#tobistory

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We know from this post that his full name is Nathan Isaac Swann and he is sixteen years old. We also learn that he is half blind, his hair turns from brown to red at some point (like his mother,) and he is currently in the custody of a woman named “Gabriella Swann,” who is presumably his legally recognized mother, with Lazari being his true biological mother. 

I… have no idea who Gabriella is, and neither does Mod Madam. Checking the Tumblr yields no results, and we weren’t able to find anything on DeviantArt. It can be assumed that Gabriella is an aunt, cousin or some other relative of Lazari and Loretta Swann. It doesn’t matter, really, since there’s actually reason to believe that Nathan is actually living with Slenderman in his house, not with whoever “Gabriella” is. Nate is aware of people like EJ and Jeff, as shown from this post, and it’s semi-implied he sees them often?

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So maybe Nate has run away from Gabriella’s home and began living with Slender? Nate was apparently being abused by a “stepfather”, possibly Gabriella’s husband/boyfriend/partner and most likely in Gabriella’s home, as you will see later, so it’s possible he ran away and began living with Slender, mirroring how Lazari began living with Slender after living with her abusive mother. Or maybe Gabriella is also living with Slender? Eh, moving on…

We also learn from this post that his biological father’s name is Zachary. That…is interesting. Why?

Because, Zachary is the name of EJ’s replacement character in The Demon Within, the short-lived reboot of I Eat Pasta for Breakfast made by Tobi in 2018, years and years after Nathan was first planned out. It’s interesting to know that Zachary, a character that Lazari was going to have a child with, ended up replacing EJ, the character Lazari had a crush on.

That kind of begs the question; how old is Zachary, really? Was he planned to be Lazari’s age in the original comic, and he was changed to be older for Demon Within? Or were he and Lazari always going to have this big uncomfortable age gap? I have no answers to these questions.

Either way, it’s clear that Zachary was not the one Lazari ended up marrying in the end, since it’s confirmed by Tobi that Laz grows up and marries someone named Sam, or as he’s known on the streets, “Chaotic Sam.”

title: Laz Wishes date posted: April 17, 2015 description (unedited): The AU where Laz got a chance to raise Washington and Nate with her husband Chaotic Sam. 

Sam and Washington belong to Eve-of-Halloween 

Nate and Laz are mine

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The question of Nathan’s parentage is thrown into question, since on March 13, 2014, Tobi made this post to the Tumblr.

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So Nate’s father could be Zachary, or it could be Sam, or maybe Zach was Nate’s biological father but Sam is Lazari’s husband, or maybe Nate just doesn’t have a father at all. Anyway, moving on…

The first Tumblr post mentioning Nate makes it clear that he is not living with his parents, but we later learn from other Tumblr posts that the reason behind this is because he was abandoned by his parents. It is never stated why. In that same post where we learn he has been abandoned, we also learn that the reason why he is currently asexual is apparently because he was sexually assaulted as a child.

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It’s unclear who Nate’s abuser is, other than the fact that he’s his step father. Searching Tumblr and DeviantArt yielded no results.

It is also unclear if Nate’s brother Washington was also abandoned by Lazari. Tobi is just very vague about who Washington is, other than the fact that he’s Nate’s younger brother.

title: Laz’s Sons date posted: September 18, 2015 description (unedited): Washington and Nate, Lazari's sons.

Washington is owned by Eve-Of-Halloween.

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Either way, it’s clear that Washington is aware of Nate but has not met him yet, at least at the planned start of the comic, judging by his dialogue of “I’d imagined you to be taller.”

If you’ve read any of the posts on this blog, you’ll know that Tobi had the habit of constantly spoiling things that were gonna happen in her comics, and from one of her posts we know that Nate would eventually be reunited with Lazari, and it wasn’t really the best, most wholesome event. 

