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seasonsrpg2024-04-01 06:04 pm
urtitan) wrote in seasonsrpg2024-04-01 06:04 pm
Tarot: The World (Reversed)
WHO: Frieda Reiss
WHAT: Frieda is going through it (enormous struggle dump inside!)
WHEN: First half of April
WHERE: Abandoned Graveyard / Secret Getaway and other areas in the Seasonal Segments
WARNINGS: AoT-typical heavy topics - mention of genocide, murder, mental instability, violence, war, etc.
[Many things have been moving at a different pace for Frieda ever since she inherited the memories of her ancestors. This still holds true here in Ellipsa. On some days, she can live in the moment and enjoy spending time with her sister, the few friends she's made, and other people (neighbours, magic school classmates, vendors whose shops she's become a regular at), but on other days, everything she's learned about her homeworld's future since arriving here pulls her under and makes her ruminate for hours on end, lost between those new revelations and the painful history going back 2,000 years.
Lately, those days have become more and more common.]
1) Safe Zone: Mermaid Encounter
(OOC: Since a lot of Frieda's development is internal, I wanted to chronicle it, but as it's pure introspection, by all means skip ahead to the bottom of this humungous prompt if you'd like to!)
[Frieda's first month in Ellipsa was overshadowed by grief after she learned that in the not-too-far future, most of her family will be killed alongside herself. But eventually, her unbreakable inherited will helped her overcome that struggle. What of their deaths? All Eldians should die. It's only right if the royal family dies first. She accepted it, and with a calmer and clearer mind, she could finally focus on starting to unlock her magic and supporting the local ongoings, resolved to make the most of the time she had left.
However, her encounter with Eren, her unintended successor, made her question whether she wasn't too hasty to content herself with her fate.
Eren's resentment of how the truth was kept from the people of the Walls - doubtlessly shared by all of her subjects - made it clear that he doesn't want the Founding Titan to return into the royal family's hands, and Historia, Frieda's only surviving sibling, made it clear that she doesn't want to take it from her friend. In the future they experienced, the outside world failed to eradicate their people, "merely" breaking Wall Maria - which did cause thousands of deaths through its short- and mid-term consequences -, and everybody learned of the truths that the Reiss family hid for a century.
There will be no repeat of the 2 millennia of oppression by the Eldian Empire, given that Eren can't unlock the Founding Titan's full potential and the royal bloodline, should it regain possession of it, is prevented from doing so by the inherited vow, but the situation has nevertheless given Frieda many sleepless nights. In the face of the changed circumstances, her passive stance has started to shift.
I have to take the Founding Titan back from Eren. That's the first conclusion she arrives at. He told her that he'd never go home if he can help it, and she believes him - but what if he gets no say in the matter? What if he gets sent back to their homeworld against his will? It can happen. They both know that.
Much as the imperative to keep her people from becoming a threat to the world again dictates her decision, everything inside her recoils from it. She can't murder Eren! She couldn't murder anyone - not with her own hands, in any case. She knows all too well that all the blood her enforcers spilled within the Walls stains her hands nonetheless (and that of prior rulers' enforcers' victims, too, because she can't and won't exempt herself from bearing the sins of her ancestors). Eren is Historia's friend... What of it?, argues that reasonable voice inside of her, Historia is a disappointment for not acting in the best interest of humanity despite understanding our history. Who cares what she wants?
Frieda has to leave the apartment for longer and longer stretches of time, on occasion even hastily excusing herself to Historia to keep herself from angrily lashing out at her. Sometimes, she wants to grab and shake and even hit her for thinking that's it's acceptable for Eren to keep the Founding Titan. If you won't take it back for our family, I will! What are you even good for?! It takes all her strength to keep herself from attacking her own beloved sister like that, and when the urge eventually subsides, she's desolate each time.
However, after a while of agonising and trying to reason with different parts of herself, she manages to set aside the initial conclusion, for what is ultimately a very simple reason: If she took Eren's titan powers (most realistically by enlisting the services of an assassin, much as she does back home), he'd simply take them back from her once he'd be reborn into this world.
