#Idk I feel like there is some symbolic meaning related to his feelings about his death that I'm not fully grasping | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

l0cal-catb0y · 7 months

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Hero!Ghoap x God!Reader brainrot

this is mainly about ghoap cuz i didnt focus on them in the first post and they deserve love too!! and i wanna add backstory :33 based off this post i made and i think i want them to be childhood friends!! (its one of my favorite tropes im sorry </3)

once again this is just word vomit !! not my best but it must be shared :DD but also!! let me know if you have any ideas for what reader should be the god of cuz i really have no ideas and i wanna add more details to them!!

definingly have the vibe they would've meet by running into each other playing in a field when they were very young and just ended up sticking together. simon found comfort in johnny's presence and just sort of started following him everywhere he went with johnny just completely okay with dragging this boy around cuz!! he gets to have fun with his friend!! :DD sadly though they have to have reason to become fighters for plot reasons </33 their village gets destroyed, burnt and looted with few survivors left. theyre both distraught and angry with johnny openly wanting to track down the people behind the attack and fuck them up (simon too but hes silent about it) maybe johnny starts getting ready to start that hunt without telling anyone but simon can just read him perfectly and just pulls him aside to tell him that he's coming too.

I feel like along their hunt they would stop and take care of anyone that were causing issues, probably with just small trouble makers but as they become stronger and more experienced they deal with whole gangs of people (they end up getting the names ghost and soap along the way somehow) they become more renowned for their strength and victories that even cities far off know them!! im thinking the group that destroyed their village became an army and overconfident to the point of disrespecting the gods (probably not all but definitely some big ones) so when ghost and soap become bigger names they are given the upperhand with the backing of the gods who wish to put the group back into place. they basically get to the level of demigods !!

romance wise though,,, giggles,,, somewhere along their journey after a hard fight they would confess while patching each other up, the concern for each other far outweighing the fear of rejection <33 the gentle touch of making sure theyre still there and the whispers of love would be so soft after they know its a mutual love omg. their routines change a little afterwards too!! like simon giving johnny little trinkets to have in his pockets (probably something handmade when he cant sleep) and johnny braiding part of simon's hair before a fight (maybe he braids a piece of simon's hair into his own braid and his hair into simon's?)

I don't think they would actively worship one particular god? they would give offerings every so often as thanks for the blessing or in hope of getting some luck with something (finding info or just having good weather) but they are mainly on their own for the most part. yes they are favored more than others but it doesnt mean the gods really care about them yknow? they both know theyre just a means to an end for some of them :((

so when you start looking out for them theyre both just :OO you actually care about them outside of what they can do!! you help them with small things!! your watching eyes comfort simon when he cant sleep!! you guide johnny to peaceful areas for him to relax and draw at!! you send your associated animal to keep watch if they ever both crash after a fight!! they start to add stuff to their routines that relate to you in some way :33 making crafts of your symbols and having one with them for "good luck" or making a small spot for you at every camp they make or talking to you (aka the open air of your spot) about their plans and what they wanna do next!!

idk man brainrot and lack of sleep are getting to me!! im going to rotate these two in this au in my head for the next month ^-^

#clawing at the walls of my enclosure #me when men #catboy talks #simon ghost riley #simon ghost riley x reader #simon riley x reader #john soap mactavish #john soap mactavish x reader #john mactavish x reader #soap x reader #ghost x reader #ghoap x reader #cod mw2 #cod x reader #unedited #not beta read #ghost x reader x soap #ghoap #soapghost

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lyrakanefanatic · 4 months

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Thoughts that I wanted to share about the brothers Hawthorne/ the grandest game bc I don’t wanna make a million posts about each one 💀

1: Phone girls dad literally shot himself ON. HER. BIRTHDAY. 😭😭

2: Skye Hawthorne MIGHT be in the grandest game, because when Avery got bombed and Ricky and skye got arrested for it, they found out that it actually wasn’t them which means they prob got out of jail (maybe not Ricky but probably skye) and she might be controlling one of the players

3: WE’LL PROBABLY GET TO SEE A SUNSHINE X GRUMPY TROPE!! (Mathias and Gigi)

4: we’ll see which 7 contestants avery will pick for the game!! (While I was writing that instead of contestants I accidentally put tributes 💀)

5: we might learn more about Toby’s backstory (or just the Hawthorne backstories in general, like Zara’s, nans or Alice’s)

6: speaking of Alice, SOMEHOW THAT OLD GRANDMAS GOING TO BE ALIVE

7: this isn’t really a prediction but more just like a possible hint for the grandest game, but when grayson tells his brothers about the riddle “what begins a bet? Not that”, Jameson says this

He says “what’s the opposite of a handshake?” And I found a picture online that shows multiple different options of what could be the opposite of a handshake

Basically most of the words on there kind of show “misinterpretation” or just different words for some sort of mistake, so would that mean that the “beef” (im just gonna call it that bc I don’t rlly know what went down) between tobias and thomas thomas was maybe accidental?? Or maybe they got into a disagreement that ended in thomas ending his life? All the book really shows is that one paragraph (that I highlighted in green) that talks about what Jameson thought of the riddle, and then Jameson was talking to Avery about the game (probs bc jlb didn’t wanna drop too many hints lmao) And then if you add it in with the “abet” theory ⬇️

It said that one of the opposites of a handshake were “refusal” and “disagreement”, so what if tobias had wanted thomas to aid one of his crimes and thomas refused, and maybe tobias gave him an ultimatum which is why he shot himself?? It’s so confusing bc what would tobias even do that was so horrible that thomas had to shoot himself, I really don’t know. but if anyone has some theory’s on this pls lmk! 🫶

8: holy guacamole 7 was a long one, but anyway i feel like there are definitely more hints on the grandest game in the brothers Hawthorne then there were in the final gambit, even though in (i think tig is the one that clue was from?) the inheritance games “special” edition bc idk what their called it said “hints in the final gambit”. (although one loose end from tig was David Golding, and @riddles-n-games had a good theory about that) But i read the final gambit entirely and didn’t find a single clue other than David, so that’s kinda weird (unless somebody else found something else they found interesting in that book?)

9: Eve might also be behind one of the players, or just trying to get involved with the game so she could get the cash prize or whatever else it is that that psycho needs 🙄

10: we’ll (most likely, bc I’m 99.9% sure that she’ll be in tgg) see what phone girl looks like and see which one of us were right 😜

11: kinda random but i will bet a whole 5 dollars that phone girls name is either gonna be flower related, or just straight up be lily. Or maybe both, but just think of how ironic that would be (there are calla lilys all over the cover of tgg… 🤷‍♀️)

12: LIBBY NASH WEDDING!!! 🤭🤭🤭💗

13: so off topic but WHERE DO GRAYSON AND JAMESON GET THEIR MONEY FROM??? like I’m sure jameson probably gets some cash from his billionaire girlfriend, but what about grayson?? he says in tbh that he’s “buried in work” but what kind of work does he do?? and who does he work for?? 🤨

14: Okay this is gonna be the last one bc i need to shut up, but does anybody have an idea on what some things in the grandest game cover might symbolize? we know about the lilys and the opal rings, but other than that i CANT seem to figure out anything else on there 😭😭

and okay that’s all thank you for coming to my ted talk 🫶😊🙌

#the inheritance games #jameson hawthorne #nash hawthorne #avery kylie grambs #grayson hawthorne #xander hawthorne #the brothers hawthorne #libby grambs #maxine liu #phone girl #the grandest game #jennifer lynn barnes #the final gambit #thomas thomas #calla lily

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punchliiine · 3 months

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things i've learned through shifting

i don't know what to post so i thought of posting some stuff that i've learned, improved, and simply practiced through shifting. it's not a lot but it's a lot.

so firstly, i thought of introducing some of my hobbies prior to shifting, and then ones that i've picked up after shifting. and lastly provide any details if needed.

I - hobbies

↳ before shifting

↳ ↳ reading

i've been able to read SO many books in my library wr.

i have a huge list of books that i've put off because of school, but through shifting to my wr, i've been able to finish at least 66 out of 117 i believe?

also i was able to find some of my favorite authors through this, like sylvia plath, mahmoud darwish, virginia woolf, khalil gibran.. and honestly, a lot more, but these are the ones that i remember for now.

↳ ↳ writing

in my native language, i've become REALLY good. as for writing in english it's ?!? but i'm slowly getting there.

not showing off, but i was really good prior to shifting. but now, i've become REALLY good, like now i'm able to touch the soul with my poetry. i also learned some tips for expressing 'my' feelings.

one of them is to think about a phenomenon in nature that resembles how you feel, whether it's by colors, weather, atmosphere, movements.. etc. then write about how each of the elements relate to what you're wishing to express. and ever since i learned that expressing my feelings // painting a scene whilst writing feels so, so much easier.

i guess the same can be used for drawing or painting? so feel free to interpret it in your own ways!

the only reason i emphasized on 'my' feelings was because the things i learnt in there were personal to my learning. before shifting, i had scripted that they would match me and fit me perfectly, so they wouldn't apply to everybody if that makes sense? but if you feel like it fits you, then you're more than welocme to use it!

+ i don't take any sort of credit for it since somebody might've thought of it first, i'm only here to share it!!

