#literally the weirdest interaction of my life

[sluthut6000]

nothing like living with men to realize you fall into gendered roles because of the hardest hitting combo of daddy and mommy issues 😬😬😬😬😬😬😬😬😬😬😬😬😬😬😬😬😬

[dadvans]

i am just so sad right now. like going into s8 i didn’t think bucktommy would be endgame, but the way s8 started changed my mind, so to have them be literally so in love for 5 episodes straight just to have them break up in the most abrupt way?? it just feels so last minute which is shocking because in the interviews this was apparently a planned thing but it doesn’t feel like it at all. Like if this was a concern Tommy had why didn’t it come up at all? like little throwaway lines of Tommy making jokes of Buck getting sick of him or wanted to explore other options or whatever. I hope the backlash makes them rethink, and Tommy comes back but for now it doesn’t seem like it. I guess my only hope is that Buddie goes canon, but even then i won’t be able to really enjoy it. I seriously don’t know if i’ll be able to keep watching the show, not solely because they broke up, but because of how they broke up. (srry for the long ask, just needed to vent)

no apologies needed!

at the end of the day, so many of us found joy in their story, their chemistry, the way even up until the final second tommy admitted that what he wanted with buck was something that would inevitably break his heart.

they were good together. tommy fit into so many intimidating parts of buck's life with ease. tommy is (as far as we know) still good friends with buck's best friend! tommy loved him anyway, loved him warts and all, road shotgun to buck's worst fears and weirdest conspiracies.

at the end of the day, we have a few things:

we GOT them. we got to see them together, we got the soft looks, we got the kisses, the foundation of them that is real and canon in a way we could strike like a match against the edge of a box to light them up for real all over again. i don't think "being canon" gives any credence or superiority to a ship, and have shipped people or characters that have never interacted/existed together in a tangible way, simply because it's FUN. that's how i'll always have fun with ships and fandom, BUT! what a wonderful thing to celebrate that we DID have them, that we have this as a foundation for whatever comes next, that there is never a door permanently closed to them finding each other again when it was already real from the start

for a lot of us, this isn't how their story ends. it's insane that so much fic and content was produced for a canon ship like this. so often fandom is chasing down the what-ifs and never-hads. a lot of us invested in bucktommy because they had the compatibility, the fit, the chemistry, the potential. that's novel shit! that doesn't just evaporate because they broke up in canon. it certainly hurts. the kind of hype we were surfing will crash and sink back in the oncoming months, but i know talking to a lot of people tonight that we aren't done with this ship. we aren't ready to say goodbye.

i'm sad. i'm angry. i felt a real sense of queer euphoria whenever i saw them together, even for 30 seconds, teetering on the edge of this new couple joy learning each other into something new and weird and fun that always lingered as a promise on the edge of their interactions. i was so excited for who buck could become with tommy as his home base. shifting that has rocked me in a bad way.

i expect people to inevitably step away from this ship and this fandom, but i'll mention that non-canon ships like arthur/eames or mcshep or social network rpf or short-lived shows from 1996 (hi sentinel) have had long-lived fandoms and left long-lasting impressions in other fandoms that have lasted for over a decade of zero additional content. this is a playground that, just because they've parted ways for now, we don't have to stop playing in.

and i'll be honest: i have several WIPs i'm like, well trash that! after watching the most recent episode. but i also have a dozen new ideas. new ways they could fall in love now or again, new ways they could meet, new ways they could be for each other.

i'll keep creating. i'll keep dreaming. they won't ever not have the spark that they had. the show could end tomorrow but we'll always have an open door to believing and shaping the thousands of ways they can and will find each other again.

[the-magpie-archives]

One of the weirdest things I love about TMA is how embarrassing it all is. Like, romanticism is fun sometimes, but embarrassment equally so.

If you've ever meaningfully interacted with the supernatural, you know that shit can be awkward. If you've ever had an office job, you know how embarrassing it can be! Pretty much if you've ever experienced any form of life, you know how embarrassing a day of existence is.

And my god Jon's life is embarrassing! He can't stop getting kidnapped, he doesn't have any friends, he can't even get his job done due to infinite supernatural interruptions. That's really embarrassing.

He's an adult who effectively has to relive being a child because he's thrust into a world that no longer makes sense, and that vulnerability is so real!

But Jon's not the only one who's going through embarrassing stuff, oh no! Martin is hopelessly in love with his cruel boss who barely looks at him; Tim and Sasha hooked up only for Sasha to break it off against Tim's wishes; and hell, Melanie literally got laughed off of YouTube and BECAME A MEME.