It's a given: Much as she doesn't want him to return home and resist the Eldian atonement plan, he doesn't want her to return and work towards its fulfillment either. For being ideological opponents, the two of them were reasonably cordial towards each other despite the palpable tension, but if she were to turn on him, he'd surely retaliate in kind. As it is, he holds the stronger position, having actual experience in using his titan's powers, and if he wanted to, he could already have taken hers. She mustn't disturb the current balance.
What can she do, then? Her silent internal struggle continues for days or weeks (she can't tell anymore, even though it's interspersed with uninterrupted stretches of normalcy and little joys - somehow!) until a realisation more bitter than anything prior dawns on her: There really is only one way to ensure that the Eldians of Paradis Island won't be a threat to the world anymore. If the outside world will fail to eradicate them, their ruler must do it.
He entire being refuses that solution. How could she possibly do that?! She can't even murder one person! All those innocent people..!! No! No!! But all Eldians must die. In her mind, she practically screams at the first king of the Walls. How dare you not finish what you started?! How dare you leave it to your successors? You couldn't do it because you loved your people? How do you think I feel?! But of course, there's only her own mind to answer her, and despite fighting against the resolution with all she has, she's drawn further down the path, exploring her practical options.
In that state, she can't bear the city. Even in quiet places, she may encounter people, and while they're not her subjects, she can't endure their innocent eyes on her, feeling beyond monstrous for what's going on in her head. As such, she takes to the safe zones in the Segments to find some solitude.
She avoids the cold Winter Segment - the watchtower is close to the city, and people pass by there with relative frequency. Likewise, the Temple of Life in the Summer Segment is intermittently frequented by people coming to gather fruits or tackle the video game simulator inside. The waters of Ellipsa have provided an embrace and escape for her ever since her arrival, and so, she can ultimately be encountered in mermaid form, resting at the bottom of the Secret Getaway's lake-pond or on the safe side of the iron fence separating the Autumn Segment's flooded graveyard from the monster-infested wilderness.
It's unlikely that anyone else would dive in either body of water, but who knows! If she doesn't encounter anyone in the depths, then at some point, when she finally feels like herself again, having battled the mental images of death and suffering away for the day, she has to exit the water, and perhaps it's then that she and the other person visiting the safe area startle each other through her sudden appearance on the water's surface. Whether underwater or above, she'll call out in the same way.]
Oh..! I'm sorry, you scared me!
[She says that as if she isn't the weird one for popping out of a place that's definitely not a designated swimming area!]
2) Unsafe Zone: Titan Encounter
(OOC: Feel free to choose the Segment, otherwise I'll use an RNG!)
[In the end, Frieda manages to stabilise herself to a degree by resolving to do what Eren decided: To never return home. It's painful to imagine that she'll never see her family - safe for Historia - and other dearly beloved people again, but she simply can't abide the thought of having to complete what her ancestor wasn't able to even begin. She'll rather follow her successor's example and remove the Founding Titan and its powers from their world forever. That way, at least any ever-so-remote chance of total titan domination will be gone.
Of course, the conflict between her inherited will - which had to adjust to an unforeseen change for the first time since its implementation - and her still persevering wishes as a human being remain almost impossible to reconcile. She has to make compromises with herself. Since she can't guarantee the length of her stay in Ellipsa, she needs to at least prepare for what must be done if she is sent back to her homeworld.
Unwilling to look at the horrible methods she'd need to employ in such a scenario, she instead puts her focus on something very basic that she nevertheless neglected: Her control over her titan manifestation. If she is forced to return home, it won't do if Eren's father kills her before she can do anything to prevent history from playing out as Eren and Historia experienced it.