↳ ↳ drawing - painting

i was able to experiment freely with color theory, perspective, expressionism, symbolism.. etc. and i was able to find my art style! and practice some others i found interesting.

↳ ↳ editing

nothing to say about this one other than the fact that i was able to experiment with so many styles, and i reallllyyy enjoyed it. i also got to watch some of my old edits that have been deleted. (have been meaning i deleted them) 10/10.

↳ after shifting

↳ ↳ sewing

currently in the process of making a cute pair of opera gloves, idk how to explain it but yk the ones that are pitch black by the finger tips and fade as they go up? those are the ones that i'm attempting to make. and so far it's good!

↳ ↳ crocheting

i've recently made a doll i've found online which looks like little red riding hood, and it's cute. also i'm currently making a chibi jjk cat beanie (sashisu the world!!! ๑ > ᴗ < ๑)

↳ ↳ sculpting

i've sculpted hands, like tons of them. and i've used gojo satoru as a muse for at least 100% of them (i am insane about him)

some appreciation for my muse's hands:

can we talk about the fact that his fingers are 6 inches anyway!!!!!

II - skills

it's worth the mention that i've become skillful in most of my hobbies "it isn't necessary to become skillful in any of your hobbies for plenty of reasons, but i aspire to!" i'd say intermediate in most, advanced in a few.

also idk if it counts as a skill, but i have become skillful in all of my subjects. like i have become amazing in math and physics thanks to my study wr <3

as for other subjects i've always been amazing, but with math and physics, i've had awful teachers teach me crucial information, so i was miserable for a bit, but thankfully not anymore!

i know i could've manifested it since i use loassumption all the time, but i love studying, so i wanted to go through the whole process if that makes sense? like i didn't wanna take the shortcut (manifesting) + there's no shame in wanting to take the shortcut.

as for real skills.. yeaaah not yet

III - languages

i've become better in korean.. i can sort of understand people when they're speaking? but i can't speak nor write. but hey, at least i'm enjoying the proces, that counts for something!

i'm aware that there are some things in here that i could've gone on the internet and just practiced // learnt. BUT the way i did it was different, i went to a wr where i got to learn all about my hobbies, skills, subjects, and languages and practice freely without any sort of stress whatsoever + occasionally recieve tips and advice. and it was all free and unbelievably fun!!!

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the-maddened-hatter · 4 months

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Some Hazbin Hotel death symbolism theories/headcanons

So yeah this is gonna be darker since the show literally revolves around characters in hell

Tw for drugs, suicide, murder, cannibalism, mentions of racism & and idk what to call it like in-character cultural insensitivity (if anyone knows how to tag that better lmk) , and various forms of abuse under the read more

Also I know these will probably get disproven within like 5 minutes once the show comes out, but I think they'd still be cool for an AU or something!

Vaggie: I'm gonna start out with a potentially controversial theory here: Her death X eye could be more symbolic than literal, with her choosing to "turn a blind eye" to something in life that eventually lead to her committing suicide out of guilt, and her moth features symbolizing her having been focused on a certain goal or priority to a selfish or harmful degree in life like a "moth to a flame". Putting these together, maybe she allowed something to happen either to someone directly or in such a way that they ended up being harmed/killed in the pursuit of a goal or belief and once she realized the scope of her actions she committed suicide. Maybe once she's in hell she's all but forced into a career of a bodyguard for the ruling families of hell as some kind of ironic punishment (though in her particular case it ends up working out well for her since she and Charlie fall in love)

Since her moth features are much less pronounced than Valentino, perhaps it serves as a reflection of how she realized the harm her selfish focus caused before she died.

Speaking of him, Valentino's highly pronounced moth features could suggest that his selfish focuses were much worse and more self-serving than Vaggie's were (unsurprising given his character) and his addictive smoke powers could mean he died in a fire (my theory is he went into a club that he ran during a fire to retrieve a stache of money and drugs he had hidden inside and perished due to smoke inhalation (meaning he 1 has no visible death x, 2 has a death x on his chest that we haven't seen yet, or 3 his death x shows up sometimes in the red smoke he breathes).

I wrote a fanfiction about a headcanon for Sir Pentious's backstory But the main takeaways from it are I think that he worked with poisons, became paralyzed prior to his death by them, his drug addicted son killed him in a fit of withdrawls with a shattered vial of snake venom, his death X is on his chest where he was stabbed and is hidden by a large fake eye that he wears over it. The other eyes across his body are because he became paranoid after becoming paralyzed. He knows his son went to hell along with him so he's continually searching for him, but doesn't realize that his daughter did as well several years later.

With Niffty, I theorize that her mother died when she was relatively young and she was expected by her male relatives to take up the duties of a housewife and surrender any degree of ambition she may have held about school or a career (even those that fell within the limitations of the time period). Her one hope was that if she was able to get married she'd at least be able to have some degree of freedom from her abusive controlling relatives. Given as many housewives commonly used stimulants that would be considered dangerous and illegal today to increase their productivity and lessen their desires to eat, it's hardly a stretch to think that Niffty would have tried (or been pressured into trying) them as well. It's my belief that she died due to a heart condition that was made much worse by taking the stimulants and her death X is over her heart (and this is why she has speed related abilities). Her large cyclopic eye could be symbolic of her feeling like she constantly needed to be vigilant while still being aware that there were things she wasn't getting to see in life Perhaps her small size is due to her being younger when she died (roughly 18 to 20) and that her death name is taken from the brand of the stimulants.

With Cherri Bomb her cyclopic eye that is functional despite the X may be because she, like Vaggie, chose to allow people to be harmed when she had the power to stop it, but her connection to it was less direct than Vaggie's was (perhaps she created weaponry for an extremist organization, but she didn't realize civilians would be harmed). Within this theory, she may have died sabotaging the organization, perhaps blowing up a bomb within their headquarters o unsuccessfully attempting to dismantle one on the civilian site (with her cause of death being the shrapnel impaling her). She is not ashamed of her death X, and chooses to wear clothing that implies its location.

I headcanon Vox as having been a corrupt journalist in life, overlooked due to a severe stutter in childhood and left with something to prove, he was willing to write false (but convincing) news reports for people about their competitors (ranging from small-scale businesses to political candidates) and come up with convincing doctored photographs. He wanted to quit the lifestyle and settle down with a lady he had convinced to be his fiance (she didn't really love him, but she had a daughter to care for and he genuinely cared for the both of them), so he accepted "one last job" that he believed would leave him with enough to live comfortably in anonymity. The job ended up being a set-up by someone he had previously wronged or their friends/family and was drugged, beaten, and left for dead in an alley. In his final moments he weakly tried to call attention to himself but was unable to get anyone to notice him due to a display window full of new televisions drawing a crowd and drowning out his pleas for their notice.

He has no visible death X due to dying of internal bleeding, but he still bears marks of his death with his eyes always appearing mismatched from three red lines that frequently appear in the lower left corner serve as his marker no matter how often he changes his features. Deeply saddened he was unable to be a father to his fiancee's daughter back in life, he views Velvet as an adoptive daughter. He waited hopefully for many years to see either of them again and his both relived and distraught that they seem to avoided hell.

With Alastor I'm like 99.99% certain this is already fully incorrect, but fuck it this is a headcanon post (also this one is long bc unlike Sir P I didn't get around to writing out the fic before now: Conceived through wealthy white man's abuse of a cook he employed who was of mixed race, meaning her abuser was fully unpunished for his crimes. Though unmarried and in poor health, she kept Alastor, viewing him as proof and hoping he would one day deliver vengeance upon the people who wronged her. He grew up in the care of his ailing mother who, sadly viewed him more as her poised dagger than as her son, and his grandmother who loved him dearly, but lived primarily in her own memories and passed away by the time he was 10 years old. Before she died would tell him lengthy stories about the family he'd never gotten a chance to meet and he would listen, enraptured by the rich tapestries of lineage she described, with his favorite stories being the ones about the Native American man who had been in love with her father's mother, and, she suspected, was well more than just a friend of the family. She didn't know much about the man, but that only served to fuel Alastor's imagination.

Though he hated the man who had given it to him, his lighter skin brought him advantages that were not typical to those in his situation, the most prominent being that he was able gain employment at a rather prominent local radio station in the next town over, and, given time, talent, poor studio lighting, and a false last name, work his way onto the airwaves. He put up with a lot during those long years, forcing himself to stay silent and keep a smiling face through his bosses & colleagues flippant racism, promising himself that it would be worth it one day and that hey'd be "singing a different tune" once he'd worked his way up to the top. He was right, but not in any of the ways he ever expected to be.

Short version, he was found out and fired (despite a degree of public outcry, as his program was quite popular) and he found himself unemployed and, one night, drinking alone. His mother had passed away of a violent seizure a month ago to the day and he was drowning his shames of failure in both his career and of her (she'd had her high expectations of him clear from the moment he was born).

Another man came into the bar, small, tan, scruffy, limping, with some tattoos visible. He hobbled over to the bar stool next to Alastor and with evident glee recognized his voice from the radio and with a bit more effusive praise dolled out between the pours of liquor they became the fastest of friends. When the bar shut its doors, well why didn't they continue their lively chat in Alastor's kitchen? Neither of them had anyone waiting for them at home or much business to attend to in the morning. So that was precisely what they did.

