#aaa thank you;;;;

[trashcanwithsprinkles]

ill have u know i binged read all 26 chapters of jd AND redownloaded tumblr all during my finals week bc of ur amazing story alsjjdh. i actually found myself pleasantly surprised when i (stalked) your account and saw that you wrote many other stories that i bookmarked! you have such an exquisite and enthralling way of writing its amazing.

anyways some of my favorite moments were childe (of course) simping over zhongli’s not-smile which was literally the cutest thing ever esp when zhongli tried to hide it with a leaf. it was also a great (yet bittersweet) callback to him being insecure over his fake smile and teeth. persevere, childe. the crush may seem one sided but slowly but surely it’ll pay off 🫡. also everyone being able to tell what zhongli’s feeling bc of his eyes is so sweet and sad as well. just makes me wonder how he felt ruling liyue especially since guizhong was dead and he was pretty much alone for the most part (well, same situation here but still…)

speaking of, i wonder if we ever get to find out what happened to teyvat liyue? the gnosis is under the sea and presumably childe wont set off osial since thatd be uh. certainly a move. or maybe the explosion prematurely loosened his seal? and the sudden disappearance of the well loved consultant zhongli is definitely not going to be unnoticed, either. anyways i saw the happy endings tag so yay!! whether or not he’s back in teyvat or sticks with the gang here is a happy enough ending in my boat.

sorry for the yapping (and i AM a yapper) but thanks for all of your hard work <3

hnnn thank you;;

a couple of asks did wonder how things would play out in the liyue archon quest w/o zhongli there n the tl;dr is that since everyone saw rex lapis get killed the fatui (or anyone else for that matter) wouldn't be put under suspicion of anything, so it would end up being a mystery investigation quest of the qixing + adepti + the fatui all collaborating to figure out what even happened and where tf the gnosis is. childe indeed wouldn't release osial n he'd be the only one mad enough to go dive into the now abyss-corrupted depths of guyun to fish for the gnosis lmao the contract between the tsaritsa n zl had no clauses for this scenario, so since it wasn't fulfilled but technically not broken either, she never tells childe the truth n signora thinks its hilarious that he'll never know n so accidentally takes the secret to the grave and i say mystery investigation quest but i think that would be happening in the background, the main plotline/gameplay would probably be hu tao making the funeral for rex lapis. she would be the only one to make the connection that mr zhongli was morax n thus would spend the entire quest trying to talk her way through the funeral rites being made to mr zhongli's liking without making it obvious that that's what's happening hahah

[ribbonentrails]

it's too dangerous to go alone take this~

[evenlyevi]

Memories

[legayllyblonde]

drawing i made for a narumitsu fic i’ve been writing for the past couple months! it’s 29k words of phoenix tackling his hardest case yet: getting edgeworth to agree to a pet name. completely finished & uploaded, T-rating, established relationship… link’s here if you're interested, if not, enjoy the sillies!

for venturing under the cut, i reward thee with the title card & section break illustrations! my favorites are the origami family and the popcorn pigeon :P

and finally... tigerworth...

[to-be-a-dreamer]

No but seriously can we talk about the horrifying tragedy of William Kaplan in the MCU?

That child died. He's dead and no one is mourning him. He died and a stranger took over his body. He died and everyone's memory of him is being replaced by a different person. His parents don't know and even when they eventually find out they'll never be able to bury their son.

Do you think they're grieving him? Do you think, on some subconscious level, they know their child is gone? Do you think they feel guilty because for all they know they're just being selfish about "William's" memory loss? Do you think they'll be able to stop loving Billy, the child they've raised for the past three years, just because he's not really William? Do you think Billy will stop loving them just because he found his "real" family?

Do you think William will ever get to have some kind of memorial?

[canisalbus]

🍳

.