She feels ashamed to have outright squandered a quarter of her remaining lifetime, idly waiting for her and her people's extermination... how could she have been so naive?! But she always was, wasn't she? She bitterly remembers her idealistic 15 year old self, volunteering to inherit the Founding Titan from her uncle with a smile, confident that she wouldn't give in to her ancestors' ghosts, without even knowing of the history of the world. Stupid. Ignorant. Selfish.
She closes her eyes to try and ground herself. She's on a mission and needs to focus. As a titan, it should be a lot easier to identify safe areas for new teleport- and barrier stone installations. Having tested out beforehand that she'll still be conscious of herself and her objective while in titan form, she deems it safest to transform a good distance away from the teleport stone she just used to travel here. After all, she wouldn't want to startle someone else arriving!
Little does she know that there are still reckless people venturing into the Segments on their own despite all the warnings - and not necessarily by ground, given the many airship license holders, winged mount owners, and people able to fly either naturally or by way of animal transformation! As such, should she really be surprised when someone approaches her 13 metre tall dark-haired titan? That is, if she'll even see them coming...]
WHAT: Frieda is going through it (enormous struggle dump inside!)
WHEN: First half of April
WHERE: Abandoned Graveyard / Secret Getaway and other areas in the Seasonal Segments
WARNINGS: AoT-typical heavy topics - mention of genocide, murder, mental instability, violence, war, etc.
[Many things have been moving at a different pace for Frieda ever since she inherited the memories of her ancestors. This still holds true here in Ellipsa. On some days, she can live in the moment and enjoy spending time with her sister, the few friends she's made, and other people (neighbours, magic school classmates, vendors whose shops she's become a regular at), but on other days, everything she's learned about her homeworld's future since arriving here pulls her under and makes her ruminate for hours on end, lost between those new revelations and the painful history going back 2,000 years.
Lately, those days have become more and more common.]
1) Safe Zone: Mermaid Encounter
(OOC: Since a lot of Frieda's development is internal, I wanted to chronicle it, but as it's pure introspection, by all means skip ahead to the bottom of this humungous prompt if you'd like to!)
[Frieda's first month in Ellipsa was overshadowed by grief after she learned that in the not-too-far future, most of her family will be killed alongside herself. But eventually, her unbreakable inherited will helped her overcome that struggle. What of their deaths? All Eldians should die. It's only right if the royal family dies first. She accepted it, and with a calmer and clearer mind, she could finally focus on starting to unlock her magic and supporting the local ongoings, resolved to make the most of the time she had left.
However, her encounter with Eren, her unintended successor, made her question whether she wasn't too hasty to content herself with her fate.
Eren's resentment of how the truth was kept from the people of the Walls - doubtlessly shared by all of her subjects - made it clear that he doesn't want the Founding Titan to return into the royal family's hands, and Historia, Frieda's only surviving sibling, made it clear that she doesn't want to take it from her friend. In the future they experienced, the outside world failed to eradicate their people, "merely" breaking Wall Maria - which did cause thousands of deaths through its short- and mid-term consequences -, and everybody learned of the truths that the Reiss family hid for a century.
There will be no repeat of the 2 millennia of oppression by the Eldian Empire, given that Eren can't unlock the Founding Titan's full potential and the royal bloodline, should it regain possession of it, is prevented from doing so by the inherited vow, but the situation has nevertheless given Frieda many sleepless nights. In the face of the changed circumstances, her passive stance has started to shift.
I have to take the Founding Titan back from Eren. That's the first conclusion she arrives at. He told her that he'd never go home if he can help it, and she believes him - but what if he gets no say in the matter? What if he gets sent back to their homeworld against his will? It can happen. They both know that.
Much as the imperative to keep her people from becoming a threat to the world again dictates her decision, everything inside her recoils from it. She can't murder Eren! She couldn't murder anyone - not with her own hands, in any case. She knows all too well that all the blood her enforcers spilled within the Walls stains her hands nonetheless (and that of prior rulers' enforcers' victims, too, because she can't and won't exempt herself from bearing the sins of her ancestors). Eren is Historia's friend... What of it?, argues that reasonable voice inside of her, Historia is a disappointment for not acting in the best interest of humanity despite understanding our history. Who cares what she wants?