Though he tried his best, Alastor could not seem to pronounce the young man's name. It sounded to him almost like the gecker of a fox (though he blamed this on the copias amounts of bourbon swimming in his brain), and after his third slurred attempt the young man waived his apologies away and said to call him Shilo.

Shilo proved to be a very good listener that evening and, as it happened, in the coming weeks. Most would have balked at the rantings and declarations of vengeance of a total stanger, but not him. He followed each word earnestly, soaking everything in until he was finally ready to make his move.

It was truly such a shame Alastor knew so little about his lineage and about his great grandfather's culture, perhaps he wouldn't have so readily accepted Shilo's claims that he could be granted power, vengeance, and justice through a "dark magic ritual". Maybe if his mother had seen him as someone to love instead of something made to avenge her he would have been harder to talk him into performing 7 so-called "rituals" of murder and cannibalism. Who's to say? End the end the decisions were his own.

He chose people adjacent to his mother's abuser (Shilo was clear on this point, that he mustn't yet strike his target directly, that the ritual was about "absorbing the lights in his life to let you see beyond and leave him blind in the dark". Alastor took down

His uncle (his father's brother) first (a horrid man who, in Alastor's defence, reached for his pistol solely in response to his approaching him)

The house's head butler who had turned out Alastor's mother for "causing trouble",

His own half-brother (he took more pleasure in this than he cares to admit even now, knowing so little and so much separated their respective fates)

His half-brother's fiancee, as she became a convenient next victim

His father's bank broker

His father's chauffeur (for suspecting and confronting him).

And finally, the cook who replaced his mother. That's where things went wrong.

Shilo instructed Alastor to take the body of the victim into the woods once night had fallen, and he complied as he had each time before, but this time as he ate he became overwrought with the guilt of what he'd done, to murder someone fully innocent, whose position was nearly identical to his own mother's all of those years ago.

Shilo was furious when Alastor began to plead to back out of the ritual, insisting that he could well have his vengeance for it all, that once he slit his throat with the so-called ceremonial blade of bone he would awake a spirit of vengence, brimming with all of the power of his ancestors. He tried to press said blade into Alastor's bloody and shaking hands, but he swatted it away as waves of bile doubled him over and he purged most of his night's kill from his stomach.

Alastor watched Shilo's easygoing facade melting away along with his human form, morphing into a snarling canine with a mouth of sharp fangs that dribbled bloody foam. Interwoven between the creature's rage filled huffs and undercurrent of a fox's chitter slipped the words "Oh, Al. You really shouldn't have done that."

He ran for hours through the forest. Shilo, or whatever called itself that anyhow, kept pace at his heels, sometimes overtaking him and ripping away a fresh chunk of flesh or snapping a bone with its massive jaws before falling back to keep the chase going.

Horrifically bloodied and mutilated but somehow still moving he eventually managed to attract the attention of some hunters, who seemingly managed to scare off his pursuer with a few warning shots. Needless to say, Alastor collapsed the moment the beast was no longer on his heels.

One could argue that they meant well, doing what they did. He was very plainly in agony, with his neck and limbs lolling grotesquely, and they really could do virtually nothing to care for him. He wouldn't even let them touch him to try and staunch the bleeding (though for pain or delirium they couldn't tell), doing his best to strike out with a broken appendage or, when one of them tried to at least stabilize his neck with a folded coat, bit down on his would-be-healer's arm and kept locked on until he lost the strength to continue.

He regained a bit of sense for those last few seconds. He saw that horrible beast's wicked eyes and gleaming teeth lurking in the edges of the firelight and he saw one of the hunters kneeling beside him and promising it would be quick and everything would be over in just a moment as he readied his handgun.

#hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel fanfiction #hazbin hotel fan theory #fan theory #hazbin vaggie #hazbin valentino #hazbin sir pentious #hazbin niffty #hazbin cherri bomb #hazbin vox #hazbin alastor #cw drugs #cw horror #cw abuse #(idk how much I need to tag in the tags since I did a cw at the beginning with a read more but lmk if I need to)

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darisu-chan · 11 months

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So after experiencing a terrible loss a few weeks ago, my brain decided to process my grief with some more IR thoughts bc of course it did

So y’know how people keep bitching about the poem “Can I keep up with it? The speed of the world without you in it” and saying it’s not about Rukia, but about Zangetsu? Even though we’ve established time and time again it makes no sense for it to be about just Ichigo’s powers?

Well, I was thinking that it’s not solely that Ichigo stopped seeing Rukia because he lost his powers. Let’s think about what that symbolizes. His powers involve seeing ghosts, spirits, dead people. Essentially, Ichigo lost Rukia to death. Because she’s dead and he’s not. Like he knows death is not the end, but without his powers, he won’t see Rukia again until he dies. And isn’t that just terribly painful? That horrible knowledge. He knows Rukia is okay, that she has a life in death, that she’s not alone. But the point still stands that he won’t see her. He’s stuck living his life until his heart stops beating and for all he knows, he might live a long life. Obviously if Rukia used a gigai, they could see each other and this is all a bit of a plot hole (what else is new in Bleach), but just the heart wrenching thought that he won’t see her again until he dies gives the poem a new meaning. Isn’t that what we all ask ourselves when our loved ones die? Beyond a breakup, or however else we can interpret it, this reads as “death parted them”. This is grief. Ichigo is mourning her.

And this isn’t the first time death has taken someone I love, but idk, I just really felt this poem in a whole another level. Can I keep going without this person I love? It’s terrifying when you just don’t see them anymore. This ache in your heart. And if you’re religious, you know you’ll see them again, or at least you hope for it, but seeing them again involves you dying and who knows when that’ll be. And I knew Ichigo was depressed, but putting this grief related to death into more perspective… he was destroyed, and that’s how that poem now feels for me. This extreme longing for someone who’s not alive. This great divide between them. They’ve always been about life and death in some ways, but now this very key relationship aspect seems even clearer to me.

It’s funny that in my darkest times, I find myself understanding another layer of this ship, one of the most painful ones, because the same can be said when Rukia was taken to the SS. Ichigo lost Rukia to death then too. It gives more perspective to the knowledge Ichigo’s second worst experience was Rukia going to the SS. It’s not quite death as he knew it, but it might as well have been without being able to see her, and then knowing she was going to be executed, dying yet again.

#ichiruki #my thoughts are a mess #I’m so sorry if this doesn’t make any sense #but essentially that poem reads as someone who just lost their lover to death #more than a breakup #more than just not being able to see each other #that terrible grief of knowing they’re gone and you have to live life without them #and wondering how you can even do that when all this time they’ve been there with you #how are you suppose to live now

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starlightwayfinder · 18 days

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hi. sliding in. is there anything u have been compelled by recently. maybe music or a book or the way light fell on smth (idk how to ask stuff like a normal person but feel free to gush about anything you want, if you'd like to :3 (no pressure of course!))

Thank you!

Speaking of the way light fell on something… I’ve actually been waiting for an excuse to gush about some of Scala ad Caelum’s art and ornamentation. I have a few headcanons and inspirations of my own, too. (I can’t take my own screenshots at the moment, so I’ll just see what I can find online.)

First—there’s a lot of cool things themed (appropriately) around light and color.

This stained glass platform is one of my favorites in the game. Stained glass is nothing new in the series, but this one is especially iridescent, which makes it extra cool in my mind. I also think it’s neat that stained glass was chosen to represent hearts, as if the light of their hearts is shining through/illuminating it.

Here’s some real life examples with a similar effect!

Similar to the stained glass are the mosaics:

You can really see the influence of Daybreak Town with these! The fountain is probably my favorite—it looks almost like a sun from above.

More real life examples—to me the swirls are reminiscent of wind and waves. For a headcanon of mine, I imagine there was someone in Scala who made kaleidoscopes kind of like these.

In addition to matching the aesthetic of the game, they also tie nicely into the theme of light.

There’s a fair share of things that relate to the sky and wind, which ties into the theme of “the heavens” as well. The pinwheels are like tiny versions of the windmills, which I think is super cute. I couldn’t find a picture, but there’s also a lot of dandelions. (In addition to drawing another connection to Daybreak Town, I like that they fit the theme of wind too.)

Okay so street lamps are kind of a given for a city, regardless of symbolism—but I think they’re the epitome of beautiful design so I have to gush about them, haha.

Just… look at these!! They are light and darkness,,, and you can even put flowers on them? I think the globe ones resemble the moon also. They’re so beautiful. I couldn’t find a good picture, but the ones in KH3 have banners hanging from them as well.

Last but not least is the printed/painted artwork. The Daybreak to Scala mural is my favorite—I love how it’s layered and moves to tell the story.

For headcanons, I like the idea of there being more of these mechanized storytelling displays. Maybe ones that depict fairytales of the other worlds. These puppet theaters aren’t exactly what I mean, but they’re the right idea:

And finally, I know Scala has some amazing libraries. I want to read all of these books!

#There’s more things and I could keep going!!#But maybe I’ll wait until I can explore ML #Anyway design is awesome! art is awesome!#I want to go to Scala!!!#And thanks for the ask 🤭#Seriously though imagine being Xehanort and the only places you seen aside from the island were in your dreams #and then coming to a place like this?!

