#honestly thinking of naming her aurora just because I have such a strong association of my city now with sleeping beauty

[swordwife]

🌻and the sewer rat who breaks chandeliers over your head for fun asmr

😔

sweetie i’ve known you for five minutes but if anything happened to you i’d kill everyone in this room and then myself 

my head is drawing a blank on ideas unfortunately... but I might get around to figuring things out soon... 

[black-rose-writings]

Some thoughts on Winx characters’ ages

From youngest to oldest, more or less

Characters discussed: Miele, Roxy, Daphne, The Earth Fairies, Faragonda, Griffin, Griselda and Valtor.

This is very long and I’m very sorry.

1) Miele (Flora’s sister)

She has been aged down in season 8, so I’m no counting that into her age.

She seems really young in season 3, mostly because she is so much shorter than the Winx in a lot of the shots (though her relative height compared to them seems to change a lot - sometimes she’s up to Flora’s waist and sometimes to her chest. Ugh, inconsistent art is the worst).

In seasons 6 and 7, she looks like she could be in her early teens, like 15 at most (and most of her classmates fit that age range, too).

She doesn’t have an official age, as far as I could find, but I’m headcanoning her as being 10(ish) in season 3 and 14(ish) in season 6.

Final headcanon age: 10 (season 3), 14 (season 6)

2) Roxy

Roxy does actually have a canon age, but I’m chosing to ignore it, because it doesn’t feel accurate.

Roxy is supposedly 15 in season 4, but the thing is, she doesn’t feel that much younger than the Winx, who are at least 19, 20 in Stella’s case, possibly even a bit older (the time skips between seasons aren’t exactly clear). Like, don’t get my wrong, she does feel younger than the Winx, but not by 4-5 years. I’d put her at like, 17(ish) in season 4.

One more reason I headcanon her to be older is simply because the younger she is, the more plotholes there are in the whole “The magic on Earth has been gone for a really long time” thing (especially if you could the later seasons and the Selina plot, but that’s a rant for another day). To sum it up, if Roxy was 15 in season 4, it would mean she was born when Bloom was 4 or 5, already on Earth and that Morgana would have been captured around the same time Eldora took Selina under her wing (aka, Bloom and Selina’s magical power were already noticable) and that’s assuming Roxy was just 1, when Morgana was captured. Which would raise the question why the Fairy Hunters, who have spent the last several centuries hunting down fairies, wouldn’t notice two other fairies living a few blocks away from Morgana.

Aging Roxy up makes the timeline make more sense as most of the plotholes created by season 6 are eliminated if Roxy is closer in age to the Winx.

Final headcanon age: 17 (season 4)

3) Daphne

Daphne, again, doesn’t have a canon age, and, in fact, her seeming age changes a bit here and there. Both her picture in the book of Fate (1st movie) and her voice in the (probably fake) memory in season 2 make her appear to be younger than in any of her other appearances, but since the first is from a movie (which have questionable canonicity, especially, when it comes to details), the other is most likely fake, and both of them are at odds with everything else we know about Daphne’s story, I’ll just ignore them.

The youngest I’d go for her is 18, at the time of her “death”, with the oldest I’d go being like 23.

Honestly, I’m very tempted to headcanon her as being 18 or 19, because, like, do you see the angst potential? I mean the whole Domino resurection is an untapped angst mine, but like, having Bloom be the exact same age as Daphne was, way back when? It just adds a bit of something, you know?

It would also be kind of fun to have Daphne be physically younger than Bloom, once she’s resurected, too. Bloom is 20(ish) when she brings Daphne back, possibly older (again, time skips aren’t really clear between the seasons).

I’d also like to add a friendly reminder that, regardless of her physical age, Daphne is around 40 chronologically, when she’s resurected.

Final headcanon age: 18 (at the time of death)

4) Faragonda, Griffin and the others

The others being mostly Griselda and Kalshara, since all of these characters are meant to be roughly the same age, give or take a year or so. And I guess Saladin and Kalshara’s brother, though those two aren’t really confirmed to be around the age of these four.