Frieda has to leave the apartment for longer and longer stretches of time, on occasion even hastily excusing herself to Historia to keep herself from angrily lashing out at her. Sometimes, she wants to grab and shake and even hit her for thinking that's it's acceptable for Eren to keep the Founding Titan. If you won't take it back for our family, I will! What are you even good for?! It takes all her strength to keep herself from attacking her own beloved sister like that, and when the urge eventually subsides, she's desolate each time.
However, after a while of agonising and trying to reason with different parts of herself, she manages to set aside the initial conclusion, for what is ultimately a very simple reason: If she took Eren's titan powers (most realistically by enlisting the services of an assassin, much as she does back home), he'd simply take them back from her once he'd be reborn into this world.
It's a given: Much as she doesn't want him to return home and resist the Eldian atonement plan, he doesn't want her to return and work towards its fulfillment either. For being ideological opponents, the two of them were reasonably cordial towards each other despite the palpable tension, but if she were to turn on him, he'd surely retaliate in kind. As it is, he holds the stronger position, having actual experience in using his titan's powers, and if he wanted to, he could already have taken hers. She mustn't disturb the current balance.
What can she do, then? Her silent internal struggle continues for days or weeks (she can't tell anymore, even though it's interspersed with uninterrupted stretches of normalcy and little joys - somehow!) until a realisation more bitter than anything prior dawns on her: There really is only one way to ensure that the Eldians of Paradis Island won't be a threat to the world anymore. If the outside world will fail to eradicate them, their ruler must do it.
He entire being refuses that solution. How could she possibly do that?! She can't even murder one person! All those innocent people..!! No! No!! But all Eldians must die. In her mind, she practically screams at the first king of the Walls. How dare you not finish what you started?! How dare you leave it to your successors? You couldn't do it because you loved your people? How do you think I feel?! But of course, there's only her own mind to answer her, and despite fighting against the resolution with all she has, she's drawn further down the path, exploring her practical options.
In that state, she can't bear the city. Even in quiet places, she may encounter people, and while they're not her subjects, she can't endure their innocent eyes on her, feeling beyond monstrous for what's going on in her head. As such, she takes to the safe zones in the Segments to find some solitude.
She avoids the cold Winter Segment - the watchtower is close to the city, and people pass by there with relative frequency. Likewise, the Temple of Life in the Summer Segment is intermittently frequented by people coming to gather fruits or tackle the video game simulator inside. The waters of Ellipsa have provided an embrace and escape for her ever since her arrival, and so, she can ultimately be encountered in mermaid form, resting at the bottom of the Secret Getaway's lake-pond or on the safe side of the iron fence separating the Autumn Segment's flooded graveyard from the monster-infested wilderness.
It's unlikely that anyone else would dive in either body of water, but who knows! If she doesn't encounter anyone in the depths, then at some point, when she finally feels like herself again, having battled the mental images of death and suffering away for the day, she has to exit the water, and perhaps it's then that she and the other person visiting the safe area startle each other through her sudden appearance on the water's surface. Whether underwater or above, she'll call out in the same way.]
Oh..! I'm sorry, you scared me!
[She says that as if she isn't the weird one for popping out of a place that's definitely not a designated swimming area!]
2) Unsafe Zone: Titan Encounter
(OOC: Feel free to choose the Segment, otherwise I'll use an RNG!)
[In the end, Frieda manages to stabilise herself to a degree by resolving to do what Eren decided: To never return home. It's painful to imagine that she'll never see her family - safe for Historia - and other dearly beloved people again, but she simply can't abide the thought of having to complete what her ancestor wasn't able to even begin. She'll rather follow her successor's example and remove the Founding Titan and its powers from their world forever. That way, at least any ever-so-remote chance of total titan domination will be gone.