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reveriesofawriter · 3 months

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book rambling don't mind me

the book kept saying anharion was his title... so was that also his name? did his name become a title when the Betrayal happened? does "anharion" translate to Betrayer or is that just what he's known as? was it a mistranslation from the old language? edit: I just reread the part where sarcean said he used to be called something else and now I feel like that's going to give away the whole ~is he the sun prince~ thing

I've seen some theories about the Collar and to what extent it actually controls james and like. as much as it would be less big and exciting to see it this way... what if the Collar is mostly symbolic? bc sarcean can talk people into doing what he wants anyway and james was obviously not immune to the charm (it's magnified for him even) well before will knew anything about himself or his powers so what if the collar was just a way to show other people that anharion belonged to him? but GOD if this moral stronghold of not wanting to manipulate james into kissing him and wanting him to do it of his own free will stops these boys from having a lil smooch for the majority of the third book I will Die

I've also seen people try to draw lines between will/sarcean and james/anharion as far as their past/present personalities and the consensus seems to be that will has a more clear line between himself and sarcean but I saw someone say it was more like intrusive thoughts and I think that's fascinating, also that will is seeing james and not anharion the betrayer when he looks at james but james in every sense is this cocky little asshole (affectionate) who flirts and uses his powers to take advantage of people while anharion in the past wasn't like that sooooo I think will isn't Seeing james as who he is I think he's seeing anharion for who he used to be before he turned against sarcean. which is so interesting when you think about will saying people shouldn't be judged by what they've done but what they can do

the tangled web of who hates who is so messy but I trust violet to, if not outright take will's side, then to convince the others to let him go like banish him or whatever instead of killing him right away (even if james's powers would physically protect him from that I just need violet to believe in him)

I'm still thinking about little 6 year old will setting a rich fucker's clothes on fire bc he laid his hands on a woman who was nice to him, how violet saved his life and he's spent every day after that trying to return the favor including using a newfound power he doesn't know how to control yet to set her free from a cage in another country

can't wait to see how the narratives shift when we get other perspectives on what the past was really like bc from what I can tell sarcean and the lady weren't really In Love they just had a fling one time

on that note I thought will was switched out for the girls somehow when they were kids but elizabeth was told her mother had a son before her and she believes that son is will, which would mean will is both blood of the lady and the dark king, which brings to question who his dad is bc they said it wasn't simon but I don't think his birth was a virgin mary situation, also I know sarcean got around but are will and simon's family related any closer than one ancestor thousands of years ago? is sinclair will's father?

I don't think tom and violet will fight to the death, tom may die in another way tho

what's the fourth kingdom and how does that pay into this? bc the first gate was in england the second was underwater somewhere and the third is in italy so the fourth...? on that note there must be more stewards alive who weren't in the hall when it was torn through, people who either left that life behind, or like cyprian at the beginning who didn't drink from the cup but still follow the lifestyle, or maybe like small covens of stewards who never went to the hall bc they found their own communities elsewhere idk it's just very eurocentric to think everyone from everywhere would meet up in this one place when the whole rest of the world exists

will needs some alone time after all this someone give him a safe place to rest and a hot drink

phillip and visander... and the unicorn....... love triangle of the ages... (I wonder if visander will find his way back into a man's body somehow or if he's stuck looking like katherine forever lol) (realistically. I don't think this man fucked his horse. but. metaphorically? metaphysically? whatever they had was probably as erotically charged as that magic scene right?)

#dark rise #dark heir #def some spoilers in here #got two friends now who have said they need to read these books #side note i read it not listened to it. how do you pronounce sarcean? bc in my head i've been saying sar-cean like the second half of ocean #which feels like a very irish way to pronounce it but if the name is rooted in latin it would probs have 3 syllables? sar-say-ən?

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arcadekitten · 10 months

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Hi Arcadekitten!!! I recently played ‘Sweet No Death’ and I absolutely LOVED it!!! The art was amazing, and It was like a perfect balance of cuteness and horror, and was also kinda…. Deep, in a way? Anyhow, I really enjoyed it :) and Ruuuby was my favorite <3

I have a few questions and headcanons about the game, as well! May I ask you some questions, please?

1) Does Stella like Lambchop back? Or rather… CAN she like him back? In the game it doesn’t seem that she had any sort of attraction to him whatsoever, but is the potential there? Their relationship is complicated, but it’s also really cute in a way :)

2) Where did Stella come from? We know that she arrived on a shooting star, but is there a chance that she came from the original Noisrevverse (did I spell it right? Idk) as well? If so, I have a lot of theories…

3) How did Stella obtain her god-savior complex, anyways? Was she always like this, or did some event in her past that made her this way? Also, how did she get so powerful? Stella is arguably the most powerful Noisrevian (again, did I spell it right?) by far… was she just naturally that powerful or did she have to work her way up to be?

4) Why was Lambchop the only one to gain self-awareness while the others were just… blind? I know that you said he became ‘disillusioned…’ but why was he the only one who thought “Hey, this is kinda freaky??? What the heck???” While no one else did? Is there some kind of symbolism in this, or…

5) Okay, this is technically not a question and more of an observation, but while I was playing Sweet No Death I kept drawing parallels to Venna the Witch from your other game, Crowscare. Her extreme power and controlling, manipulative nature resembling Stella’s, and her love for blood and meat resembling Lambchop’s. Also, the true ending of Sweet No Death (where Stella covers the whole town in fake blood and guts) reminds me of the Blood Moon ending in Crowscare… not to mention the whole ‘shaping the world into my own image’ thing that they both have going on… Was this intentional? If so, that’s pretty cool! :)

6) Relating to the last question, would Venna, Stella and Lambchop ever get along if they met? I personally feel that Stella and Venna would make an unlikely, but close friendship (Opposites attract, but platonicly!) trading potion recipes, talking about their plans for world domination, things like that… though Stella may have to restrain Venna from murdering her friends 😅 As for Lambchop… well, I’ll leave that up to you!

7)And finally… why DOES Lambchop still love Stella, anyways? Hmm….🤔

Thank you so much for reading my questions (even though idk if you’ll actually answer ‘em… I don’t blame you, lol. It is A LOT.) and once again, thank you for creating such an awesome game!! I look forward to playing more of your awesome games as well! :D Have a good day/night/whatever time zone you’re in rn :)

I'm so happy to hear you like it, thank you so much!! ♡ I'll try to answer these to the best of my ability!!

I'd say the potential is definitely there! She may already like him like that without even knowing it herself. I mean, look at the gifts in her room and how differently she describes Lambchop's gift from Ruuuby and Raj's. ---

I don't think she came from like any sort of "more proper Noisrev" or anything like that. She did come FROM the stars! Y'know how everyone says people are made of stardust? Well this girl is like, almost concentrated stardust, y'know? ---

Stella is naturally this powerful!! And if you have this kind of power, wouldn't you try to use it to help others? ---

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ---

Nothing intentional! Kinda just seems like natural similarities between their stories especially being the genre they are. ---

I mean, Stella might be able to get along talking about magic and whatever, but if she found out that Venna was an abusive mother I'm not sure if Stella would be able to stomach her a second longer. She already feels bad for what her friends are going through (even if she helps them after), I don't think she'd be comfortable with the idea of a child having gone through such traumatic experiences with no "out". Also I DEFINITELY wouldn't say that Stella is planning for "world domination". I think some of you villainize Stella a bit too much! Lambchop likes blood and gore. Enough said. ---

Why wouldn't he love Stella? She's a dreamboat! She's adorable! But for real, while Stella is very adorable, Lambchop loves Stella because she makes him feel alive.

#sweet no death #sweet no death spoilers #?#stella #lambchop #venna #ask

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ponett · 1 year

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some more SLARPG-related questions and answers taken from my retrospring:

Hi, I wanted to start by saying I loved your game and it meant a lot to me. Instead of gushing sappily though, I wanted to ask about the cross iconography in Melody's staff and Provence's armor; what cultural or religious significance does this symbol have in the world of Reverie? (If it doesn't mean anything to them but does to us that's cool too!)

the + shape (typically in green) is the symbol for healing magic, rather than a religious symbol

hi! in an answer on here just now you referred to "the beast kingdom", is that a canon thing and there is a monarchical governed body called The Beast Kingdom, or was that just something you threw out there because you didn't have a name for it, or some exciting third answer?

the country slarpg is set in is The Beast Kingdom. i can't remember if that's actually stated in the game. i think it is? maybe it was cut from the intro so as to not overwhelm the player with Fantasy Proper Nouns up front and i forgot to put it somewhere else? idk. the sapphire islands are some distance off the coast, and brightport is on the mainland

i saw some speculation about this based on the name, and yes, it's intended to be a modern constitutional monarchy

(after answering this i doubled checked, and yes, the name is mentioned in the game)

Is there any kind of animal species beast folks strictly CANNOT be? (besides RandomFurryUser726's custom closed species obviously)

off the top of my head i can't think of anything they COULDN'T be, no. mammals, birds, reptiles, sea creatures, bugs. i guess when you get to some of the more oddball invertebrates it becomes trickier, but i also wouldn't completely write off the possibility of coming up with a jellyfish character or whatever. it's just less likely that i'd go for something like that compared to, you know. furries

since holly floated the idea in her own stream: Did Jodie forge her own grill?