[queenusagiblog]

How do you like it?💅🏻

commission for @dnpstardust

[felassan]

[tunemyart]

So I've just watched the finale and I'm feeling... Weird. I think part of it is because this show started with everything I like in a story (cool badass ladies, a queer romance, found family, redemption, etc etc) and ended up being... Not all that (most characters die, the romance is doomed, and I guess the redemption mostly happened but wasn't entirely satisfactory to me). Also, I'm someone who as Trauma (tm) with death so, I guess my brain's first reaction is "fuck that I just want them all happy and safe" and it takes me a while to accept when stories take these paths, however well written they might be.

Still, I thought it all went a bit fast in the last 2 eps, with parts of the show ringing just a little bit more hollow than I would have expected? I'm left feeling like the characters of Alice, Mrs Hart and Jen were treated a bit superficially (Lillia's story felt more complete). I also wished we had seen more of Agatha's past because spending centuries just conning witches then killing them is... a bit boring? (maybe we learn more about her in WandaVision, I haven't seen it). And obviously I wished we had seen more of Agatha and Rio. It's like the show couldn't decide if it was about Agatha or about Billy (partly because, I'm guessing it's setting up a 3rd show about him?), and with this short format we ended losing a bit on Agatha's part.

Anyway, curious of what you think of all that because your analysis are always super interesting, and like I said my own brain might be a bit biased towards resistance with this one. And obviously would love to read your fanfic(s) should you write any!

So, I've started and restarted a reply to this a few times, but I think what my answer boils down to is: we're meant to have multilayered responses to this finale. We're meant to sit with it. It's meant to change our experience of the show we've had to this point.

I think the best metaphor for this is the fact the revelation that Rio is Death. Bear with me, because I know this got spoiled for us way early on and we all knew it and were all just waiting for the revelation to drop - but imagine for a second that we didn't know that Rio, Agatha's ex-girlfriend and spooky fun vaguely-a-psychopath as played by the delightful Aubrey Plaza, is death. Your perception of Rio would have been turned on its head. Your perception of Agatha would have been turned on its head. Your perception of the Witches' Road and what we're even doing here with Death walking alongside us as a tourist would have been turned on its head.

Now, we all had an incredibly fun time even with the knowledge that Rio is death before we should have had it. But I think some of the power for what it meant for the story - and our perception of what was really happening - was muted.

Jen, at the beginning of 1.08, says, "She told us who she was from the very beginning."

Sit with that - because the same is true of this story.

---

It turns out that the Road is a metaphor for death. This isn't fully illustrated for us until Nicky, the author of the Ballad, walks down the road with Death's hand in his, and we go, oh. Oh.

Agatha tells us in the beginning that the Road doesn't exist, a rare instance of her giving anyone unbridled truth. And sure - the Road that our coven walked down doesn't exist. The Road that all the witches Agatha lured to the deaths believed in doesn't exist. It's a fiction. But it's significant that Agatha lured them all to the Road and killed them. They wanted to walk the Road. They died. Not "they died instead" - it's a two-fold statement. They wanted to walk the Road and they died. In a gruesome way, Agatha's been taking witches on the Witches' Road since the 1750s.

I don't think the significance of that is lost on Agatha, either, especially where we pick up at the beginning of 1.08. Lilia's dead, and everybody's reeling.

Perhaps Agatha more than anybody.

---

I also want to quickly take a look at Rio's accusation of Agatha regarding Billy.

"The bodies are really piling up." "Did you doubt me?" "Yeah, I did. I thought there'd be a trick in there somewhere. And there was! You were distracting me from him."

Because this is a revelation about Agatha's actions toward not just Rio, but any audience watching her - i.e., us the viewers. She's been distracting us! Not from who Billy is, we know that of course, but with regard to what the Road itself is. Agatha's known the Road isn't real the entire time. She's been protecting Billy from that knowledge. She's been protecting Billy from Rio. She's been protecting the coven itself from disintegrating. And, the biggest con woman move of them all, she's been distracting us - with less and less success as the show goes on - from the fact that she is not even the slightest bit in control.

---

So I definitely want to circle back to what you said about how the show started out with everything you like in a story, because oof, yeah, I felt that. I felt that hard in the finale. Coming off the impact of the incredible storytelling in 1.07, and the queer jokes and campy Wicked cosplay balancing out the sad, I think many of us spent the next week expecting some kind of emotional resolution that probably involved the remaining coven banding together in some more of that found family we've felt them becoming along the way.

