone remembers me threatening to make a ground-up rewrite of RWBY the show- this is the first chapter of that. I have my au hammers and Plenty Of Ideas planned. :3
Made This Promise (Always I Dreamed About You)
Chapter 3 of Made This Promise/OC-insert Raven is UP! We get Qrow pov this time. For those who have no idea what I'm talking about- it's oc-insert as Raven in RWBY but with a bunch of other tropes and angsty things thrown in.
Broken (But Never to Pieces)
Latest entry in Blood of My Blood verse!! Cor-centric, Drautos-centric look at what happened with them to change things so much in this au. Finally. Second chapter is UP.
Worlds Unseen (Calling You and Me)
Horizon Zero Dawn/FFXV crossover where each chapter alternates in setting. Chapter 11 is finally up!! We're covering the Proving let's gooo.
Nothing But A Voice Within (Calls Me Home)
Chapter 4 of my Demon Slayer fixit fic! OC-centric, mind the tags, also the rating went from T to M for reasons that you can surmise from the tags probably. The chapter that bumps it to M has not yet been posted so you are in the clear for now if that is a concern.
And there we go! All my updates for this year so far. Make sure you're signed in on ao3 to view them, as all my fics are locked (thank you AI scraping and corpos)
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secret-engima · 3 months
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Preview of OG Story: Once Upon (Again, Again, Again)
The forest was dark and thick, branches so close together she couldn’t see the sky, layers of black limbs tangled together like bony, withered fingers.
She blinked twice and let … it … settle in the back of her head. Then she took a deep breath and set her feet on the path. One step, two steps, five, ten, fifteen. A shadow appeared from under the trees, making things even darker than they already were. She told herself she was a big girl and then turned around to face him, tensed to run, ready for him to open his mouth and ask her where she was going.
The wolf stared at her for a long time. A really long time.
He hadn’t done that before. He’d asked her where she was going, or to give him the basket in her hands (he’d leaped out of the trees without warning, teeth big and white and sharp-). But he’d never just stood on the path and stared at her with big gold and green eyes. She stared right back, unsure how to react. But there was a niggling thought in her head, trying to get louder. Sometimes he did different things. That was what had first woken her up, convinced her that she wasn’t just tired and dreaming of all those other dark paths in the woods and the weight of the basket in her hands. Everything else was the same. The path, the trees, the house, the smell of the fresh bread, the shout of the Huntsman as he tried to save her (if she got that far). But the Wolf … he was different.
“You remember too.”
(read the rest of this and lots more fantasy short stories on my patreon HERE for $3 a month :D.)
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secret-engima · 3 months
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Hi, jackass of the internet here again, an idea occurred to me while perusing the Dragon Slayer Yang tagged posts- while I’m not sure what the plans for Salem in that fic are/were, I think there’d be fun drama if the Salem Yang met was, in fact, the Salem of her world, but just long in the past for some odd reason. So when Salem learns of/sees Yang again in the modern day, there’s a heartwarming reunion, followed by something of a ‘custody battle’ between Salem and Ozpin (the divorced couple)
Very interesting theory!
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secret-engima · 3 months
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In Team Gremlin, what are the chances that the Ringmaster decides to help certain team of huntresses in their righteous quest? (No, not RWBY)
One day, Robyn and her friends are approached by a messenger offering an alliance with the local crime shady elements.
(The messenger might be a disguised Cinder. She does have a very good reason to want justice and equality for Mantle's citizens.)
*laughs* honestly- it might happen! We'll see! It would be funny if nothing else.
Also the reformed Cinder headcanons are *potentially* being retconned we will see. I'm going over plot notes and my ideas for this au have changed over time but eh- we'll see if Cinder still makes the cut for reformation.
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secret-engima · 3 months
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In that one actual prince!Cor au you had, how would it come out that Cor is Mors' kid? And did Mors know this beforehand or was he completely surprised too?
I ... don't remember which one this is. Are you referring to the time travel Cor one where his genes get altered during the time travel to make him a Lucis Caelum by blood?
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secret-engima · 3 months
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Since Stand Strong glaives' uniforms are more modified than in canon, what with teeth and claws, did they use this opportunity to get rid of the boob window in female uniforms? Because Amissa and Titus and their kids would have Opinions about leaving upper chest unarmoured like that.
Oh absolutely. No boob windows for the glaives. Honestly I personally just- mentally yeet that design entirely in all my aus. The uniforms are not gender specific in the sense of girls looking "sexier". Nope. Practical uniforms all the way.
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secret-engima · 4 months
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𝓡𝓪𝓿𝓾𝓼 𝓝𝓸𝔁 𝓕𝓵𝓮𝓾𝓻𝓮𝓽
-> i drew ravus over a screencap because he's just too pretty
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secret-engima · 4 months
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