you know what? sure. this is canon now

How did Claire come to choosing her name? Was is just a name she liked the sound of or is there more significance for her?

undecided due to how much that part of claire's life is still unexplored

just curious, but is zinnia's hair color intended to be more 'older woman gray hair' or 'magical girl white hair'?

her hair is naturally a very light blue, like how melody and jodie just have naturally white hair

i pictured the scrap cannon skill working by magnetizing a bunch of scrap metal around one's arm to make an arm cannon and firing off a big ball of more scrap metal from that. is this a valid interpretation?

this isn't how i picture it but it's cooler than how i picture it and also adds yet another mega man allusion to the desert, so

Given that it's the day of the Big Game: How do each of the Novas (+ Faith/Beverly) feel about sports?

jodie likes sports and follows the brightport teams actively, but she's also too good of a sport to really hate their rival teams

allison's always liked the act of playing sports way more than watching them (although she was never good enough at following orders to play on a team as a kid). she'll watch the big games with jodie, though

beverly is a casual fan who will at least root for local teams but doesn't really pay that close attention

melody and faith don't follow sports but can be convinced to show up for a super bowl party type get together

claire can only get invested in a sport or team if there's a jon bois type documentary that gets deep into the nerd shit

Were there ever any other names other than SLARPG in the running? Or was it always gonna be slarpg all the way.

i always considered changing the name. i have a list of 75 different names i considered over the years in my notes, ranging from more generic fantasy titles to sillier ones to more unique ones. early on most involved melody's name. many later ones include "Reverie." i may share the full list someday (possibly good fodder for a patreon post), but the "serious" title i've mentioned considering before was Power Couple (or Power Couples). i still like that one

i debated over the title a lot for many reasons. mainly, people are weird about the title, either treating the whole game as a joke or assuming it's porn or whatever. some also assume that you just cannot play the game if you aren't a lesbian, a thing that people don't do with other fantasy things that happen to feature sapphic relationships without putting it in the title

the problem, of course, is that changing your title is often a death sentence. half the struggle with marketing a game is even getting people to remember it in the first place in an era where a million things are constantly fighting for your attention. people need to have seen it a few times before they create that mental connection of "oh, THAT game, i've heard of that." so changing your title massively undercuts that

in that regard, Super Lesbian Animal RPG is just way more unique and memorable of a title than the alternatives i was considering. it's direct and unambiguous about the content of the game, and it grabs your attention in a way that something like "Guardians of Reverie," for instance, doesn't. (that's not a title i was considering too seriously, just an example.) also it abbreviates to a unique hashtag, which i find convenient. also i can say that rock paper shotgun once referred to it as "brilliantly named," so like, of course i can't change it now

several of the names i considered are now in the running for an overall franchise name, though, since i have zero intention of naming a game Super Lesbian Animal Platformer or Super Lesbian Animal Visual Novel or whatever

I wish you could kiss Holly this life is so unfair

fear not my friend, large women exist in our world as well

are all cars on Reverie weird fantasy vehicles like the one in the Celestial Wasteland? or was it just the fact of Greenridge being a tiny town with dirt roads that made cars irrelevant to mention or see in the story?

fantasy vehicles such as flying cars and airships are very common on reverie, but regular wheeled vehicles still exist too. (there is a conversation about motorcycles in the game.) i'd imagine regular, non-flying vehicles are just the cheaper option, but they're also not particularly necessary in greenridge, a small, old town built for foot travel that doesn't exactly have a highway connecting it to the mainland

from the sounds of it, would it be safe to assume that the exact level of involvement you had in the characters Anthony/Scarlet designed varies from character to character? Like for some characters you'd have a solid-ish idea of gender/species/age/role, other times you just have the role ("I need an NPC to fill this nice"), and other times they just sprung a design on you without any prompting from you?

yeah, it varied a lot. for example, faith was a character i conceived and had a pretty clear idea of, but i was struggling to come up with her design, so anthony offered to give it a shot. other times i might request something from him, and he'll give me a black and white concept sketch that i color and then turn into a sprite. but then you've got, like, the paladin brigade, who are characters anthony just pitched to me thinking that they'd be a good addition to the cast. he came up with their names, designs, color schemes, personalities, team dynamic, everything. i just filled in details where necessary. the boys are also anthony's babies - they would not have been included in the game at all if he hadn't pushed for it

meanwhile, scarlet's characters (which included a good number of more general NPCs that didn't make it in due to time constraints) mostly consisted of me giving her broad directions like "we need some adventurers to hang around noel's sanctuary," and she'd come up with her own ideas from there

what's the hardest part of making a cohesive and/or compelling narrative to you?

for me at least, it's the logical glue that holds a story together that's the hardest. that's just the type of writer i am, and as far as i know it's pretty common to feel that way

i'll know specific scenes i wanna hit, emotional beats, the general mood and tone, images i want to use, those sorts of things, but the logical shuffling around of pieces on the chess board to connect those disparate moments is harder to nail down for me. why is this character doing this? why are they here instead of there? why can't the protagonists just do this other thing to solve their problem? what in the narrative is going to steer them towards this next moment? what is this supporting character's motivation that informs their participation in this event? why did this character know or not know this key fact? etc. and in a video game - especially an rpg like this - there's that added layer of needing to give the player clear objectives, having reasons for them to go from point A to point B, excuses for gameplay elements to space out the story beats, and whatnot. it can be a lot to juggle

with slarpg in particular i knew most of the big emotional beats and major setpiece moments i wanted to hit early on, but the logic of the plot took a LOT of reworking. lots of late night pondering and scattered notes trying to piece together the villains' plans and things of that nature

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mothwithapencil · 1 year

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Speaking of Jacq: the other day my wife and I discovered why there's tons of pixiv ship art of him and Clavell. And looking into it, that's cool I think. Also some of his lines in SCVI threw me down a huge rabbit hole of analysis and speculation almost completely unrelated to shipping but very much related to character ages, the professors, Area Zero, the Pokedex, and the really fucked up technological Pokemon timeline. This contains heavy spoilers and gets kind of ramble-y so sit down and get comfortable.

It appears Jacq is older than one would initially assume. He and Clavell worked together as researchers a long time ago. This promptly throws a ton of shit into question (see the list above).

In Jacq's class he's talking about when he made the Pokedex app and says something like "But that was waaay before I started teaching. In fact, Director Clavell wasn't in education at that time either! He was a researcher working alongside me at the same facility," which would have to imply Jacq has been around for much longer than he appears.

He was a researcher, which requires a degree, worked at a facility with Clavell for enough time to develop a Pokedex, and then there's whatever amount of time "waaay before I started teaching" means.

It's incredibly likely that "the same facility" meant the Area Zero labs with the professors. Not only because Clavell was there too. Area Zero has tons of hexagon symbolism. Most notably the unidentified hexagon-shell pokemon that's allegedly coming in the DLC and the Zero Gate being covered in hexagons. Although it's just the shape of his glasses, Jacq working with Clavell who also worked with the professors at Area Zero seems too intentional of a design choice.

And tbh Jacq and the professors look like they could potentially be around the same age? Roughly? Trying to map out stuff timeline-age wise is difficult.

On the topic of what the hell happened with Clavell and the professors and apparently also Jacq, I think all of them experienced some accelerated hair graying due to being around fluctuating time machine shit for a while... Which idk how that would happen but it's cool as fuck! We don't know what the professors looked like when they died or what they would have looked like had they not died. They could have had some graying or other aging too, probably the most of anyone. My wife brought this up after I wrote all this, but this could also be why Jacq looks so much younger than he is. An unstable flow of time could definitely fuck with one's appearance in a couple ways methinks.

I also feel like Clavell would have been extremely stressed after the Area Zero stuff because he was closer with the professors. I can't imagine that knowing your close friend is in grave danger, locked in a room in the deepest part of the most dangerous area in the world, would just. Not have any physical effects from the stress. With all that potentially being the case, it's hard to say just how old Clavell is. This is NOT to say he's "young." He's middle aged at LEAST. But given the circumstances and the fact that Pokemon ages +appearances have zero consistency, it's definitely questionable. Cyrus looks Like That and he's 27. Lusamine looks Like That and she's over 40. There's wiggle room for sure.

Maybe Clavell's hair went white early because of stress. Maybe he ages like milk. Maybe jacq just likes older dudes. The world may never know. But the only thing that's clear is that, given the implied timeline, Jacq is not like, 27 as I had previously thought.

That all being said, the Pokemon timeline is incredibly complex and contradictory. Drayden allegedly lived before pokeballs existed and Clavell allegedly had to hand write his Pokedex, but I don't think either of them were alive during Legends Arceus so someone is lying. But hand writing the Pokedex would be understandable if Jacq's Pokedex was the first digital one in Paldea. Which brings up a whole other question: "if Kanto had digital Pokedexes nearly 30 years ago why don't the different regions share the technology with each other? Why is every new region just now developing a Pokedex?" So like. What the fuck is happening.