These people are going through awful, otherworldly terrors, but not once is it ignored that they must still suffer through painstakingly awkward everyday moments too.

I suppose it comes down to realism. Understanding that the supernatural can become just another part of life in an annoying way, and letting the characters be normal fumbling people makes it hit so much closer to home.

I think all this is why The Magnus Archives is popular not only as horror, but as an explanation of human relationships; the everyday realism is so deeply entwined with the otherworldly but both exist in their own right. And this in itself is realistic, as how far away is horror from your daily life, really? And how different is fear to embarrassment?

[lovely-rants-alot]

Au open starter

Tw: Tartarus

ooc: I genuinely have zero clue how one is supposed to interact with this, but if you find a way, please do. This was also definitely written by my 5am sleep deprived self.

We all know Tartarus. Literal hell on earth.

Brook was currently hanging onto a cliff edge for dear life to not fall into said hell on earth.

Her stomach was being scrapped against the cliff, and she could guess it wasn’t a pretty sight.

“Shit! Fuck! Help! Help!”

She called out, seeing someone in the distance.

She could see them bolting, but the closer they came , the more she slipped.

“No no no no no-“ she was scrambling to pull herself up.

It didn’t help in the slightest.

She yelped, slipping off completely.

Oh gods save me

@that-asian-child-of-aphrodite @arisdaughter @childofthewargod @damiedantediane @glee-of-ares-wrath-of-aphrodite

@apollos-weirdest-child @delilah-isnt-dead-yett @athenas-weirdo-daughter @daonedaonlyskh @lovely-liilies-and-lillacs

@aria-pane @poseidons-hyperactive-kid @wine-cooper

ooc: If you want to be added or removed from the tag list, let me know :)

[mister-tom-a-dildo-lover]

Confession Time!

So, over on Twitter, I'm a member of the Community Notes, and I can write Notes on any post as well as rate other Community Notes on those posts. This is done to fact check people. You have to provide a credible link as the source of your note before you're able to post it, right?

A bunch of M@rauders stans are attacking Tomarry writers, as usual, and because they can't handle that they like morally grey characters who did sus things, they make up all this shit to excuse those characters of their wrongdoings. Maybe that's why they're so jealous, cuz we can like a shitty character while NOT downplaying the bad he did.

Currently, there is an idea going around that Harry Potter was not abused in the canon story, and that everybody just swears he was abused when it was apparently, never addressed or shown and was just not treated the best. But when any M@rauder stans claim that Sirius was very clearly abused, it's unfair how no one agrees with them...

As such, they've been inundated with people pointing out all the abuse Harry has been through, from Vernon choking him out, Petunia trying to hit him with frying pans, them making him sleep in a closet instead of any of their extra bedrooms, lying about his parents, letting Dudley bully him constantly, punishing him when he doesn't understand that magic is at fault, starving him and his pet, putting bars on his window, etc... EXPLICIT ABUSE.

Now, one person gave a whole list of things that Sirius 'suffered' at the hands of his mother, and they're mad because it was pointed out that none of this actually happened in the story, not from anyone's mouth, and that that's just fanfiction tropes to make his parents worse and easier to hate. Harry's abuse is both told to us and shown as early as Ch. 2 of PS. We get to experience it through him in many ways throughout the books.

So usually, I don't get involved in these things, I just watch from the sidelines and laugh. But I thought it would be funny to put Community Notes on all of these people's posts because they're posting literal misinformation. And it's just funny to look at the post making all these claims and immediately see Rate Proposed Community Notes right at the bottom!

This person is ranting about how there are 'context clues' about Sirius was being physically abused by his family, while claiming that Harry's neglect was never explicit to try and make it seem as if Sirius choosing to leave home because of his parents' beliefs is proof of his suffering and is the same as Harry's blood relations treating him terribly for how he was born, his whole childhood.

When people have to sugarcoat and lessen Harry's experience because they want to uwu their favs so they can feel less bad about what their favs have done in canon... It's the weirdest thing. I'm not borrowing shame from a fictional character over their wrongdoings despite how all my favs are the villains. I'm here for the character, and to be so emotionally distraught over what your fav has done, that you need to gloss over it and invalidate canon over and over, is truly unhealthy behavior.

And then attacking people with different favs/ships than you, is peak madness. Get a life. Go figure shit out. You clearly cannot handle interacting with real people yet.