Faragonda has a “100 years of being a headmistress of Alfea” party around the start of season 6. Even if we say she had become a headmistress right out of school, she’d be at least 120 at that time, though she’s probably at least a decade older than that.

Since Griffin, Griselda and Kalshara have all been in school at the same time as her, it’s most likely they are about the same age as well.

This does give us a lot of insight on the lifespans of people in the Magical Dimension. Griselda looks middle-aged, despite being at least 120. Griffin barely looks human, so her age is hard to guess, but she doesn’t look terribly old either and neither does Faragonda, if you think about it. Kalshara and her brother have that wild magic thing going on, so I’m not really counting them in.

Also, the flashbacks on the old Company of Light show them looking really young, when they would be a least 100, when Domino fell. So, if we exclude continuity errors as an explanation (even though that is the real exaplanation), we’re left with either:

A) 100-year-olds in the magical dimension just look like they’re still in their twenties

B) They’re all vain bitches that make themselves look younger using magic.

C) The Company of Light goes a lot further back than we thought.

Or any combination of those three, really.

And, again, this calls into question how long do people in the magical dimension live? I’m thinking at least the same as wizards in Harry Potter universe (who live to be like 140 on average, apparently).

FInal headcanon age: 130 at least

5) The Earth fairies and the Wizards of the Black Circle

All of the names Earth fairies from season 4 (with the exception of Roxy) have been around since at least the medieval times, as have been the Wizards of the Black Circle.

So, we can assume all of these character are at least like 600 years old.

But

Morgana is strongly associated with Morgana le Fay (literally: Morgana the Fairy) from Arthurian legends in the show - assuming that this isn’t just a reference, but she actually inspired Morgana le Fay in the Winx universe, she’d have to be over 1100 years old at least (since the first recorded version of the legends comes from the 9th century), most likely closer to 1500 years of age (since the legends are set in the late 6th century). That is on the low end, so she might be even older.

As for the other major fairies

Diana has quite strong paralels with the roman goddess of the same name. She is incredibly powerful, so it is quite possible, that she was seen as a goddess by the ancient humans and became the inspiration for that particular goddess. That would make her go at least as far back ar 6th century BCE, if not further. Her temple isn’t much help, since pyramid-like things have been some fo first permanent things humans built and are being built to this day.

Aurora does have some links with the roman goddess of the same name, but those are pretty weak, so I’ll not dive into them much.

As for Sibylla, well, Sibylla’s cave and the Sibyllini mountains are things IRL, named after the Sibyl prophetesses (who are heavily linked to the oracle of Delphi, which you probably know of). Earliest record of those is in 5th century BCE.

To sum up, the Earth fairies are old as sin, and probably don’t actually age.

Which probably means Roxy is also going to be ageless. Now that would be an interesting thing to look into.

6) Valtor

Valtor has a canon “at least this old” limit, if you count season 8 info.

That is, he is at least 1000 years old. We know he wasn’t born, but made, so he might have theoretically been just a few weeks old, when he tried to catch the wishing star last time.

We know the spark that Valtor came from was “lost” around the same time as creation (I’m just now processing that creationism is canon in the Winx universe. Great). The Ancestral Witches were supposedly first evil creatures to exist in the Magical Universe, so they probably came in shortly after. And then they created Valtor, at some point.

So, Valtor could literally be almost as old as the Magical universe, however long that is.

Final headcanon age: Who knows, certainly not me, and since 1000 years is the lowest possible age, I don’t actually want to know.

[katherinewilliams221b]

Re: Adelaisdraws' ask - qs 3, 6, 13, 27, 30, 46 and 59 if youre down for answering?? Honestly would ask every single one of them, really well thought out - so obvi had to ask abt Kat💪🏼

Thanks @eldritchscreech for the ask! And sorry for the delay, I took a while I know ♥ 

3. Who is one person you never want to see again and why?

Merula. Kate doesn't hate her but she doesn't like her either. Although she never let Merula's behaviour at Hogwarts affect her (and she defended herself against her verbal attacks better than in the game's dialogues), she's one of those people who would rather not meet again.