Is Clavell just saying he had to hand write his pokedex to fuck with you and Nemona because neither of you were alive and/or self aware like 15-20 years ago when the digital Paldea Pokedex was developed by Jacq? Possibly.

I'm hoping this history with Jacq and Clavell gets expanded upon in the DLC, especially given their connection to Area Zero, because this was honestly such an interesting topic to think about. I'd love to discuss it further if any of y'all actually read through this!

#pokemon #pokemon scvi #scvi spoilers #jacq pokemon #director clavell #professor turo #professor sada #area zero #also this means i get to draw jacq with eye bags *breaks fingers*

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unproduciblesmackdown · 1 year

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non post here just collecting current thoughts abt the [what's up with atlas' death and the unlikely connection of mitzi and mordecai through some shared secret relating to it] mystery specifically

firstly i'm tending to presume that mordecai did just shoot atlas; he definitely knows that mitzi did Not, "she didn't shoot anyone"....which also i suppose does not necessarily mean that mitzi didn't kill him. it's possible she did, or mordecai did, or someone else did, and by some non [noscoped by mordecai] method, but that mordecai and mitzi then coordinated in covering up how he actually died by, say, quickly staging some kind of other scene, including shooting him while he had only recently died. but really the mystery here is like, what exactly would these two feel so aligned in cause about. doesn't seem like, say, mitzi could've just paid mordecai to take atlas out, b/c mordecai would either not want to do it Or he actually would, in which case why not do it himself, and earlier, since he was at lackadaisy for surely the better part of a decade. it could've been like "with our combined talents imagine how nearly competent we could be" with mitzi having some kind of key knowledge to plan this heist (murder) or something. but it would still require an Alignment between them of wanting him dead Now, and, y'know, why

their particular similarities that we know of, imo, are that they're probably about the same age (supposing mitzi's around thirty / early thirties) and that they're sort of especially Materially Beholden to atlas and more directly, individually collected by him (versus, say, zib saying he's a collected stray because he'd stay around if mitzi did. he's also a saxophonist which is lower stakes than your new wife or your new guy to kill other guys)....neither mitzi nor mordecai seem to posthumously dislike atlas, but naturally mordecai's barely indirectly commented and it seems to me like mitzi regards atlas fairly symbolically, as the potential for her situation to improve, or at least be as good as it was during lackadaisy's heyday. she may have affection for him abstractly, and we also know via mordecai that the marriage was distant enough before atlas died that mitzi didn't live with him and things had Visibly Deteriorated. it sure seems plausible that mitzi might kill him to inherit things, and turned to mordecai for his expertise in a) doing that & b) perchance making it look like an accident / covering things up, but he evidently didn't want to stay on at lackadaisy No Matter What, i.e. if mitzi was running it instead, and why agree to this, it seems very unlikely he'd do anything just for mitzi's sake or the sake of being paid to do it by her, he has to have his own motivation. and it's possible that, despite plausible positive feelings about atlas still (who did also like, throw him right into mortal perilously dangerous work w/little experience lol, mordecai happening to be immediately good at it or not) he could've, like mitzi could've, still wanted to be less beholden to this one particular person, and achieved that by just killing him lol....but even if their feelings Aligned on that matter, there's a few wrenches, like a) how would they realize this alignment. they're probably not having heart-to-hearts. they're both very close to atlas (at least professionally, for mordecai) and it would be very bold to go "would you happen to wanna kill this guy too" either to his wife or his right hand gun hand hook car door man.

there's also the fact that: viktor is Also someone very limited by his being beholden to atlas, pretty much positioned as close to atlas as mordecai since they were partners, and maybe has the added bonus of seeming marginally more Approachable than mordecai, plus that like, being thirteen years older and beat up on more, maybe if you were looking for an accomplice you'd figure that "idk do you want to retire" would also make him marginally more likely to get aboard murder plans if you're just trying to Find someone to help with that who you don't know would already want to. but he also disagrees with the idea that mitzi is particularly vulnerable / isn't herself at least somewhat dangerous, which seems like something he Might have any knowledge about beyond "idk i just get that vibe," like, did he get to be privy at all to whatever went down there. &/or led up to it.

what seems to be implied here, and makes more sense, is that there was some specific event that both mitzi and mordecai consider to have been unfortunate / undesired / things going wrong, and that involves mitzi enough for mordecai to blame her / her to refer to it being her fault, although she may not necessarily agree. (and does "perhaps i will / not to discount your culpability" imply mordecai Also considering himself culpable. whether that goes beyond "if anyone actually shot him, it's mordecai")

but while maybe there's not much love lost between these two, neither seems to like completely hate the other. civil enough one-on-one here, does seem like mordecai would be negatively affected if viktor had died, "very little interest in defending her" is not "no interest" nor "less than no interest and one can imagine mordecai is being both precise and accurate about what he means, and to exit this car chat by advising mitzi fix the conspicuous bulletholes is, in fact, helpful; he's probably not actually interested in / intending to personally dismantle lackadaisy or anything, and makes sense if mitzi's lashing out just a bit while they discuss sore topics (again, seems neither of them Wanted to have to kill atlas either, so what was the specific impetus....) and also they did just have Lackadaisy's Big Night involving foes that have guns while they (almost entirely) don't, thanks to mordecai's transference of those....which, like, did he just do that himself, or was it on order from marigold....either way, seems more like a nudge like Retire Bitch to everyone there, rather than an effort to sabotage them That perilously

there's also this compelling material

not interpreting Bonus Material as the strictest of canon, in some cases more obviously [not at all] than others, ft. generally more of a light tone / elevated humorousness....but also the not obviously complete jokes ones perhaps not Not canon contradictory, either. a) i want to see the shopping trip and b) fascinating how they are outright discussing that mutual Material Beholdenness to atlas. but a couple of other points arising

one being that i was racking my brain like "whaaaat are the usual Murder Mystery Motives" and then landing on "money" wherein like, besides the theory of "what if mitzi just wanted to inherit lackadaisy, while still Actually Married to atlas despite that maybe circling a drain / maybe atlas, being warned about something by asa, was going to get rid of lackadaisy from his inheritable estate," it also occurred to me like, mordecai originally got in hot water as a bookkeeper, which leads me to presume that he may have been embezzling (though maybe he was the fall guy for someone else's embezzlement, or maybe even some third or fourth things, not even involving embezzlement at all) which, if he was, was presumably for his family, whom he left money for (though he also maybe had to skip town too quickly to retrieve it anyways). and there we see that mordecai may have also been bookkeeping for lackadaisy, too, which i'm going to interpret as perfectly canon backstory. i guess this isn't exactly so different from previously mentioned ideas/elements like "both of these two are aware how beholden they are to this one specific guy, and would like to be less so (through embezzling??)" and "this could be about mitzi wanting to inherit lackadaisy much sooner than later (or not at all)" like, still wanting more of some resource atlas has sooner than later (or not at all....see questions of how much mitzi could have been legally considered to Directly possess while atlas was alive, such as, money) with the same kinds of questions raised of like, how would they realize they aligned on this. there's also a question of like, Would mordecai be moved to elevate the flow of funds here versus just whatever he's already paid, though he'd (maybe) already done that in that original bookkeeping gig for whatever reason. but that may have been more time sensitive and motivating if it was indeed at least in part for his family. which i suppose it could still be Now w/the theory of him just turning around and doing that again. wherein i suppose the idea here is just that they're both in on it, and maybe atlas finding out about it / suspecting too much is such a potential impetus like, whoops, well let's kill him :/ hypothetical 2 for 2 lack of embezzling stealth lol

the other more tangential idea here is just that like, well who knows, maybe mitzi and mordecai Did talk / have tête-à-têtes / an unlikely friendship or friendly acquaintanceship going....again that like, even as professional mostly enemies now and with no especial warmth evident between them, they also don't seem to hate each other even though they Could, even when it comes to this secret re: atlas's death that they're both unhappy with....a lot of writing this stuff out is just how it helps get ideas together lol and not lose entire threads / have derailed trains of thought. like maybe mordecai Would do something mostly for mitzi's sake, if evidently at all begrudgingly. and i suppose the other way round could be considered, i.e. if mitzi would begrudgingly commit to helping kill atlas for mordecai's sake, which still seems the less likely arrangement

oh wait Also i sort of rotated freckle & mordecai juxtaposition, as not being entirely dissimilar, see for one: their having the ideal time the one occasion they were in the same place, that is, completely declining to interact with each other at all lol....but i'm presuming the Mystery of freckle's secrets & backstory are a bit less deep than this more central atlas murder secret, and my interpreguess is that freckle accidentally(? probably.) killed someone(? or almost did. or whatever.) probably his dad(? family tragedies....his hat is still on the premises....) and rocky took the blame, which i'm guessing is out of just being the effective older sibling / pretty close. so i was just half wondering like, well what if mordecai killed someone too rather than being in shit over embezzling. maybe! and how this ties in is that i'm also considering, like, maybe any of this has to do with that Past that mordecai has. the arbogasts were saying atlas Settled Some Of mordecai's pursuing grievances....maybe Lackadaisy Embezzling could be about settling even more via financial payoffs. or something. just a potential troublesome loose thread

there's also the Mystery of "what's marigold bothered about. is what's changed there being this lawful prohibition agent you can't pay off and could somehow shut marigold down longer than ten minutes. and who's in charge of marigold" which is relevant b/c the mystery to me is that, where we leave off in the comic, mordecai is Very Motivated by "how does it figure in re: atlas's death" still and at this risktaking crossroads about it wherein he's clearly positioned at odds with marigold. what are the important things called into question. if marigold knew how atlas died, what would they even do about it. is the problem "well mordecai how do i know you won't also shoot Me, the mystery owner of marigold," seems like something he could expect to be more directly confronted about rather than [what, if marigold knows more about atlas's death and is Just displeased with mordecai about it, they're gonna either Not say anything about it or just try to get rid of mordecai by giving him this hands-on work where he Might be killed?] like, just kill him, And the fact we know the prohibition agent drago Was planning to meet with gracie grombach (and his lawyer, presumably the guy mordecai hatcheted to death just the other night at the start of things) for real, so there's actual reasons to assign him these killings....seems like it's more about things Missing to us as readers about Why they felt they had to begrudgingly kill atlas, what their further mystery connection is / what that impetus was....

