#and thank you for coming home

[hansoeii]

let time pass.

[bacchuschucklefuck]

soon it'll be dawn again

transcript under the cut ⏬

page 01

Fig: no way? - you're still up?

Riz: Wh– yes?

Riz: Why'd I not be.

page 02

Fig: I me~~ean - that took.

Fig: whole day.

Riz: Yeah?

Fig: 'm beat.

Riz: you should sleep.

page 03

Fig: nah. my guy's still up

Fig: I wanna hang out.

page 04

Riz: That's really nice.

Fig: Hah! - Nobody ever expects an Archdevil rockstar to be nice.

Riz: … yeah. - 's just budget work tho. (the stuff I'm working on) - I've heard it's boring.

page 05

Fig: yeah, but you do it…

Riz: It keeps things going, right? - Nothing happens if nobody sits down and - does the thing.

Fig: That's right… - though. Yeah.

page 06

Fig: sometimes it's someone else who - doesn't want the same thing to happen.

Riz: … - mm.

page 07

Riz (off screen): …It took me a long time to get that not everyone likes doing what I do. - 's probably because you guys are so nice– - or. - kind.

Riz (off screen): to anyone too, not just. - the people you /love/.

page 08

Riz: that's not how it is elsewhere. - The world's– not. hostile. - but 's not like it's kind.

Riz: So I'm doing as much as I can now… 

page 09

Fig: Hey.

Riz: ?

Fig: Go dig some dirt with me.

page 10

Riz: [blank speech bubble] - oh you meant like - actual dirt. (not incriminating information)

Fig: o yea.

Fig: there's clay in the backyard soil. - sometimes when I'm sun deficient or something I go touch dirt for a bit.

page 11

Fig: here u go

page 12

Riz: uh

Fig: now we make a thing! - 'm pretty good at freehanding a bowl.

Fig: I'll show u

page 13

Fig: just– yep, flatten that out as evenly as u can, then–! - actually ur nails'd be so good at cutting out the strip. [larger than usual space] wait. - wait. wait u can carve patterns with them! we HAVE to try

Riz: uh - What. do I carve?

Fig: anything!!!

page 14

Fig: and– yep just seal the inside uh. seam?

Fig: yep that works - okay time's up! all contestant hands up

Riz: [blank speech bubble] - okay - wh. what's next?

Fig: haha - watch this.

(sound effect text): FWOO—MP

page 15

Riz: WH– DON'T JUST DO THAT???

Fig: Now it's fired!

Riz: THAT WAS NOT SAFE

Fig: (actually it's just dry. if u add water rn it'll dissolve)

Fig: ok catch!

Riz: [blank speech bubble] - careful!!

Fig: dw no need haha

page 16

Riz (thought bubble): oh - it's warm…

Fig: now I want you to throw this.

page 17

Fig: u gotta do it - c'mon

page 18

Riz: wh– - It's like 3AM right now

Fig: oh it's not /fired/ fired it's not gonna make a loud noise

Riz: And then just? leave a pile out here?

Fig: pour water over it & it'll be gone I told u

Riz: but

page 19

Fig (off screen): RIz.

page 20

Fig: I've done all this before.

Fig: Can you trust that at least?

page 21

Riz: no, I– - I do. - I trust you.

page 23

Riz: okay what happens now

(sound effect text): glob

page 24

Fig: we do it again!

page 25

Riz: wh. [larger than usual space] What do you mean. (this clay's too wet also)

Fig: see! you're already learning

Fig: [blank speech bubble] - there are flows that are futile to fight. - The world changes.

Fig: Things change.

page 26

Fig: I've learned my lessons with "forevers". - But - as an artist

Fig: I can give you one thing: - You can always do it again.

page 27

Fig: most of everything depends on the rest of the world, - but this. - making new. - that's yours as long as you want it.

page 28

Fig: So?

page 29

Riz: Yeah. - Yeah! - let's make another one.

[cairafea]

On the idea of Theseus's Ship: in the end, it's still his, isn't it? It was known as Theseus's, and it will continue to be known as Theseus's.

Even after he has returned to the ground which grew the wood of the hammer used to nail the ship's frame, Even after generations of new wood have rotted and the sails are rags clinging to threads, Even after millennia,

it will still be Theseus's Ship.

Thank you for bringing us home.

Goodnight, Phosphophyllite.