Her grandfather on her father's side, Nicholas Williams. Kate lived in the family mansion from birth until she was 18 when she finally managed to escape from there. She has very bad memories of the house, all of them linked to her grandfather. He's the reason Kate can see thestrals, but I'm saving the details to write a fic about it at some point.

6. What was your bravest moment?

There are many moments of courage in Kate's life, from beginning to end. Of particular note is the fact that she confronted her grandparents to leave the Williams mansion. Her father, Joseph, agreed to pay for a flat in London near St Mungo's but when Nicholas started asking for favours in exchange for being the family investor, Kate made the decision not to depend on that money. She left her job and her flat in London to move to Romania with Charlie after two years of a long-distance relationship. It was a leap of faith that was quite scary, but in the end, it was for the best.

13. What keeps you up at night?

Memories and nightmares about Jacob were very recurrent throughout his adolescence and youth.

When war breaks out, Kate and Charlie spend many sleepless nights writing and receiving letters, expanding their network of contacts and generally planning the necessary moves.

After the battle of Hogwarts the nightmares intensify, and the early mornings become very productive hours, simply to avoid being asleep.

For a slightly less obscure reason, a good book can also be a source of sleeplessness.

27. Are you close to your family or distant?

There are two very clear sides to the family:

On his father's side, Williams is a name known for its coldness. Her father, Joseph, is the most different from all of them, and although he shares some of the family ideals, with time, the loss of a son and the war, he becomes a person with whom, at least, Kate does not avoid being.

Kate has no relationship with her grandparents, Nicholas and Aurora, or with her aunt Evira, or her uncle Erick, or with any of her cousins. She doesn't even know them.

Her mother's side is the other side of the coin. Her grandfather, Bernard Walsh, is her favourite person in the world. Her grandmother Julia, or Julie affectionately, was a Muggle and both she and Bernard had little contact with Kate in her childhood, in order to protect themselves from the anti-Muggle politics of the day.

The Williams helped protect her, on the condition that they would not be associated with them. The Williams family is strongly purist, and the union between Joseph and Natalia was so frowned upon that they married in secret. Natalia was forced to live with the Williams to protect the family name.

Julia Walsh died when Kate was 13, just as they were beginning to have contact, a severe pneumonia set in. After that, Bernard did his best to strengthen the friendship with his granddaughter. They were very close until the end of his life, at the age of 123.

Her mother, Natalia, has always been a free spirit, and although they have never had a bad relationship, Kate remembers that in her childhood she was constantly absent because of work. Jacob's death caused Natalia to distance herself even further from her, for reasons that Kate does not understand. The war marked her deeply and it was a turning point where she decided to get closer again. As an adult, Kate has a good relationship even though they don't see each other often.

She sees her Aunt Cornelia at festivities and on some birthdays and although they do not write to each other often, she always has a good time when she is with her.

30. What do you do to entertain yourself?

Kate has many activities. She is a restless mind and is always eager to learn. The word boredom has never been in her dictionary. Some of the things I can think of are:

Gardening and herbology. Plants are a very important part of Kate's life. She grows all kinds of herbs and working with them gives her a peace that gives her nothing else. She loves to learn curious facts about strange and dangerous plants.

Reading. Although most of the time she reads academic books about plants or spells, it is also common to see her with a good Muggle novel.

Artifacts. She loves jewellery that hide secret compartments, antique coins, boxes and chests of all kinds, books with secrets, bottles and jars...she can spend hours looking at catalogues or in antique shops admiring the wonders of inventions.

Walks in nature. Although she has never particularly liked this activity, it has become commonplace with Charlie and they are always looking for some time to take a walk together.

46. Were you happy to be placed in your representing house? Did you think you would be sorted into it or were you expecting a different outcome?