oh and back to that [very tangential] tangent re: how i wouldn't have figured mordecai and mitzi interacted much But Maybe They Did, i also before now was assuming that, at least b/c mordecai's business was either in the most dangerous &/or most mathematical work at lackadaisy, he wouldn't have interacted much with ivy, who would've been all of around ten or so when he started there. the pilot specifically illustrates the results of his history with lackadaisy by having him entirely refrain from taking the shot when aiming at her, which i'm also sort of [bonus material]esquely interpreting as "not comic canon noncompliant," but at first i was like, well, like how viktor is protective of ivy / playing concerned patriarch as she puts it, and we know he has a daughter maybe around her age, we also know (from bonus material) that mordecai has younger sisters, including one feasibly also around ivy's age. or just that if you've known someone since they were like 9 or something, you're still reluctant to shoot them. but now i'm Noting that a) most everyone else who's been around awhile, mitzi, viktor, even rocky, has commented on mordecai, but ivy hasn't, which may be a bit Mysterious, and b) in her nightmare sequence moment, she sure not only has this Concept of him, but interacts with him in the dream

which might not mean anything really, but sure might imply she'd talked to him readily enough before, and does also serve as a bolstering / reminder of the idea they'd have interacted, especially since there's the entire factor of "if she was interacting with viktor, this would probably involve all the more mordecai adjacency" like well, interesting, noted, etc

oh and it has to also be mentioned how i'm supposing that also what the savoys are saying about mordecai and atlas, via indirectly framing it by discussing how maître carrefour Already Knows mordecai, can be taken as accurate / is not going to be contradicted. so there's how mordecai seems to resent being called the kind that turns on his partners on a dime (while the savoys Probably had a more uncomplicated departure from their earlier associations. though maybe if marigold knows mordecai was involved in atlas's death, he's Also been hired rather than having been shot, in a stroke of generosity)....and then there's the very broadly relevant description of how, once you take that one path laid out for you, you're Obliged To Him Only, Always, the other paths gone forever....the way pretty much everyone involved was in a place with especial vulnerabilities and limited options at the start, and taking one available path left them kind of trapped there / unwilling to get off of it b/c otherwise they're lost again. what might have motivated a couple of people to snuff out their would-be guiding light, when it's not as though they now act as though they'd clearly found some better one....there's also the fact that serafine characterizes their diable as having a hot temper, wonder if that application could be overlapped with atlas too....and it just handily circles around for rooting for this dream team w/mordecai & the savoys; whether the latter anticipate Not sticking around with marigold forever; the fact that it would be quite a surprise if they do assume that for the first time mordecai is, in fact, just having fun tonight; that mordecai sure may be lost in the dark in-between crossroads rn. rooting for them to stay friends no matter what one way or another. mordecai's as much of a wild card as anyone at this juncture really, keep being wild cards together

meanwhile mordecai not knowing what's going on but laying out some of the confusion is helpful but like, well then we definitely are confused too

i'll say too....really i have to imagine that there Is some bigger missing piece in the [Why] of mitzi & mordecai's murder secret that one could only guess at at best, but i think of this as an effort to kind of feel out the shape of What's Missing thusly, figuratively. and this has been an extensive "i dunno" without any epiphanies falling into place along the way but hey lol, laying it out....if marigold already knows about the How atlas died, namely, if mordecai specifically carried it out, you'd think that if nothing's come of that already, he's fine. or maybe he just wants to Know anyways, though it seems as or more risky to Not kill a guy he's supposed to as marigold's professional killer....he says he's not sure if he knows important Things he thought he knew, plural, unsurprising if there's more than one such important thing we definitely don't know, but suspecting that his concerns might have to do with the big mystery Why they killed atlas, which might also align with how mordecai's reacting to asa saying he warned atlas of [something/s] before his death, which sure doesn't otherwise necessarily imply he knows anything about the death itself. and then mitzi, who should also be in the know, is still asking "how does it figure in" re: connecting his death & if asa Did warn atlas of something....i sure don't know either, and you two have so much more info lol

and Does rushing water count as a clue? cue me trying to zoom in on an illustration to see if the silhouette of a figure reflected in mordecai's glasses could be atlas (don't think it was, or that it'd be a Key Clue dropped thusly anyways) like hell i dunno yeah maybe the rivers are relevant somehow in secret ways, that'd fit, but again only guesses. oh and hey, why would mitzi and mordecai have any kind of gun handoff? maybe as like, a burner revolver lol. i always end up going Shruggg at mysteries but i am enriched by rotating them anyways, especially when it's so tied to character here, and when they're not the only thing relevant to ongoing story so it's just intriguing rather than simply frustrating / stifling to not have already solved them / not the only point of interest. e.g. who Knows why mordecai's having his off the shits saturday but it's so fun that he is. good for him (ultimately) (probably) (hopefully)

#NOT me ever in the past 16 yrs: time to see what [dae notice this] / hypotheses / theories other people have #(which i am saying would probably be useful lol. i'm never the number one mystery solver out here)#the lackadaisy mystery marinators are postinnnnnnng #long post xoxo #hmm also now that i am going over it in my mind: viktor may have yet said fuckall abt mordecai in canon #might be getting tripped up thinking about bonus material lol....intriguing

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1pcii · 3 months

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SHADAHKNKAS saw u in the notes of some kuina posts and that made me realize that there is simply a bond with kuina and tashigi fans, who may even often be the same fan, because AOUGHHH KUINA I CARE HIM SO MUCH episode 19 literally changed me forever. swords + gender struggles are all you need to hook me on a character sometimes Maybe. the whole greatest swordsman promise... sob. also. something about zoro promising his name will reach the heavens and trans kuina. which made me think.. what if kuina and The trans fear of dying then having your deadname on your tombstone that you can't do anything about because you're dead. kuina dying before they even get to figure everything out and all of a sudden he's just known as kuina forever, and then zoro making a name for himself in kuina's honor or something idk (i like zoro's backstory) (KUINA )

THERE ISS. people who theorise that they are secretly related or the same person or direct parallels are so close to getting it but don't imo (no shade to those theories tho, I just personally find them narratively unsatisfying).

like they are parallels in that kuina is symbolic of the sexism people suffer and tashigi is an adult woman who has come out the other end sword swinging but ultimately so unsure of herself as a result. also the (trans)genderisms, we are all hand in hand 🤝.

MAN KUINAS STORY BROKE ME DOWN ON A BASE LEVEL AND REWIRED NY BRAIN. I had to take a break from reading just to let it soak in it's so good, a swordsmans promise indeed, that scene was beautiful, I love zoro the world's first a accidental feminist <3. zoro carrying on her dream with his will never not have me in hysterics.

FUCK YEA THATS SUCH A GOOD IDEA. I have soo many thoughts about baby!zoro and kuina and trangenderism. egg kuina cis zoro, egg kuina STEALTH TRANS ZORO ABSVDJFBKSHDKDN <333.

little baby zoro looking at his grave with the uncontrollable urge to carve out those letters. to carry and rearrange them and make sure they get back to him in the afterlife spelling 'worlds greatest swordsman'.

trans kuina makes me so emotional because ultimately I don't know if they were canonically trans but it's my FAVOURITE 'what if' for them. they never really got to be anyone outside the dojo masters daughter. the failure of a heir and the girl who beat zoro 2001 times. who would they have been if they got to grow up? come to terms with themselves and unlearned all that heavy, painful biases pushed onto them? as a transmasc who's studying into a (cis)male dominated field myself ik, the feelings of 'betrayal' and 'proving misogynists right' and imposter syndrome and inadequacy issues and perfectionism they might've gone through,,, sobbing my eyes out HE MEANS EVERYTHING TO MEE.

zoros backstory is genuinely one of my favourite parts of the manga idc how 'simple' it was it's still beautiful.

