#but Helen was already married to Menalaus

[writingnotes520]

Back on my bullshit (drawing &J ghosts) I put the normal version and the version where they actually look transparent like ghosts

I've already shared my Mercutio design a couple times and Romeo already exists in the show ofc but also shown here are my designs for Tybalt and Paris :D as you can see their main colors are respectively red and green (Tybalt's design was very much influenced by the 1996 R&J movie, and I tried to give him elements that look catlike because of his "Prince of Cats" thing)

I also love drawing ghosts with some sort of indicator of how they died so there's a yellow little cracking thing to indicate where Mercutio was stabbed, a heart over Romeo's throat to indicate him drinking poison for his lover, the x over Tybalt's chest is where Romeo stabbed him, and the apple over Paris' heart indicates that his death was related to his love for someone who already had her sights on another :)

[vegalocity]

Well now's as good of a time as any, granted people have been wanting to know a bit more about Asteria's Birth Parents.

Introducing Star's second Cousin, Helen Butterfly. And her Husband Menelaus the Merchant!

As mentioned here(link) Helen was made for a very specific purpose, to be the Replacement Heir should something happen to Moon. Being the first born of Etheria and eldest of her siblings by a decently sized margin, there's a bit of a divide between Helen and the rest of her family. While Heartude played with their baby sister in as dignified way a Butterfly can, Helen was in Princess Studies. In some lessons she learned alongside her cousin, as both she and Moon were well aware of her position in the royal line, and the importance of a replacement heir wasn't lost on Comet, most of the time Helen was alone, every behavior putting her under the microscope and her mother accepting no less than perfection.

If Etheria wasn't so determined to oversee her training on her own Helen might have been sent Directly to St. Olgas, despite lacking any natural rebelliousness in her. Helen grew up the perfect princess. She knew exactly how to behave if the time would come and she would need to replace her cousin. She'd thought that when her Aunt Comet died and Cousin Moon was coronated so quickly, that that would be that. She could finally end her lessons and pursue her real interests. However Etheria considered this a deeply crucial point in time. A time where there is a queen, but no heir whatsoever, and began to train Helen even harsher, now in the ways of a queen instead of simply a princess.

For the next four years, even after she came of age, Helen stayed under this microscope, watching her siblings slowly starting to mirror her mother, and wanting nothing more than to tell them of the side of their mother that they never see, the eyes that watch like a hawk that don't look for misbehavior, but instead looking for anything less than perfect. The tight corsets that instead of holding her bosom in place like they should, instead cinched up her waist until her figure went from that of a corncob to that of an hourglass. The huge hive-like puffs she'd have to wear her lavender hair didn't exactly help with her balance either.

When her Cousin Moon came of Age and married her lover, a Johanson prince by the name of River, Helen had had enough. All of her training, all of the strife and tormet her mother put her through was officially worthless, and Helen was tired of existing only to replace another. But she wasn't one much for Rebellion. It just wasn't in her nature. So instead she politely yet firmly blessed her Cousin's marriage and stated in a public place that she was happy to be rid of the burden of being Next in line, and will begin persuing her actual ambition: Diplomacy.

Embarrassed at the public display of ambition, Etheria had attempted to reign in her daughter, but to no avail. Moon had happily accepted the diplomatic aid from her trusted cousin, and gave her the position of Mewni Liason with the Lucitors to start her out, arranging for travel for her with a local merchant.

Menalaus isn't the most important Merchant in all of Mewni, he's not the richest, he's not the bravest, but he's loyal and stable, and perhaps it was simply that he was the first man Helen had met who wasn't related to her or a snob born of royal blood, but she'd immediately been besotted by the charm and swagger of the dark haired man. She made it a goal to arrange rides with him from the demon kingdom to the Mewni kingdom as often as possible to try and get closer.

Thankfully for Helen, she was quite a charmer herself, and it wasn't long before Menelaus was sporting sizable feelings for her as well. Eventually the two were married, and while her mother and her siblings did attend their wedding, it was a far more tense affair with them around than it could have been. But Cousin Moon heartily gave her blessings in place of her mother's silence and her infant daughter Star happily blew bubbles at the two of them.

For years it was just the two of them, her diplomacy and his travelling had a tendancy to keep the two of them apart, but after a little over a decade they finally decided to try and have a child. But before they could get their plan into action, Helen had one more thing on her list that she needed to complete. To earn a pair of dimensional scissors. She didn't want her husband to miss out on any of the baby's firsts, and it would be far less strain on Helen if she didn't need to arrange for travel while expecting. She knew she probably could have challenged Heckapoo for such a trial ever since she'd left her mother, but such scissors were practically handed to princesses. She wanted to wait until she didn't need to prove herself on her own merits anymore.

A Heckapoo's dimension decade older and theoretically wiser, Helen finally found herself pregnant. It was later in life than she'd expected, Her niece Star was already a teenager, but all the same, the baby would be hers and her husbands. If it was a boy it would be Telemachas, if a girl, Asteria. She didn't tell her mother or her siblings, worried that her daughter might be considered a second shot at ‘getting her right’ or something of similar ilk, but she did tell her cousin. Moon was so pleased with the development, after all the problems in Mewni that had been resolved oh-so recently, it was nice to have a spark of good happen. After all, surely things were at their end now.

This child would be the symbol of peace to come in the Butterfly Family. Helen just knew it.

oh, also here’s how I imagine the family tree to look (granted we only know Etheria, Heartude and Felicity’s names and we don’t even know which one IS Felicity, I just described the Butterflies as they appear in Game of Flags):