[heatherchasesyou]

Weird SH3 dream I had + a sketch page to illustrate some bit of it

pls read this u wont regret xd

OK SO I don't even know how to start it because it's always hard to tell when dream stories start 😭😭 but I can only remember of a BIG and WIDE library scenery. I felt very surprised because something told me it was a whole new "story expansion" that went in the SH3 HD collection (how specific of my brain, never played that version if u wanna know) almost like a discovered secret (so discovered that I remember coming to Twitter shouting like "WDYM THERE WAS A GODDAMN STORY EXPANSION IN AN HD COLLECTION HOW DIDN'T I KNOW THAT WTF". All of this in the dream, with the whole emotion LOL).

The funniest and weirdest point of the story in the game is the characters, more specifically Heather, Claudia n Vincent, the three fuckers were all in the same room aka the big library, but something about their interactions was very… different.

More specifically towards Vincent, dude was ABSOLUTELY STRESSED, he wasn't being the same slightly passive-aggressive he was with Claudia in the real game, or doing his common gaslight with his stable and concentrated voice tone, nah dude, he was COMPLETELY MAD, idk why, idk who hurt him but bro kgkgkfjgkgj he had no patience while taking to both Heather and Claudia, y'know that scene where Heather is about to get out of the same room as Vincent in their first meet and he shouts "WAIT, I'M NOT FINISHED TALKING"? It sounded pretty arrogant and aggressive, right? Now imagine it multiplied by 10 and we have Vincent having the worst day of his life, don't talk to him or else you die.

As a result, both Heather n Claudia was becoming as stressed as he was, mainly Heather in this case, dude was getting so arrogant that she had enough of that shit, she literally THREW HIM ON THE FLOOR, LITERALLY PICKING HIM ON THE ARMS AND SHIRT COLLAR N THROWING HIM ON THE FLOOR LIKE A… IDK LIKE A JUDO WRESTLER??? ISTG IT LOOKED SO FUNNY YET SO UNCANNY, IMAGINE HEATHER BEATING THE SHIT OUT OF HIM, THAT'S WHAT HAPPENED (y'know that eerie feeling when you see irl ppl fighting and you're like "omg why are they doing this pls STOP", that's how I felt on the dream seeing such scenery, but as we speak now I can't help but LAUGH LOUD like kdjfksjsek I LOVE REMEMBERING THIS, I LOVE 2 SEE MY MAN GETTING BULLIED IDK WHY).

There was also that confusing information that was inserted into my brain that the story was actually a SEQUEL of the events like??? Vincent received the backstab but didn't rlly die??? Neither Claudia??? But they were in there… As if nothing happened (maybe that was the reason Vincent was so distressed, he couldn't believe such a thing happened LOL). After Vinny got completely ROASTED by Heather, he was there on the floor trying to get up, he was as mad as before but he couldn't do a thing, only look at Heather with his eyebrows working the RAGE that was inside of him.

Jeez, I loved that dream, hope I can have more of this in my future nights 🤣

[overthestars-and-offtoneverland]

Some People Will Not Believe Me

If it's any consolation, this story slightly embarrasses me because it feels like some fake shit I'd tell younger me to hype myself up in an attempt to convince them it might be worth making it to adulthood.

So, I work in childcare. I interact with kids all the time and being a person who enjoys children's media tends to help me bond with my kids from time to time.

There is a little girl at my job named Violet.

Now, me being me, I asked if she liked A Series of Unfortunate Events because she's in the target age group for the series.

She says yes and that she is a big fan of Violet Baudelaire, though her parents don't really like her watching the Netflix series because they think it has scary subject matter (literally the point, but go off). I suggest the books to her and inform her that I myself have been a fan of the series since I was a little younger than her.

We bond a little over the series and then I physically watch her eyes drift down.

To my left ankle.

And, in spite of my tattoo being the book version rather than the Netflix version, she immediately recognizes it.

She proceeds with a suspicious squint in my direction.

And let me tell you the amount of dopamine and serotonin that rushed into my brain! I have been waiting forever to have a moment like this!

Truth be told, other children have recognized my tattoo and given me this look in passing. Usually in bookstores, once in a Pizza Hut, don't asked questions.

But none of them actually said anything or confronted me and I would never just walk up to some random child that doesn't have some form of relation to me.

But this child was one of my students. And she was certainly going to confront me about it.

And her name is Violet???