Here's where things starts going wrong, right off the bat: they don't. Instead, they splinter. Not only are you aware of just how few of them are left (Jen, Billy, Agatha), but Jen and Agatha can't handle Lilia's death. Jen's distraught. The close up on Agatha running away out of the trial and back onto the Road, alone, shows her looking hunted and wild in her guilt. Everything that follows has its seeds in that moment of rending that began with Lilia's death.

From the beginning, the point has been that Agatha Harkness is a covenless witch. It's something we've seen her revel in - maybe simply because she has no choice but to own it. But the fact is that here, for the first time in centuries, she had a coven. She didn't intend to have one - she intended to kill them all in her basement and not think twice about them again. But events transpired the way they did. They became her coven. And one by one, they all died on the Road.

Rio, of course, has the words to cut right to the quick: "Your coven is shrinking," she teases Agatha cruelly. Agatha looks wild - because she's right. The worst thing is that she killed Alice - and she didn't mean to. She didn't want to. But she did, and in exactly the same way she'd intended to kill her at the beginning, the same way she's been killing witches for hundreds of years. "Your coven is shrinking," and it's Agatha's fault. It's Agatha's coven. It's Agatha's coven.

Hold on to that, too.

---

One of the things that I've been mulling over most is Agatha's character. She's so much fun in the beginning. We're all fucking charmed by her. We also don't have the full context of just how much of a serial killer she is.

So for me, at least, watching 1.08 and not only not getting found family, but getting an Agatha so far away from a "redemption" story that she only just barely is willing to not sacrifice Billy for herself, was kind of a rude awakening. Agatha's a lot more of a villain that I was prepared for. Surprise!

Agatha's so far away from "redemption", in fact, that she's only just barely starting to feel empathy for other witches. She's just starting to be affected by people who aren't #1. And that's a trauma response. And it's so, so, so deeply rooted in her that she's only just starting to be able to conceive of the idea of people who care for her. Of the possibility of being able to live in community. She's not ready for a redemption arc. There was no way that the kind of redemption arc she'd need could fit into nine episodes, because so much of it would for her be predicated on a mental shift that Agatha just hasn't arrived at yet. She's still so angry. She's still so traumatized. She's done almost none of the work. And even at the end, even with the final gesture of sacrificing herself for Billy, that's not a final act of redemption, oh Agatha's now a good person/forgiven/insert word frame of choice.

What this show did in terms of redemption for Agatha was set her up to be in a place where she might want it - where she might want to do and be better for Billy, and someday, for Nicky.

And it's significant that that point comes for Agatha in dying��� and after death.

---

This show is about death. The Road is about death. Death is a character on the show.

Like, okay, you're saying. Fine. But what about my gay fun times? What about my queer romance, my found family?

And please know that I'm there with you.

I'm not hugely in touch with what the larger fandom is saying and how they're reacting because I have my little echo chamber here on tumblr and a few friends who have actual social media, but even here I get the sense that we're all kind of :/ for fairly similar reasons. What happened to the show I fell in love with?

And for me, the last few days, I think it's been important to realize that the fact that the show I fell in love with didn't suddenly become a different show. It didn't pull a bait and switch. No twists were in bad faith. Everything has been right here in the text of the show from the very beginning.

And I think it's important to see the story that Jac Schaeffer et al. were actually telling vs. our expectations of what they were telling, or worse, what we wanted them to tell. For just one example, I was convinced we were going to see Alice again - maybe Lorna Wu, too. I wasn't expecting it to be for the sole purpose of recognizing that not only is she dead, but to give Alice herself the space to say that it wasn't fair, that she wasn't ready, that she'd just broken her family's curse, that now she can really do something with her life! Because, ugh, yeah! It's not fair, for all those reasons! But that's also death. Likewise, Sharon's just dead, and worse, her death was pretty much meaningless. Lilia rediscovered herself again, and she chose her death to save everyone else - extremely meaningful. But at the end - she's just dead. We don't see her again. She's gone. She, like the others, walked the Road and away with Death.