#kuina being the greatest swordsman of heaven and zoro being the greatest in hell. and they're besties and everything is good and nice :')#I fucking love him so much it's insane #him and zoro and koushiro are such interesting characters it's kinda a shame all ppl rlly focus on is the mundanity of their death and #how it 'sets a tone' and establishes a sence or mortality for zoro #like those things are important but let's talk about HER TOO!!!#the girl who wanted to be a 'boy' for her dream #who started out in self hatred but could've maybe grown to love of masculinity when exposed to healthy example of it #and I learning the internalized misogyny implanted by his father from within #psii.txt #text #ask #the-neighbours-kid #shimotsuki kuina #<-ooh using the official character tag for organising so if you see this in tag search I have a zero tolerance for ppl calling me or anyone #else a misogynist for having this hc. EPS my fellow transmascs who know what we're talking about #I will just block you #anyway cookie TY FOR SENDING THIS ASK YOU DONT KNOW HOW MUCH I LOVE KUINA... SHAKING UR HAND RN THEY ARE SO FUCKING GENDER 🤝🤝🤝#trans headcanon #trans kuina #trans zoro

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izzysillyhandsy · 5 months

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"You must have a lot of time on your hands"

A list of my (very much Izzy-related) meta from the most recent to the oldest:

After the Finale:

Prince Ricky and Izzy Hands (WHY did noone notice the gun?)

Izzy is punished for every transgression (and dies of a combination of the worst traits of the people he loves/aligns himself with)

Izzy isn't the main character (but he makes the main couple more interesting)

Why do some people hate Izzy so much? (or: it's so much easier to hate Izzy than Ed)

The cruelty of the murder/suicide scene (finally closeness - but at what cost?)

Izzy didn't die of the gunshot alone (Ed's and Stede's suicide missions combined cost Izzy his life)

Poor Izzy aged 10 years in 6 months (he finally looked like a father figure, at least)

Izzy's "death threat" towards Edward (as if Ed would ever believe Izzy could kill him)

The difference between Izzy's and Ed's anger (Inwards vs. outwards)

Ed is an "us" person (Ed and his attachments to "the one" person)

Re: the deathbed conversation (a very confused post where I fail to make sense of it all)

A cool death - Ed's theatrical, performative suicide (Ed and Iz and their rituals, and when Ed went too far)

Death and change in OFMD (maybe it doesn't have to be a death?)

Izzy as Calypso, Ed as Odysseus :) (OFMD and Greek mythology - there are parallels, I swear)

How I learned to stop being angry and love the Death Scene (for now) (the death scene is either well-written or tragic, but never kind)

Thoughts about the finale, and my utter confusion about Izzy Hands (posted 2 days after the finale, expect sadness and confusion about Izzy's purpose in the narrative)

It's only suicide if we die... and Izzy's second suicide was planned to set Ed free (a very weird theory, posted 1 day after the finale - proceed with caution)

What I wanted most from Ep 6-8 - and a very hurt reblog after the finale :( (Ed and Izzy were done dirty)

Between Ep 7 and the Finale:

The meaning of the skeleton mermaid flag and Stizzy's Revenge theory Part 1 as well as Stizzy's Revenge theory Part 2 (my favourite theory ever!!! Should be canon imo)

Ed and Izzy: Cleaning up the mess (too much trauma, too little time - or: Ed needs Izzy to be whole)

Izzy is NOT ok (the "I'm feeling GReAT!!" phase of breakups) (a reaction to people posting "happy Izzy gifs" where he actually looks like he's barely holding it together)

Izzy's Gravy Basket (Ed and Stede had their visions/dreams - Izzy needs that too!)

Ed-and-Izzy-related stuff that stood out for me in episodes 6 and 7 (lovely little moments between those 2)

May I present Izzy's Fuck-I'm-going-to-die-for-this-twat sequence (not meta but kinda prescient)

Between Ep 6 and Ep 7

The Man with a Hook for his Head (it's Izzy - he gets his own symbolic bedtime story)

My predictions for the S2 finale (also, 100% wish fulfillment) (some of that didn't age well)

Too many thoughts about episodes 4 and 5 and "Moving On" (a very emotional post about Izzy and Ed and my fears for their trajectory)

Between Ep 3 and Ep 4

My immediate thoughts about the murder/suicide scene (there's soooo much going on!)

Izzy has love for Ed. Ed has love for Izzy. (it's an unhealthy love but it IS love)

"Can't believe I was living like this" - "I feel like a million bucks actually" (Ed wasn't feeling better at the end of Ep10)

Before S2:

What do you want most for Izzy Hands in S2? (we got so much!!)

What I like about Izzy is that he is so sincere. (my most controversial post for some reason - it's so tame idk? But that was the atmosphere before S2 I guess)

Reasons why Iz is so relatable (to me at least) (my first attempt at explaining why I love Izzy when so many people still hated him)

#ofmd #ofmd meta #izzy hands #edward teach #stede bonnet #I'm very proud of some of those #re-reading them makes me realize the journey we've had #we got SO MUCH great stuff!#also: I'm totally an EdIzzy girl by the look of it 😅

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peony-pearl · 1 year

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There are so many factors at play with Zuko and Iroh’s relationship that could be delved into but were just never really addressed in the show

There’s the obvious ‘son replacement’

There’s Iroh wanting to steer Zuko away from Lu Ten’s fate (and essentially Iroh’s as a former proud prince and general who lost his son to his blindness in serving his own father)

There’s the betrayal aspect in which Zuko really did make the decision of what he wanted after Iroh begged him to take a look at himself (and then Zuko apologized for it later when he probably really didn’t need to)

There’s a bunch of little strings tying things together that just kind of fray at the end with no real closure.

Iroh begs Zuko to ask himself who he is, and what he wants. Iroh is hoping Zuko will find a future for himself there in the city since they no longer have one in the Fire Nation; but there’s most likely a definite motive in that he can watch Zuko grow up in peace unlike Lu Ten under Iroh’s care as a surrogate son; a second chance. Iroh is desperate and coddling and smothering. And when Zuko shows signs of old habits related to Ozai, Iroh gets scared. Going back to Ozai means losing his ‘son’; and Zuko being put back in danger that Iroh can’t protect him from; protection he didn’t give when he was scarred, but he can offer now in Ba Sing Se in the form of a makeshift family - but that’s not what Zuko wants. Both Iroh and Zuko have a tied sense of trauma that leads to a desire that seems selfish at first, but it’s out of a desperate want for family and love that they’ve lost and are wanting to reclaim.

It’s at the point where, again, I think Iroh should have also apologized to Zuko when they reunited - both for his expectations for Zuko to just turn away entirely from wanting to go home and for his anger in the prison. I think there’s actually a good bit of rebuilding on their relationship that could have happened, but they backslide with Iroh returning to Ba Sing Se at the last minute and to the Jasmine Dragon, which imo symbolizes a HUGE backstep since that was a place of hiding true identities even though it was Iroh’s dream job (I’ll get to more conflicted feelings on the Jasmine Dragon eventually). But for Iroh to straight up deuce out immediately after a reunion in which he could have now been Zuko’s only family post-war? uhh bad.

But also, Zuko and Iroh’s relationship could have begun a new transformation if they’d have been able to go through with Azula’s redemption arc. In my happy brain Iroh does stay in the Fire Nation (he gives the Jasmine Dragon to Jin/moves it to the Fire Nation or something idk) so he and Zuko can make sure Azula is getting care/that Zuko’s reign is beginning as smoothly as possible because there WILL be those who feel like a usurper and traitor has stolen the throne; they went from one ruler to another overnight; and even with the Avatar having been the one to defeat Ozai, Zuko hasn’t been around for 3 years and then was branded a traitor and then suddenly was on the throne - that’s grounds for some heavy questioning.

But back to the topic, I think it would be interesting if Iroh was still trying to get Zuko to have leadership qualities he was trying to stamp into Lu Ten, until Zuko finally snaps at him. Iroh realizes what he’s doing and he takes a step back. One day while checking in with Azula she can tell he’s not himself, and she teases ‘who spit in your tea this morning?’. He looks at her and knows that any discussion of his relationship with Zuko is bound to be sour since they still don’t have much of one, and he was highly prepared for her to be a casualty of war during Sozin’s Comet.

But he led his son to being a casualty.

He tells Azula he’s not sure how much more help he can be. His guidance is old, and he is still so affected by losing Lu Ten that he finds himself trying to reel Zuko back from anything risky.

Azula scoffs. ‘Must be nice to have someone so concerned about you.’

This hits Iroh; his realization that no matter how much he and Zuko could come together, other members are hurting. Whether the divide from favoritism or from different sides of a war have split them, they are still in pain from what each other has or hasn’t done.

Can he be the guide Zuko needs? Or could Iroh become something new for both him and Azula? Could he become someone new for himself and to keep honoring his son?

Iroh tells Azula he once asked Zuko to think who he is and what he wants; to which Azula replies ‘you didn’t ask him what he needed.’

and it’s at this point that Iroh makes the realization - he’s the one learning from the younger generation; especially Azula, who he was once an enemy of. If his guidance is outdated, then it’s time for him to listen, and if he’s going to be the same person ever again, it’s to be the patient man he allowed towards an angry Zuko, but this time it’s so Azula can have a safe soundboard so she can recover. It won’t be easy.

But they’re alive. And they can keep trying so long as they don’t give up on each other, and they don’t revert back to the safety of old habits and being who they think the other wants them to be.

#atla meta #Iroh #Zuko #Azula #atla

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