Hence begun the world's weirdest coincidence and playful rivalry I now have with a child as she has decided I must be her personal Firestarter Nemesis (all a game, all in good fun).

She has accused me of being Count Olaf to other students. (I even got to pull a "What eye tattoo?" once)

She taunts me that I'll never get away with my schemes.

She loves the Count Olaf impression I occasionally do with my students (I'm an art and drama teacher lol. Fun fact: Kids love when you commit to a bit and are slightly and jokingly mean i.e. "It's time to go home, hun" vs *looks at them bluntly* "Go home." Gotta be able to read your audience though)

Tell me why this child has walked into the facility with fake, giant hundred dollar bills two days in a row giving me a physical "fortune" to steal?

Gotta say I'm doing way better than Olaf because I've succeeded twice (again, all in good fun. She got it back after I got my gloating out of the way).

Point being, adulthood is fucking weird, but occasionally life lets your inner child have some fun.

[12thhausveen]

More astrobservations:

Aquarius placements and always being the sore thumb in the family- what is that? A lot of the time family doesn’t up approve of what their into/ up to and they’re usually very ok with that. At some point they just stop trying to impress their parents and I’ve noticed some just go off the deep end and it seems like it’s spite driven + their urge to not conform rising to the occasion

When water suns are attracted to you those eyes will do all the talking first especially with pisces suns like… are you gonna say something orr 😭

With sun opp moon in synastry the sun can have a fondness for the moon that i think comes from noticing the similar modality they operate with and respecting the moons unique approach to things since the sun is a creative energy as is, once the moon knows they aren’t being stepped on and have their own space to exist these two are some peas in a pod

The dynamic when there’s attraction between a water sun male and a fire sun female in the beginning stages has the most awkward interactions… he could be the most outgoing person (rare) til he gets around her then it’s SILENCE and the weirdest attempt at flirting I’ve ever witnessed ensues. Lmk your experiences with this dynamic if they exist

Cancer placements may not want children or to be a mother but there’s this weird urge to mother or PROTECT more so… i don’t know what it is but we all have our Thing we protect, for me im oddly protective of animals and when someone becomes apart of my crew and my life there’s that urge to protect them from the world 😶

Leo sun (+ cancer placements bonus points) have this rich protectiveness that reads a bit aggressive at times, if they perceive there’s a threat they won’t hesitate to get loud and defend who they love either

Jupiter in the 12th/pisces could enjoy getting drunk/ high/ not being sober while traveling… it’s strange and very true for me

Mars conjunct pluto and hating men… it’s usually not for no reason either

Also men with aquarius placements… why are so many skinny/ lanky?! The amount aquarius placement men/ individuals built like that needs to be studied… also always got some kinda geeky swag and a eccentric beauty either eccentric weird or just oddly charming without trying (see harry styles, ashton kutcher etc and those are just aqua suns)

Libra moons are literally a mirror of their environment… we’re not sweetie pies or moody we’re literally just you 😭 (especially right when we meet new people). Also it’s hard for us to be blatantly mean for no reason, the kid to say ‘guys let’s just stop’ while playing ding dong ditch

No one’s gonna read you on your flaws like a virgo sun/ moon/ (possibly venus)… if you pass the visual test or they don’t stoop that low it’s what about your life is lacking they tend to call out passive aggressively or during a fight and they do love themselves a verbal spar… also I’ve noticed they love to talk about their day and how it went with their person at the end of the day

Also aries venuses (with a fire mars bonus points 😵‍💫) what is it with y’all making rash/ impulsive decisions to feel something or for some kinda validation then regretting it later… and this is coming from a sag mars y’all need to calm down 😭 the energy and zest is nice but channel it into something you KNOW will benefit you in the future

> Just stuff I’ve gathered if you have other experiences lmk i like to learn ッ

[thatsexcpisces]

Astrology observations pt. 8

🔅Disclaimer🔅: these are just my personal observations and things I’ve noticed and encountered, I’m not a professional astrologer!!

🧡Pluto/Mars-mercury people are likely to struggle with intrusive thoughts that could mostly be related to violence and inappropriate things done to others

🧡I feel like many Scorpio suns have a theme of “death” that stays in their life.

for example Scorpios in general may have lost a parent at a young age or suffer with the loss of family members. They may have lost a parent or even both during their teenage years due to an illness or lose people who are close to them.