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(side note: we also learn from this post that Stripes/Eloise gets betrayed by Zalgo and leaves his faction, adding further credence to the fact that Zalgo was 100% planned to be the overarching villain of this story before Tobi randomly decided that she hated Slender for no reason and ruined her own story just so she could make Slender the bad guy.) Once again, I have no idea why Lazari abandoned Nate. In the “Laz Wishes” piece mentioned earlier, it uses the wording “got a chance to raise Washington and Nate” So maybe she didn’t abandon him by choice?? It’s not clear at all.

Okay, all that was just baby stuff. Extremely surface level information. How about we get into the real shit?

link This is why we made the inner demons post before making this one. Because you need the context of how inner demons work in order to process what this post is implying. If you haven’t read that one yet, read it here. Doing a full recap in this post would take way too much time and space, so consider it required preliminary reading before diving into this section.

This implies that Zalgo was planned to have died. We know that naamalgoids can only become inner demons once they’ve died, so Zalgo being an inner demon here means he must have died. The thing is, it’s sort of implied that there is only one way Zalgo could have died, being killed by his father Naamah.

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If Zalgo wanted to die so badly, and he planned on doing that by releasing Naamah, it’s implying that Naamah was the only way he could ever die. So… that means that Zalgo succeeded in his goal of freeing his father? Whether or not this is true and the consequences of Naamah being freed are not known.

Back to Nate, we’re told by Tobi that Zalgo’s presence is the only stable thing in his life.

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And….yeah! After that absolute bombshell of tobistory, that’s all we know about Nathan Swann. Maybe one day Tobi will finish his story? Maybe one day Tobi will go back to her old blog and just tell us all her plans for I Eat Pasta for Breakfast that just never came to fruition. Maybe Nate’s story will stay a mystery forever. 

We should begin with Naamah, since he’s the origin point of all of this.

Naamah is the father of Zalgo and all his siblings, which include the likes of Lazarus, Luna, Mastema, Abbadon, Glaukos, Apophis, and others. He is described by Tobi as “the demon of all demons,” being about ~1200 years old and having an unknown amount of children. Zalgo himself was born with the name “Ashtaroth” and is the youngest of his children, being only 300 or so years old during the events of IEPFB.

Children of Naamah are called “naamalgoids,” which follows the same naming convention given to Zalgo’s children, “zalgoids.”

We don’t know that much about Naamah or where he came from, other than the fact that he is “the youngest of 13 high demons” and he hates Zalgo the most of all his spawn.

I would like to point out that Naamah being the weakest of his batch of demonic siblings, as well as Zalgo, is an interesting parallel between the two.

Anyway, we know that Naamah was apparently a tyrannical, evil father, as we’re told he “twisted the kids to follow him” in Tobi’s own words.

We see in one of the screenshots that it apparently took 20 naamalgoids to seal Naamah away, with literal seals that keep him wherever they’re keeping him. Apparently, Zalgo’s motivation throughout IEPFB was to release Naamah by breaking the seals that hold him captive, so that Zalgo can die himself.

This also explains this panel that appeared in page 286 of IEPFB, which we do not get any elaboration on.

This could also explain Zalgo and Slender’s falling out, which we learn about from this post.

It’s possible that freeing Naamah could lead to some end-of-the-world situation that Slender wants to prevent. That, or Slender is bitter that Zalgo broke up with him to pursue offing himself. But that’s neither here nor there.

So now onto the inner demons. We know that inner demons are naamalgoids, specifically dead ones. If that was ever in question, we have these posts from Tobi’s tumblr.

Every child that spawned from a naamalgoid seems to have an inner demon. There isn’t much proof about ONLY the kids of naamalgoids having inner demons, but seeing as nobody but them have any, that appears to be the case.

It’s not entirely known what inner demons do, but we know that their presence in a goid’s body causes them to change forms, as both Lazari and Sadiya look different with and without their inner demons.

We also know that Lazari’s hunger comes from her inner demon, as his traits somehow transferred into her for whatever reason.

Lazari also seems familiar with Lazarus, even before she began training under her mentor, Litamares, and seems to be friendly with him and trust him, at least before she discovered that he is the cause of her condition. It’s possible that she was even aware of Lazarus from birth, although there’s no evidence to support that little theory of mine.