Kate was a near hatstall. The Williams family hoped they'd put her in Slytherin but Kate didn't know what that meant.Kate and the hat had an intense discussion about it through legilimency, the hat balanced all four options (the great hall stared at a girl sitting without speaking out loud for almost five minutes, you can imagine the fun). She was put in Hufflepuff immediately after asking to the hat:

“What if my personality changes, next year? Would it be fair for me to be in Gryffindor if I don’t want to be brave anymore?”

59. Thoughts on Dumbledore?

The first years she was blinded by her immaturity and innocence, seeing Dumbledore as a wise figure and a role model. The events in the vaults brought her to her senses.

Though not a saint of her devotion, Kate trusted Dumbledore to do what she thought was right about the Order and Voldemort, so she followed his orders despite arguing with him countless times. and knowing that he was manipulating all of them.

His death was not particularly sad for her which caused strong feelings of guilt and shame about it. The biggest concern was that the only wizard Voldemort feared, was gone.

She did not support Harry and Ginny's decision to name her son Albus Severus. She never said anything about it, only to Charlie, but that fact caused her to resent Harry for a while.

[pristinaaa-blog]

A Best of 2018 Albums List that Doesn't Have Any Kids See Ghosts or Daughters on it

Occult avant-garde black metal, awesome Latin dance-pop from Brazil, strong female singer-songwriters who want to save the world. Basically this was music in 2018 for me, a series of albums with breathtaking power and exciting new ideas.

AURORA Infections of a Different Kind (Step I) I have to say that this list is not supposed to be a ranking as it’s simply too difficult to decide which album I liked best. Still, if someone came up to me with a gun in one hand and a puppy in the other, telling me to choose or “the puppy gets it”, I think AURORA’s Infections of a Different Kind (Step 1) would be my choice. It is the most outstanding and the most innovative thing I heard in a long time, carrying an elemental power that hits you hard and makes you dizzy.

Every single note on this record sounds as if everything in the universe was finding its right place. Every harmony and every little thing is perfect, this album gives you a cathartic experience - suddenly everything becomes clear and bright, all the pieces of the cosmos back where they belong. I don’t believe in fate but I have a feeling that this record it was destined to be created somehow. It is insanely powerful and mesmerizing, and it’s nothing I’ve ever heard before.

Aurora really feels like a queen on this album, she has so much love that is enough to embrace the whole world. Using all this love, she takes up the role of the leader who tries to guide people towards a positive future, a role that is the hardest and the most unthankful. Each and every song on this record makes me feel stronger, because they carry the message that it’s all worth it. And well, if such things like this album exist in this world then I guess I have no doubts about that message being true.

Highlights for me are All is Soft Inside, Forgotten Love, and Soft Universe. But the whole thing is amazing. 

Zeal and Ardor Stranger Fruit I used to listen to all these awesome avant-garde bands in the 00’s that sounded like nothing I’d ever heard before. Then they all disbanded and I honestly didn’t think I would ever get to listen to anything like them again. And then I went to Pohoda Festival in the summer of 2018, and was lucky to see Zeal and Ardor live, thus attend one of the most amazing concerts I have ever been to.

Stranger Fruit is definitely one of the most powerful, inspiring, daring and heartbreaking things I have heard in years. There is almost a complete universe in every melody, in all the harmonies and the noisy guitars. The lyrics are so brutal with their simplicity, full of this elemental power. Everything in this music is filled with so much pain, anger and emotion, it really is overwhelming and heart-wrenching, truly beautiful with all the incredible weight it carries. Favourites: Gravedigger's Chant, You Ain't Coming Back, Built On Ashes (this last one is literally the saddest thing ever) 

Pabllo Vittar Não para não I’ve been wishing for a pop album like Não para não for such a long time. I would even go as far as to say I needed it. It’s empowering, sexy, fun, creative, catchy as hell - full of beautiful harmonies and lyrics, awesome Latin beats, tunes played on an accordion - I mean how cool is that? Pabllo is an incredibly talented songwriter, a truly amazing singer, an iconic diva, and to me, her music his incredibly creative and elaborate, and has so much more depth than the songs of the most famous American superstars. (Just to be clear, diva is an absolutely positive word in my vocabulary. It means a person who is fully aware of the talent he or she has, believes in him/herself and goes after what she or he wants, setting an example for us less awesome people.) I love the whole thing from the first moment to the very last, from the perfect pop album-starter, sass-filled club hit Buzina to the Latin pop song titled No Hablo Espanol and the soft closure in the form of the last track Miragem, a graceful finish to what essentially is a break-up record. My absolute favourites are Seu Crime, Nao Vou Deitar and Trago Seu Amor de Volta - these are the perfect examples of the music I have a soft spot for: upbeat, dance-y and happy-sounding, when in reality it is full of sadness and heartbreak.