🧡People with harsh mercury-ASC aspects or Virgo risings in harsh aspects can come off as “know-it-alls” or “well actually...” people

🧡Libra risings May have an obsession when it comes to collecting beauty products/self-care products or any expensive/fancy items and accessories. This is because taurus, a Venusian sign associated with luxury and indulgence, rules their 8th house of obsessive focuses and vice versa, they have Scorpio in their second house, amplifying the energy of having an attachment to material items.

🧡Aquarius moons have a closer/better relationship with their father than their mother

🧡Whenever you’re in a work or school-related environment, people are most likely to view your personality or see you as your mars sign. If you’re a Virgo/Capricorn Mars, you may have been the person in class that appears as hardworking or shy/quiet and stayed back from the crowd to do their own thing. If you’re a Leo Mars, people at work or school may see you as having a spontaneous personality or dramatic and also as someone very artistic and who likes to express themselves. Aquarius Mars can be seen as very opinionated.

🧡Gemini/Aquarius placements will make you feel like you can talk to them about the weirdest things or literally anything without feeling judged

🧡I feel like Leo and aries moons want to and always have this plan to try and hold grudges forever after they’ve been hurt because of how strongly Leo & aries moons feel their emotions, but they usually end up forgetting and hold one for max a few days until their emotions go through a different range and they focus on something else. (It depends on the situation tho because if really hurt, they can manage to hold one till death)

🧡A Sagittarius moon has such a prominent energy in someone’s birth chart. Even if the person has a stellium in another sign it’s like once they have a sag moon it takes over their whole personality. For example, someone can be a cap sun, mercury, rising, etc and you might expect them to show Capricorn traits and appear as “serious or hard working” but if they have that sag moon it’s like you’ll see then as a completely outgoing and bubbly person who’s always cracking jokes. Their humor and charisma is so contagious and it outshines everything.

🧡Aquarius placements might become certain types of doctors/scientists in a way that the job is related to using modern technology since they have the ability to be innovative

🧡mutable signs are likely to have ADHD

🧡water moons have these super vivid & intuitive dreams or usually the universe may try to send them messages or communicate with them through dreams. for example, a lot of my water moon friends tell me that they’ve had a dream of a person specifically telling them how they feel about them (my friend) and when they ask the person how they feel irl, they say the exact same thing as they said in their dream. Or whatever they dream of likely happens irl.

🧡saturn-ASC harsh aspects may come off as serious and not wanting to interact with others except people they’re close to

🧡 people with Virgo sun + libra mercury in a chart = talking absolute shit about you to others if they don’t like you but never saying it to your face (virgo is ruled by mercury and libra placements just tend to be passive aggressive in general since they’re afraid of open issues)

🧡Pisces risings are so ethereal and beautiful. even though it’s a rare rising sign to have I feel like they’re king easy to point out. It’s usually the people in the room who are always radiating warm energy and giving people hugs. They may also have a soft voice and appearance in general. Very sweet people!

🧡Capricorn mars hate when people try to automatically help them with something or do something for them without them asking for their help first

🧡Jupiter in the 11H individuals can attract friends easily or have a large friendgroup and abundance of friends

🧡I’m so jealous of how organized 6H stelliums and Virgo risings are. Yes, they might secretly not have shit under control, but they still manage to pull it off. I know a lot of people who have this and they always seem to have the perfect structured life with some sort of an organizer or to-do list and succeed in everything.

🧡I feel like no one talks about how jealous Leo moons/Venus or 5H stelliums can be. Sometimes even more than Scorpios. People with these placements are always constantly trying to be the best and everyone’s favorite, and as a result, they might try to “out-perform” and “look better” than the people around them. When they feel they are not receiving the recognition they deserve, especially from close friends and loved ones, they can spiral into unhealthy coping mechanisms. Some even get attached to people very fast and are the type to get angry and jealous easily if they see their friends and loved ones hanging out with someone else. They’re very possessive and hate feeling like they matter less compared to others. They thrive off validation so theyre the type to give you the silent treatment because you ignored them in some way.

🧡heavy Venusian placements in a chart can l be the type of people to actually ‘judge a book by its cover’. This doesn’t mean that these people don’t care to look at the inside and see the beauty, but they also do appreciate aesthetic and something that is pleasing to the eye or in a visual sense (for a very literal comparison: these are the types of people to be at a bookstore and put a book down because the cover isn’t pretty or it’s boring even if it might be a good book lol)

🧡gemini moons/risings are either super extroverted and outgoing or they barely speak and keep to themselves in social situations. There’s no in between

🧡Pluto in the 8H people might have ego issues and their ego can get in the way of making mature & responsible decisions

🧡moon in the 11H are so warm and loving towards their friends. These are the type of people who’s friends mean so much to them and they always make sure to keep their circle close and happy

[csolarstorm]

Thoughts on Agatha All Along - Finale!