I loved these covenless witches. I loved them finding themselves together. I loved them bonding around the campfire and discovering community. I miss them all, so so much. But they told us from the beginning how haunted by death all of them were: Alice and her mom, Lilia and her coven in Sicily, Billy and William Kaplan, Agatha and her son and her ex-lover. And of course, Death herself. Forget haunting these individuals - she came to actually join the temporary coven. Like, fuck. They told us what this show was about.

---

This show is about death, but it's more complicated than that: we'll take our cue from Rio again, who, in being Death, is also the original Green Witch. In short, this show is about Green Craft, "growth and decay in constant flow."

So yes - almost every single witch in the coven dies. Yes, it's permanent. No, the queer romance isn't resolved happily. No, Agatha doesn't have a redemption, satisfying or otherwise. And no, none of it follows what we've come to expect from found family story trajectories.

But the focus shouldn't be solely on the decay. There's a whole cycle of growth coming up after it, even now, and it's being made possible by the death and decay that we just witnessed. And most importantly, it's confirmed that this isn't the end of the story - just the end of "Agatha All Along."

---

I'll finish by actually answering your question - I've been sitting with the finale for a few days, because I also felt weird about it. And I think that's the right word: "Weird." Very spooky season-esque, first of all, but also not tipping all the way right into "bad".

The first thing to acknowledge is that no story is perfect - they were limited by nine episodes by what they had the space to show, and finales are really hard to get just right. The second is that you're allowed to not like any or all of it, especially when something happens that asks you to change your entire understanding of the story thus far, i.e. the Road isn't real, or when you have a particular trauma around death and it turns out that that's what the whole show is about in ways we hadn't fully realized. The third is that it's worth sitting with stories sometimes and seeing how they marinate and develop in your brain and your soul over time. All of these things can and should coexist.

This isn't my first go-round with a series finale that initially made me ???, so I was fortunate in that I felt like I had a cheat sheet. I've still got some marinating to do to see how this continues to change for me. But it's helped me to realize that my ??? reaction is what the story wanted me to have - that the characters are reeling right along with me. Not just Alice in shock about her death, but also Billy at the implications of his creation of the Road regarding his responsiblity for what happened on it. We're meant to feel this way… and then we're meant to reconsider the journey we've been on, the Road we've walked with all of them and the death we've died alongside them, and see it anew for what it really is.

[themisterhip]

🦾TRAINING SESSION🦾 (PART 2)

Swap AU made by the awesome: @zurka-durka

I'm obssesed with them HELP-

[badmilkk]

Ringo! 🦁

[thestarlightforge]

Edit: Tone Tag 😭 I am not yelling at y’all, I’m just exploding in my little gay disabled wandavision young avengers bubble. It’s all excitement/relief/love over here. 😊💙

JAC REPURPOSED WANDA’S CRAPPY RITUALISTIC AMNESIAC STORYLINE FOR GOOD

“JUST PRETEND I’M NOT HERE” JAC SCHAEFFER— 🫠

IT’S NOT TWO KIDS IN ONE BODY, THE HEX INDIRECTLY KILLED WILLIAM KAPLAN, BILLY MAXIMOFF IS REALLY BILLY WITH A REAL SOUL THAT HAD NO HOME—HE’S REALLY WANDA’S SON, TOMMY’S BROTHER

SOME OF HIS MEMORIES GOT MUDDLED AND HE LEARNED TO REPRESS SOME OF HIS MAGIC, BUT HE COULD BARELY EVEN GET OUT CALLING REBECCA “MOM” IN THE KAPLANS’ LIVING ROOM AND HE NEVER REMEMBERED WILLIAM KAPLAN’S LIFE—BECAUSE WANDA’S KIDS WERE REAL AND HERS, WHETHER 45 YEARS OF MISOGYNISTIC COMICS WRITERS LIKE IT OR NOT

“WHO ARE YOU?” “WILLIAM KAPLAN.” “SAY AGAIN?”