Other than that, we are not entirely sure what inner demons actually are or what the extent of their power over their host goid is.

And that’s it. That’s literally all we know about inner demons, at least from what we could find after scrubbing through Tobi’s Tumblr and DeviantArt page inch by agonizing inch.

This post was made as a prelude of sorts to the Nathan Swann post. Knowledge of inner demons will be important to understanding Nate and the implications of his own inner demon.

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title: Not The Same Girl date posted: May 22, 2017 description (unedited): Baby nugget and Salty nugget

Commentary: This just further confirms what we all know; Laz in the beginning of IEPFB and Laz near the end are very different people, with older, pink-haired Laz having gone through a lot to change her outlook on the world around her.

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title: Laz and Laz Screenshot date posted: December 21, 2016 description (unedited): Laz and her innerhunger having a nice little chat.

Commentary: This is some way more interesting stuff. We see Laz talking to a creature that looks similar to her, albeit with darker, redder, and curlier hair, who Tobi calls her "Innerhunger." It's possible that this is an alternate version of Lazarus, though that seems unlikely, as Lazarus in his current state was already present in IEPFB before this was posted.

There are other possibilities for what Innerhunger is… either it's another entity living within Lazari's soul, similar but not the same as Lazarus, or it's the consciousness or "version" of Lazari that takes hold when she is in her Zalgoid or Hungry forms. Either way, the use of the term "innerhunger", as in, one word, instead of "inner hunger" is interesting. This "Innerhunger" character also appeared much earlier in the year in this other piece, as shown below.

title: fite me WIP date posted: February 26, 2016 description (unedited): a Work In Progress of a Lazari painting

What exactly is Innerhunger? We will probably never know…unless Tobi finds this blog… uhm…

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title: Neck Mouth date posted: August 25, 2016 description (unedited): To answer some questions Yes Lazari can eat with her neck mouth and it can talk but that's only when Lazarus connects to it.

ALL HE DOES IS TELL BAD JOKES AND EMBARRASS LAZARI

Commentary: This isn't really related to Lazari's character, but it's a cool little fact… Laz's neck-mouth-thing can move, talk and eat independently of her! It's actually used by Lazarus to communicate with other people, though it seems that he doesn't use it very regularly. This implies that the other body-mouths that other zalgoids and similar creatures have also connect to inner demons. We'll be making a full inner-demon deep dive soon, so if you don't understand what exactly I'm talking about here, stay tuned for that. But for now, you should know that this implies that Luna, Stripes' inner demon, can talk through her extra face mouths.

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title: How The Fuck Does This Work date posted: August 25, 2016 description (unedited): I did Laz's hammerfist variations. The uses get explained in the comic though so I am not spoiling it.

Commentary: Tobi refusing to talk about future spoilers for IEPFB is hilarious, considering how much she spoils all throughout her DA page… anyway, this was posted alongside Neck Mouth as a explanation for how Lazari's hammerfist works. Once again, not very character-related, but pretty cool. The hammerfist is kind of a big deal in later IEPFB (well, not really, but it is pretty prominent in like, two scenes). So if you were ever looking for a reference to draw this thing, here it is!

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title: Is It A Spoiler date posted: March 3, 2016 description (unedited): I found a sketch that I did a while ago

it looks cool

bye now

//fades away

Commentary: This requires some extra context to understand. If you saw our previous post, "Visions of a Future that Never Was", you'll know that the bite Lazari inflicted onto EJ at the start of the comic spreads throughout his body and infects him, turning him into Laz's corrupted servant. We learn in this piece that EJ still maintains his consciousness and perhaps even his autonomy, though Laz ultimately controls his fate and his limits. Lazari seeming triumphant implies that she is at least somewhat resentful of him for throwing her out the window during Christmas, which does go against her thoughts on the matter that we see in the actual comic itself. Either way, it's more Servant EJ lore, which is always welcome in the Chibi-Works Museum.