Well, I've managed to piece together a post from the notes I took after that awesome two part finale. I enjoyed it a lot, so this is gonna be a long one! So follow me, my friend, as I give my thoughts on Episode 8 and 9 of Agatha All Along.

Now this is one of the most interesting character redemptions I've seen in young adult/family media, because it isn't really a redemption! 

Agatha's redemption goes just as far as her motherly bond with Billy, but other than that, the show is less about redemption and more about retribution.  We thought when Episode 5 said "Punish Agatha", that would be an outlier, a temporary obstacle to the coven coming together.  Nope.  There's too much red - I mean, purple - in Agatha's ledger.  Agatha is who she is, and the show never rewards her for her treachery.  In fact, her cynical, callous worldview costs her everything…even her death.  Agatha is literally reduced to a ghost because she rejects the literal embodiment of the life cycle.  (And she can't face Nicky.)

She's literally "mommy Voldemort"!  That is one of the weirdest things I've ever written!

The only thing Agatha doesn't lose at the end of the series is her bond with Billy - and that's even a close one.  He almost banishes her! That's a fun inversion of the beginning where he deliberately seeks her out. But in mentoring Billy, Agatha has a sort of second chance at parenthood after losing her son. So she is given that grace.

Okay, technically the show does kind of give Agatha the anti-hero treatment, or else she wouldn't end up Billy's mentor.  Clearly Agatha has something to teach Tommy about the nature of power and ruthlessness of the world.  Billy's chaos magic is unfathomably powerful - like his mom, he was bound to accidentally hurt people at some point.  And Agatha was absolutely right about this: "get used to this feeling if you're going to be a witch".  That's unfortunately what being powerful is like.  Think of all the collateral damage the Avengers have caused.  Heck, Wanda at Lagos.  Billy really does take after his mother.

It's the same way in the real world. Any decision a politician makes, money a billionaire invests, has ripple effects the victimize somebody, a shadowy cost to match the reward.

It's one thing to trample others on accident when you swing around your power, but hurting others on purpose actually does actually hurt you, and I think this show expertly portrays that.  It doesn't fall into this trap of making Agatha some amoral badass that people idolize for giving them permission to be assholes.  The power of virtue is not a metaphor, not just a moral gimmick meant to promote societal adhesion.  The callousness of treachery actually affects your ability to form meaningful relationships, which is part of living a satisfying life. Under that facade of bravado and villainy, Agatha is suffering deep inside.  Of course, your mileage may vary, only the good die young, yadda yadda.  There's plenty of happy monsters and sociopaths in the world.

This show has some really interesting parallels with Loki.  You can even argue that Agatha ended up with a parallel but also opposite fate to Loki: a ghost to the world, cut off from life and death.  Only unlike Loki, she can still interact with others.

Agatha All Along DEFINITELY follows Wandavision's footsteps when it comes to flipping audience expectations.  Only this time it's not as simple as Ralph Bohner or those "devils in the details".  Agatha All Along is deliciously character driven, so all the devils in these details are character-related.

The Coven and Sisterhood

Let's start with the biggest "twist": around the middle of the show, the story was about sisterhood: four wayward witches and one familiar setting aside their differences and learning to work together as coven. 

That all goes to hell with Agatha kills Alice and Billy yeets everyone into the mud.  (In retrospect, that's definitely part of why I was disappointed with Episode 5. I could feel the change in direction in the awkward writing.) Sure, Lillia embraces the coven before her death, but Jen definitely does not find kinship with Agatha in the end.  In fact, Agatha screwed her over a hundred years before the show began, and Jen's final challenge is getting away from Agatha's toxic influence. 

And then the whole coven plot definitely goes to hell when it turns out that not only was the road not even real, but the legend of the road itself was just Agatha's lie to lure witches into her coven to murder them over and over again!  Granted we knew that Agatha wanted to kill the coven from the beginning, but this is a whole other layer of deception.

I know this pisses some people off, because obviously it feels like Alice and Lillia died for nothing now - or at least died for a cause they never signed up for.  This was all about resurrecting Tommy, not working together for sisterhood!

Even though the coven didn't last, I think it still matters that it was part of the show, and it was explored. The theme of sisterhood is there. And like Vision said, something is not beautiful because it lasts. 