“I’M BILLY MAXIMOFF” AND

“I’M NOT THAT NICE” 😭

BILLY MAXIMOFF FELL IN LOVE WITH A BOY, HE DIDN’T JUST TAKE WILLIAM KAPLAN’S BOYFRIEND TO BLEND IN

JAC DIDN’T FORGET ABOUT TOMMY, NO ONE DID—THIS WHOLE THING IS FOR HIM AND HE’S EVERYWHERE

WILLIAM KAPLAN’S LAST WORDS WERE “MOM, LOOK OUT” AND

BILLY MAXIMOFF’S FIRST WORD OUTSIDE THE HEX

WAS “TOMMY” 😭

[jubshead]

Rio’s nickname for Lilia is Lily and she always has the flower around her house to remind her of her favorite green witch

[rootspiral]

hello! i’m thinking about The Hug again and how much the way agatha embraces rio looks like for a while there her primary goal it just to comfort rio. then the situation flips again so quickly but the way she cups the back of rio’s head and pulls her in and rio melts is so- anyways idk where i’m going with this but i’ve always found this scene so interesting because i feel like agatha is exuding tenderness and protection for rio and it’s so very different from the way she acts around her in the rest of their scenes together, i don’t really know what to make of it. do you have any more thoughts on that, aside from what you’ve shared in the deep dives etc?

I think that around the campfire and during the HUG Agatha was letting herself feel - maybe for the first time since Nicky died - sorry for Rio. And Agatha is by no means an empathetic person, some of it is nature but she also very much doesn't want to feel sorry for others, that would make all the serial killing a tad more difficult, you know? It's no surprise that she empathizes the most with Wanda and Billy who are so similar to her, she's self-centered like that!

When it comes to Rio, Agatha is making an active choice to hate her, to cast her as the villain who took Nicky, because the alternative is blaming herself or blaming no one at all, and then what? She'd be alone with her guilt and sorrow, and she can't have that.

(It's interesting that if you put Agatha in a situation where she doesn't blame Rio and she's allowed to grieve freely you get detective Agnes. Who's still a mess and still has some very unhealthy coping mechanisms, but when she doesn't associate Rio with Nicky? Her true feelings, that sappy romantic yearn, really start to show.)

Let's see what Agatha went through just before the HUG (I really like to call it that in all caps). She learned about Lorna Wu using the Ballad to save her daughter. She almost lost Billy and cried in front of the others. She then had a moment of genuine bonding with Billy. Around the campfire, she experienced a rare sense of community and connection. As a result she was more vulnerable than usual, more open and tentatively receptive to other people. In other words, she was exercising her long atrophied empathy muscle.

I really think that Rio opening up and talking about Nicky caught Agatha off guard. Not because she didn't know that Rio was in pain too, it's more like she'd always refused to acknowledge it or linger on it.

And look, despite all, these two really, truly, deeply love each other. Rio was Agatha's person, the only one she ever opened up to, her partner, her whole support system. Agatha has accidentally let herself feel these old familiar feelings and now her heart is melting for Rio. The hug is a a rare moment of selfless love from Agatha, it's "I see you too and I miss you and I'm sorry."

And then she flips it over because of course she does. If you think about it, it's exactly what happened when she killed Alice. Because Agatha is always so starved, the moment a treat is within reach she can't help herself, her body reacts before the mind can stop it. And just like that giving becomes taking. It's what Agatha does.

[xxplastic-cubexx]

May I offer you a hastily drawn picture to wish you a good get-through-the-week? :3

HELLO ??????? HELLO hot gluing this to my eyes IMMEDIATELY thank you so much i feel myself becoming stronger already

[canisalbus]

i decided today was as good a day as any other to learn how to 3d sculpt and then trace and animate the model…

so i made a little machete to spin in my head

(i still want to fix the snout length a little so it looks consistent, but i feel like it’s a pretty good first attempt at this)

hope you have a nice day and nicer ones to come! :)

.