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title: Tobi and Laz date posted: Febuary 24, 2016 description (unedited): Tobi meets Lazari

Lazari is like meeerrrr

Commentary: "Tobi" in this does not refer to the IRL artist, Tobi, AKA Chibi-Works. This is another one of Tobi (Chibi-Works)'s OCs, whose full name is "Tobi Kagahara", or "Tobi K." for simplicity's sake. Tobi K. is NOT a creepypasta OC, but rather a character in Tobi's original comic, Chiboplica. I'm not very well versed in the Chiboplica lore, but perhaps a full post on Tobi's other comics will be made one day. Anyway, back to the Lazari lore! Although Lazari is usually seen and portrayed as very chipper and friendly by both Tobi herself and creepypasta fans who make art and fiction of her, Lazari seems bitter and standoffish to Tobi K. Even somewhat offended that Tobi K. seems to want to know more about her. We know this is later-IEPFB Lazari because of the pink hair, so we know why she's so different from the Lazari most people remember, but it's still quite facinating. It's possible Lazari is only friendly to people older than her and dislikes interacting with people her age, as we see her being passive and not really trying to connect when she meets Sally in IEPFB, but that's neither here nor there.

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title: Laz again date posted: November 21, 2015 description (unedited): Laztato is best Laztato

8 12/13 18/19 36/37

Commentary: This is a re-draw of Lazari's age chart. Design-wise, nothing much has changed between both versions, although Tobi's art skills have visibly improved. Aside from that, those familiar with the old age chart would know that eighteen-year-old Laz has a very kind and outgoing expression, whereas this new version of the chart has her with a more defiant and agressive one. We also can infer from this that Laz can have two hammerfists at the same time on either hand, which do not match eachother. Laz's body being extremely asymmetrical is an interesting design choice, since everything in nature that came about from evolution ALWAYS have symmetrical features. Notice humans, animals, plants, et cetera. Lazari having an asymmetrical build adds to the idea that she is not natural, at least not to us or our understanding of nature.

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title: Ask 37 date posted: September 8, 2015 description (unedited): Don't think everyone of my characters enjoy killing. Half the time its not a want but a need.

Commentary: This doesn't really add to LAZARI's character, but we do learn a lot about Stripes from this one post. Stripes, apparently, is pacifistic! She dislikes killing and apparently only does it when she needs to, or when her father asks her to. We learn from this that Zalgo pushes Stripes to do things she doesn't want, but she is so devoted to him she will do whatever she needs to make him happy. This interesting dynamic of Zalgo being a controlling father is just… WIPED AWAY with later IEPFB pages and Stripes' backstory comic which show he was ALWAYS a good father an "No guys, he's the good one, Slender's the bad guy!!" but whatever, I'm getting ahead of myself. Another post will eventually be up archiving and commenting on Stripes' backstory comic, titled "Worth," but not now. This post has enough content already… now, we move on to the Tumblr posts!

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Tobi gives a VERY specific answer in this post, implying she had a character in mind for all 35 of them. It doesn't add to Laz's character at all, just an interesting find.

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This is basically just Tobi shitting on her old content, which is understandable. Still, to give my own Mod Leechi perspective on it, I always hate when content creators begin to despise the early work they did to make them famous in the first place. It's always frustrating to see.

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This is one of many raceswapped Lazari art that was either made by Tobi or promoted by Tobi. Tobi herself is black or at he very least mixed-race from the IRL pictures of her that are available online, and I imagine its very nice to see your popular character be represented with your own race.

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This further adds to what we learned from the Servant EJ posts we reviewed earlier. EJ retains much of his autonomy, but ultimately, Laz is in control.

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TW: DISCUSSION OF INCEST AND MENTION OF RAPE

This will be the last post we will review today. The naamalgoids (Zalgo and his many siblings) being based on Greek gods actually tells us a lot about them and how Tobi writes them. This is why Zalgo doesn't care about rape, and why he has so many different children. Lazari being a half-blood esque creature is extremely interesting, as that means that IEPFB is her version of a Greek epic with a half-blood hero at the center. This is a REALLY cool idea and I would love to see someone dive deeper into this "Zalgo as a Greek god" concept.

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