But I know a lot of people wanted to see this conventional story where everyone survives, and Sharon learns analog witchcraft and her skills come in handy in the last trial when she saves everyone from a sticky situation, and the newfound coven of sisterhood teams up to defy Death and save Agatha and Billy.

That's why we have fanfiction.  *sigh*

Defied Expectations

Speaking of fan disappointment, there's no moment where all is revealed about Agatha's relationship with Rio, at least not all that the fans wanted to see.  Instead, we get an admittedly cute and emotionally compelling flashback to Agatha raising Nicky that shows us exactly how she started the legend of the Witch's Road, and how the ballad started as their song as mother and son.  I'm not disappointed that they went this route instead of a more Rio-centered flashback - I think it brings the story full circle.   

I could tell people were going to be disappointed when Agatha didn't end up in a fulfilling relationship with Rio/Death.  Their relationship had such rich chemistry and it was so intriguing - but to me, the writing was on the wall that it would not be a particularly positive relationship.  I don't imagine Marvel would show a relationship between a serial killer and the embodiment of death and make that a happy, healthy relationship.  My condolences to shippers who wanted this to be a positive representation of lesbian relationships.

And on that note: I'm not sure why Agatha tells Rio that the truth about Nicky's death is too terrible.  Was she absorbing life to keep Nicky alive, and once he refused he finally died? Is that why she says to baby Nicky "You like that? I think we're going to work together just fine."  If this is what they were going for, then yeah that truth is terrible enough for me. Obviously Agatha isn't going to tell the coven she needed to kill other witches to keep Nicky alive.  There's no use trying to rationalize serial murder, even if it's to support your son.

I like how Agatha's name for Nicky follows the "Namor" rule. Since they changed Namor's origin, instead of his name being "Roman" backwards, they made him "N'Amor - the one without love!" So sure, sure, Nicholas Scratch isn't named after Nick Scratch, an old name for the devil, perish the thought! Agatha names him Nicholas Scratch because she made him from scratch. Aww, that honestly was adorable, name retcons aside.

We don't flash back to Agatha's first coven.  The Salem Seven and Evanora originally seem like they're going to be a bigger part in the story, but they're a footnote by the finale.  And although I'm glad they chose the story of Nicky and the origin of the Witch's Road, it would have been nice to commit to actually explaining some of Agatha's actual origin. 

Did Jen's trauma bind her magic?  Nope, Agatha did it.  I mean it doesn't exactly rob us of Jen's trauma narrative - it was still there, implicitly, it's just funny that everything in the series really is Agatha All Along, except for that one big time it was Billy All Along.

Oh, and I guess that one time it was Lillia All Along.  But that's different, that's Patti LuPone.  You have to get Patti Lupone in on the fun.

There are always some editing mistakes in TV shows, but it seems like Marvel needed to go back and tweak some (alleged) discrepancies in the story that don't match the final version of the series, or at stop and clarify things more often.  (For instance, how was Rio "torturing Agatha" throughout the years?  Was she responsible for all the disasters around Agatha, hoping to break her into finally accepting her death?) 

This lack of clarity is a problem with the series overall, to the point that Jac Schaeffer had to keep explaining things that the narrative didn't make clear.  But I have to say, the fact that we were so on the edge of our seats wanting to know means that the story was doing its job.

All Roads Lead To...

So in the end, I think that just like Wandavision, the show went in a direction that a lot of fans weren't expecting - but unlike Wandavision, in some ways I think that's to its benefit.  The coven may not have lasted, but damn that is a richly emotional character study of Agatha Harkness, and I am excited to see "The Ghost and Billy Kaplan" return in Vision Quest, or maybe Young Avengers. 

There were some (alleged) plot holes from Marvel's trademark editing process, and they should have been clearer about some things - but holy triple goddess was this an amazing series nonetheless.  Pound for pound, I think it's the best series Marvel has to offer right now.

Follow me my friend, to glory at the end.

[merakiui]

my favorite thing about twst is that rook is BY FAR the weirdest fucking guy in a school that includes an immortal dragon prince, deranged mafia eels, a guy whose head is literally on fire, and whatever the hell vampire grandpa is doing on any day

Oh, definitely!!! He's so strange and that's what makes him so fun. He's such a talkative character and yet no one knows much about him. He's too mysterious! And is he rich? He must be if his family can afford all of those vacation villas, all of which are connected via mirror teleports. That can't be cheap! What are his brothers and sisters like? What about his parents? What are their professions? Many unanswered questions... I think it's also worth noting that he's a canon stalker and that he keeps pictures behind the wallpaper in his dorm room. He is so not normal and he doesn't try to be because his "normal" is being himself (which is weird to others). <3 I love him.