[vivalabunbun]

Happy Late Birthday to my Duke 🐺

[muffinlance]

prompt: Ozai has Azula watch Zuko (his progress or rather lack thereof) from way earlier on, possibly even before Aang gets away from the iceberg in the first place

There it is, written at the bottom of his banishment notice, wobbling in and out of his vision and he’s not sure if it's his eyes—

(Father wouldn’t have meant to blind him. Being blind won't help him catch the Avatar, so he’ll just not go blind.)

It’s either his eyes, or. Or the rage. It has to be the rage.

So Zuko reads the line again, and lets the fire brim up and overflow, until sparks chase the shout from his lips.

“Banishment to be overseen by Crown Princess Azula?”

- - -

“Prince Zuko,” Azula says, standing as tall as an eleven year old can. She’s using his title, so that he’ll use hers. And if he doesn’t then he’s ill-mannered and not fit for his own. 

“Crown Princess Azula,” Zuko grits out.

“I’ll just be inspecting your ship, then. Father’s orders.”

Two men are in shackles by the time she’s done. 

“—Fostering mutiny against your prince,” she is yelling, and somehow her voice is just as high-pitched as his without sounding childish at all. “When our father hears about this—”

- - -

“So you had them executed,” Fire Lord Ozai inquires. Lightly. And from behind his flames.

“Of course, father,” says the kneeling child. “It was an attack on our family.”

Her father doesn’t say anything.

Azula is eleven. Eleven, she had presumed, was old enough to count. 

One, two, three. Four, with Uncle. The royal family.

Her father is silent still.

One. Two.

“Forgive my impertinence, Fire Lord,” she says. “I will bring them to you for judgment next time.”

“Do so,” Fire Lord Ozai says. He does not contest the ‘next time.’

- - -

“Crown Princess Azula,” Zuko says.

“Your bandage is off, brother,” Azula says. “Are you blind?”

“No.”

(The blur of her red robes, the eye-searing glint of sunlight off her headpiece—he’s not blind in that eye. He’s just… still recovering.)

“Lovely,” she says. “Then what’s your excuse for the condition of this ship?”

…He has an increased budget for repairs, by the time she’s done. 

- - -

“Brother,” Azula says, “traditionally knives are to be delivered to the back.”

“I… what?” her brother says, still holding out the inexplicable thing. “No, I bought it at port. For you. See, it matches the one Uncle got me.”

“How original,” she says.

Her brother turns a shade of red that puts his bending to shame. Not that it’s a particularly high bar. “Fine, I’ll just—throw it out.”

“Oh, don’t be so dramatic. At the least, Mai will want it.”

- - -

“Nice knife,” says Mai, looking at the hilt peeking out of Azula’s boot.

“Be silent,” Azula says, thus ending that conversation.

- - -

“Did great-grandfather… did we…” starts her brother, fresh from scurrying about the Eastern Air Temple like some particularly dim-witted pheasant-monkey, the dust not even brushed from his clothes even though he knew her ship was waiting down here. “Azula, there were children—”

“Be silent,” she says.

- - -

“You’re leaving frequently,” comments father, as his knife cuts through the pheasant-monkey, clicking against the plate below. The persimmon-cherry sauce is thick and red and smearing.  

“I find it advantageous to cultivate a working knowledge of our nation’s tactics,” Azula answers. She does not push around her meat like a child, but she does eat only lightly; the dish is more sour than she remembers.

“And your brother?”

“Oh, him,” she says, to which her father smiles.

- - -

“...What?” Zuko asks, blinking down at the scrolls. 

“It’s your birthday,” Azula says. “Apparently, I should have gotten you a calendar.”

“Thank you?”

She sighs.

- - -

“Do we… tell him we can hear him?” asks the assistant cook, as the prince continues monologuing. Dramatically, and loudly. Through the pipe connecting the drain of the kitchen sink to the ones in the shower. 

“Ssh, I think this is one of his new plays.”

- - -

She gets him a calendar for his next birthday. It’s not funny.

- - -

He gets her a doll, for hers. The look on Uncle’s face as she torches it in front of them both is hilarious.

- - -

“Brother,” she says, looking up at the damage to his ship. “This is not the way to requisition additional repair funds.”

“Captain Zhao,” her uncle says in the background, with heights of pleasant antagonism she can only aspire to. As if a general could mistake Zhao’s new insignia. Particularly with all the polishing he does. 

“It’s commander now.”

“How did you manage this?” she asks.

“Uh,” Zuko says. “Can we… speak alone?”