Anyway. This album will always be close to my heart because I listened to it all the time during my very first trip to New York (or anywhere outside Europe for that matter), so it will always remind me of dancing and singing on the streets of Brooklyn with my headphones on. It made me so unbelievably happy in a very difficult period of my life, and as I don’t speak Portuguese I didn’t even know back then that I was listening to songs that probably have been inspired by another difficult period in another person’s life. Yet the album, especially the songs I highlighted managed to touch something inside me, and I think it’s because Pabllo is one of those songwriters who is able to create depth in her melodies and her vocals as well, not just the lyrics. Which is so, so rare. These people are the best, their songs are like gifts to me and I will always be grateful for them. 

Florence + The Machine High as Hope There’s a liberating boldness and a piercing honesty in this album with all these unexpected confessions from Florence that hit you hard with their openness. I think it’s the very first time she is sharing things that are so deeply personal, and it feels like I’ve been given a gift. To me, she seems like she’s more herself than ever. Listening to these songs she even feels happy to me, like someone who managed to fully embrace herself with all her imperfections. It has an effect on me that’s uplifting and tear-jerking at the same time, I feel like it’s overwhelming me with the universal love and forgiveness Florence expresses towards the world and our faulty humanity. The most prominent example for this is the song Hunger, which is a truly magnificent thing that blows me away every time I listen to it. 

I also love Big God, with its boldness and the melody that reminds me of the early (and coolest) songs of Tori Amos. June is among my favorites as well, it’s the perfect Track no.1 for an album, the way it gradually builds to a cathartic beauty with its simple but wise message.

So what can I even say after this? The songs are amazing, captivating, they bring the usual Florence-like monumental and powerful melodies and production, with mind-blowing vocals (I mean, duuuh), but the majority of the songs here are more on the quieter, more subtle side, which is quite refreshing for me as they sound a lot more natural and pure than the very epic songs on Ceremonials. All in all, this is clearly my favourite Florence + the Machine album, and definitely one of the best albums of 2018. 

Men Named Holger Maelstrom Ahead! Men Named Holger’s debut album is a concept album set in the world of pirates, an amazingly complex thing that is brilliant in how it gradually peels off all the false layers we associate with the adventurous life at the sea - freedom, partying, being outlaws and not giving a damn about anything. This album shows the dark side of this freedom, and through its pirate-related theme it presents heavy feelings and heart-wrenching thoughts we all suffer from sometimes. Like having your people turn against against you even though you did everything you could for them. Or the feeling that you can’t show your true self because you know you will never be accepted by those around you. The feeling when you’re finally free and have left everything behind, followed by this bitter aftertaste in the back of your mind that says it wasn’t really your choice. Or the stinging pain in your heart upon leaving your home, looking ahead in the far distance knowing that you have nowhere to go and that you don’t belong anywhere.

So yeah, this is not the typical pirate-ish-sailor-ish stuff you usually rock out to at Irish pubs - you can absolutely rock out to it, but it’s so much more complex. The guys literally created an own world for their music. They used at least 20 instruments (mandolin, musical saw, balalaika, ukulele, banjo, etc.) to record these songs themselves, which is pretty impressive, yet, it’s not what makes Maelstrom Ahead! exceptional. It’s the emotional depth that’s not only present in the lyrics but in all the melodies, every little note and heartbreaking harmony. It’s a really elaborate and well-thought out album with exciting and versatile songs full of delightful twists and turns that pull you in completely, taking you to an entirely different world.