Of course, the conflict between her inherited will - which had to adjust to an unforeseen change for the first time since its implementation - and her still persevering wishes as a human being remain almost impossible to reconcile. She has to make compromises with herself. Since she can't guarantee the length of her stay in Ellipsa, she needs to at least prepare for what must be done if she is sent back to her homeworld.
Unwilling to look at the horrible methods she'd need to employ in such a scenario, she instead puts her focus on something very basic that she nevertheless neglected: Her control over her titan manifestation. If she is forced to return home, it won't do if Eren's father kills her before she can do anything to prevent history from playing out as Eren and Historia experienced it.
She feels ashamed to have outright squandered a quarter of her remaining lifetime, idly waiting for her and her people's extermination... how could she have been so naive?! But she always was, wasn't she? She bitterly remembers her idealistic 15 year old self, volunteering to inherit the Founding Titan from her uncle with a smile, confident that she wouldn't give in to her ancestors' ghosts, without even knowing of the history of the world. Stupid. Ignorant. Selfish.
She closes her eyes to try and ground herself. She's on a mission and needs to focus. As a titan, it should be a lot easier to identify safe areas for new teleport- and barrier stone installations. Having tested out beforehand that she'll still be conscious of herself and her objective while in titan form, she deems it safest to transform a good distance away from the teleport stone she just used to travel here. After all, she wouldn't want to startle someone else arriving!
Little does she know that there are still reckless people venturing into the Segments on their own despite all the warnings - and not necessarily by ground, given the many airship license holders, winged mount owners, and people able to fly either naturally or by way of animal transformation! As such, should she really be surprised when someone approaches her 13 metre tall dark-haired titan? That is, if she'll even see them coming...]
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[Russell doesn’t really know how to swim but potentially being able to see the fish up close did sound like an interesting prospect. Like a fully immersive aquarium!]
…Just to explore, I guess. I didn’t know this place was here or anything. I just… wanted to get away.
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Me too. What are you trying to get away from? If you'd like to talk about it, that is. Do you want to walk with me? Or rather stay here?
[Her titan powers will prevent her from falling sick, so it's not like she needs to move around to dry under the sun. If anything, staying in once place is her trademark. Hasn't she - like every holder of the Founding Titan since the Walls were built - been content to wait for the end to come? Even now that she has to change course, her first impulse is still to stay motionless.]
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[He swings the stick at his side, looking around as if surveying his surroundings. It would be good to get a better lay of the land here.]
……We can walk. I don’t know this area well yet.
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It's safe out here. Monsters avoid this place.
[Except for her, of course! Her self-loathing is really strong right now.]
Are you a new arrival?
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A week or two now.
[It still didn’t feel real. He’d learned to use the teleporters, but still had a penchant for just walking around places and exploring like he’d done in the Nameless Town and surrounding areas, so it was entirely possibly he’d made the trek.]
That’s good. … I don’t mind… monsters, though.
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[He wouldn't be the only one!]
I've been here for over three months now. My name is Frieda.
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[He looks up, visualizing the Catties and the Pengii, the Watchins and the Feynins, the Kelpie and the Draken. He said he didn’t know if they were friends, but he had at least one Draken who was one for sure, right? …He didn’t deserve that friendship, though. That was no small part of why he was running away from Kantera today in the first place. He shakes his head lightly to try and clear the thought away.]
…I’m Russell.
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[It's easy to smile for Russell. It'll be easy to smile for Historia when she gets back home, too - until her next "episode".]
How come you had to fight? Are you an adventurer back home?
[He's still so young..! Then again, Frieda has met other young combatants here in Ellipsa, and even back home, the minimum age for military enlistment is only 12 - but realistically, only children with no other perspective and a will to fight actually pursue that path. (That'll change dramatically, of course, once Wall Maria will be breached and leave countless orphans in its wake - but that's exactly what Frieda is hoping to prevent.)]
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No. I…
[How do you explain “I’m a murderer who was subjected to highly experimental research where all my memories and subconscious manifested into a reality inside my dreams to teach me the concept of guilt” to a stranger?]