She eyes her brother’s shifting stance. Eyes, too, the way Zhao’s men are already moving to intercept and interrogate his crew. One of the new commander’s more noxious habits is stalking her brother’s every move. 

Well. She’d been meaning to deal with that, anyway.

Azula snaps her fingers at the commander’s guards.

“Detain him,” she says. And for a moment, just a moment, her dear uncle freezes, as if she were talking about someone he actually cared for.

The guards don’t. She’s trained them better than that.

“Princess,” Commander Zhao says, his snarl well hidden behind a smile. “What is the meaning of this?”

“Crown Princess Azula,” she corrects. “Now hush; the adults are talking.”

- - -

They have an Avatar to catch, apparently. Her brother is coming home.

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

*throws this at you at the speed of sound and runs away* I just want you to know how unwell your description of fantasy Wally and Home makes me. An intimate relationship with no fathomable label!?!!?!!! One of them is a creature/demon of void!?!!!!!??? They love each other but not quite romantic maybe not platonic but perhaps a secret third option!?!?!!!!! :DDDD!! ANYWAY! here ya go!

Plus an uncovered version

Took an artistic liberty or two for style, hope you don’t mind

[yea-baiyi]

i keep thinking about the odyssey i am THINKING about wei wuxian as odysseus. you were dead. its been years since you’ve seen your family. the child you left behind is almost a man. you wear a face they don’t recognise, you sneak in through the back door. the dog gives your identity away. the world knows it’s you when you draw your weapon. the person you love recognises you by the original symbol of your love—a secret that no one else in the world knows about, still, because they kept it safe for all these years. you get the chance to go back and despite everything, you found home waiting for you; he kept your place and raised your son and he was still there waiting for you when you got back. tell me o muse, about a complicated man i am extremely not okay

[acheemient]

R.I.P. Achievement Hunter

2008 - 2023

It was fun while it lasted.

[crimeronan]

people being like "hunter needs structure and stability" respectfully hunter DOES need stability - in that he needs an environment where he's no longer afraid of the people around him & is confident that he'll always have a safe place to stay n safe people to call - but the kid absolutely DOES NOT need structure. if anything hunter needs LESS structure. this is mister "teens are probably into the same things as me, like authority and rules" please be nice to him.

my absolute favorite hunter darius dynamic is one with like, hunter asking to stay out late on a school night or whatever bc luz has some cool-as-shit event happening in the human world that he wants to attend & darius is just like "you can do whatever you want forever" & hunter's like "aren't you...??? going to....??? give me a curfew????"

darius: why would you need a curfew?

hunter: because i-! what if i'm TIRED before SCHOOL

darius: then you can skip a day.

hunter: [HORRIFIED GASP]

darius: kid. look. you already extensively weighed the risks and benefits of going to this thing on a school night. right?

hunter: ......i did make three charts.

darius: and you determined that the benefits outweigh the risks. with your three charts

hunter: .....yes

darius: ok.

hunter:

darius: so.

hunter:

darius: in conclusion. you can do whatever you want forever.

[sophfandoms53]

Y’know if someone were to have told 2015 me that people would be associating Shadow the Hedgehog with Angel of Darkness in the year 2024 unironically I would have looked at them like they were insane but here we are

We are so fucking back actually

[dawnbreakersgaze]

The way this line kind of ruined me

"As long as there's the mountain and Zayne"

Be it Dr Zayne and the mountain that stole his best friend William, where he watched him die the most agonizing and painful death possible while he struggled and failed to help him and carries that death through nightmares still

Or the Foreseer and the mountain that kept him prisoner by chain and thorn for god knows how long, not only denying him the basic needs of socialization and freedom, but taunted and weaponized his love for mc countless times

Or Dawnbreaker and the metaphorical mountain of bodies and burdens he's forced to shoulder on a psyche and ego that is so paper thin it's almost transparent, just strong enough to do the work that no one else is willing or capable of doing but for how much longer can he sustain it

Zayne and His Mountain

There is a reason this song is my #1 Zayne song 🔗🔗🔗

[say0ranarts]

cyno

[chuluoyi]

being mature is realizing that even when you have a lot of things to say bc you’re disappointed, you won’t because you have to take other people’s feelings into account :’)

[rotisseries]

so we definitely get shin soukoku pride month then right

[ride-a-dromedary]

Halsin and Wyll deserve their babies ever after ending.

[hamletisintown]

Ah, yes, my favourite Genshin Impact character /looks at smudged writing on hand/ Worcestershire sauce.