…was taking part in an experiment. Sometimes I would run into monsters.
[Yeah, that’ll do nicely.]
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An experiment? Was it in a virtual world, like what we just did here?
[Given that he's been here for a couple of weeks, he likely got caught up in that!]
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…No, not exactly. It was… in my dreams.
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[She wonders how much she should prod him. Historia, being her youngest sister, would readily tell her about her dreams when Frieda visited her in her childhood... but that obviously wasn't the same kind of situation.]
Are you upset that your experiment was interrupted when you were called here? Or was it exhausting for you?
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……The experiment was over by the time I was called here.
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[She still doesn't really know what the experiment was about - whether it measured his sleep quality or the vividness of his dreams or whatever else -, but if it's completed, at least he shouldn't have that uncertainty hanging over his head.]
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I was… the first success. ……But I was miserable.
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[That's the first possibility she thinks of, and if that's the real reason, it's terribly relatable to her. She lets her eyes wander over the tall grass and the many flowers all around them.]
This isn't a dream, but I'll be sad when our time here is up and we have to go back home, too. My world isn't as nice as this one, and I'll miss everybody I met here.
[Even now, she feels torn. Initially, even learning of her family's impending deaths couldn't make a dent in her resolve to return and do her duty, but now that she knows how much worse everything will derail afterwards, staying away seems safer for everyone.]
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[His brow furrows. His feelings towards the people of the Nameless Town were highly complicated, to say the least. Again, he falls silent for a spell.]
……Do we have to go back eventually?
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[It's her first time at the multiverse rodeo, so she's not sure what to believe. In addition, she isn't even convinced that Ellipsa can still be saved in a meaningful way - in the simulation, the land enveloped in Darkness was revealed to consist of nothing but black sand anymore. The again, people have been saying that it was merely a limitation of the virtual reality.]
If you had freedom of choice, what would you prefer to do?
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I dont know. I don’t… have anywhere to return to anymore. … But someone like me doesn’t deserve this second chance, either.
[Guilt guilt guilt…]
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...
I won't press you for what you've done - I'm a sinner myself. Do you think there's value in atoning for what we've done by trying to help this world?
[She's asking sincerely, not knowing what the correct answer is. Right now, though, she feels pessimistic. Even if she contributes to aiding the local people, it won't make up for the endless string of terrible deeds her ancestors committed back home. As per her inherited will, the only acceptable atonement is for the Eldians to disappear - and it's hardly acceptable if only she as their ruler slips away into a nice foreign world!]
1/2
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……No matter what I do, it won’t bring them back.
[His voice is quieter, worn out. He looks away from her, staring straight ahead.]
…Doctor said I should help the people here, though. ……That they’d be grateful for assistance, even from trash like me. So…
[So that’s where he’s at right now. He didn’t have an answer to the atonement question either, but he at least had a bit of direction.]
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[2,000 years are such an unimaginably long time. How many people were made to suffer under her predecessors' reign? She wants to cheer Russell up, tell him to not put himself down... but it'd be hypocritical, really. Even though she's an adult, she doesn't have any guidance for him.]
Sometimes, I wish I could just disappear. But this world won't allow us to do that. If we otherworlders die, we're reborn here. Did you know that?
CW I…Implied suicidal ideation? I guess? idk man
A desire to disappear. To escape. He understood well the weight of Frieda’s words.]
……Do you know that because someone told you or from your own experience?
[Oh my god Russell you can’t just ask someone if they’ve died and you definitely can’t just ask someone if they’ve tried to kill themselves?! And yet here he is, doing just that, expression indifferent as ever.]
Let's sticky that CW with these two!
Someone told me. I've seen the big flowers in the Flower Yard, too. We can only leave this world if we arbitrarily get sent back home. But no one is forced to help work against the Darkness. Is there anything else you'd like to do?
Good call :|b
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Not me literally forgetting this thread until months later like ‼️
No worries, the plot didn't hinge on their fish watching! ♡
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CW suicide mention
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