Compared to some of the other characters, he is absolutely the strangest. I think you can sort of chalk the tweels, Malleus, and Lilia's behaviors up to the fact that they're not human and grew up in a completely different culture and environment with their own ways of living and such. It would make sense for the tweels to be morbid and predatory because they grew up in a place where such things are normal (also mafia family stuff;;;;). Malleus and Lilia are from Briar Valley, a place where magic is so widely used that there is no major technology in sight, so of course they would enter human society with their own curiosities and ways of interacting. Also, Malleus lived a very isolated life inside the palace and Lilia has seen so much of the world (he's also lived through war) and so of course their behaviors would be understandably weird.

And Idia also lived a very secluded life that really wasn't very normal either, where his only social interaction was with his family, the staff at STYX, and the STYX robots. It was also incredibly tragic. >_< and he's a gamer and he likes anime. So,,,,, naturally he's going to be weird.

I think the most unsettling part is that Rook is human, and so there isn't really any way to explain his behavior. From what we currently know, he doesn't seem to have any pressing emotional difficulties that may hinder him and he seems to have lived a relatively comfortable school life. Also, he's so extroverted and so shameless about the fact that he watches Leona nap or that he wants to press the twins' buttons to see them snap... public speaking fears him. >:) but there may very well be some sort of trauma he's endured, or maybe there is no real explanation for his behavior. Maybe that's just how he is. I often cheat and say, "It's because he's Rook," as an easy way for explaining his behaviors, but I feel as if that's the only way to truly describe him. He's just so Rook. Unabashedly.

[hauntedwizardmoment]

okay. this is. potentially such a weird specific ask but as i am over here getting ready to tpk my party who said that. what do you think would happen if for w/e reason jace's college party like. brought jace AND porter along for a mission. no idea WHY this would happen but i'm. literally just picturing the weirdest pissing contest between peregrine and porter during fights and jace is fighting for his life because the tanks are trying to one up each other so he can't even clock that he's kind of being fought over actually.

OH MY GODDDD YEAH. god. i have so many thoughts on this bc like

peregrine and porter are both like. so insecure about their masculinity in ways that i think would clash TERRIBLY. like, if this is adjacent to blood and turpentine canon. maybe their new offensive caster (drow wizard, name currently undecided but he's ysvelde's cousin) bites it and aurora's not able to resurrect him. so they need a backup.

and invidia is like "guys we're close to elmville. i know none of you like him but we could get jace" and dagbert and ysvelde are like "it's not that we dont LIKE him its that he's just. a lot of drama. with aurora and peregrine and everything." but then invidia asks peregrine who's kind of like the unofficial party leader and he's like (convinced he and jace could have an affair bc he's unhappy in his marriage and in his mind jace has always been available to him as a backup option) "well, we need all the help we can get and he's our best option" and i think the only reason aurora would agree to this is bc she thinks whatever mission theyre on might actually kill him

anyways. jace shows up with porter, to everyone's shock, and is like "you guys remember porter? he said he was free too and i figured we could use extra muscle" and IMMEDIATELY peregrine is like "why'd you think that? dagbert and i are--" and then dagbert (only professional on the team) is like making nice with porter and theyre like bonding and peregrine is like [grits teeth] okay. okay. it's fine. it's just a week in the red wastes like old times.

and porter KNOWS about jace and peregrine so he's like playing up the fact that theyre together. like jace gets hurt by something and aurora like rolls her eyes and moves to heal him and porter's like nah don't worry i got him, and kisses jace's hand for a Lay on Hands. and peregrine is fully like [actively seething] calm down calm down calm down calm down

ofc this leads to peregrine taking stupid risks in a major battle bc he thinks he'll win jace over by showing him how he can protect him. and he gets hurt as a result. and so does porter bc now he's taking damage that was meant for peregrine. and jace has to be the one to burn his 9th level spell slot and kill whatever monster theyre fighting. and he's like "guys youre both better adventurers than this?? what the fuck was that?" and neither of them want to admit that theyre kind of in a contest for who can show off in front of him so theyre like "it's nothing, won't happen again"

but ofc it DOES happen again. and again. and aurora who has made it her mission to not interact w jace at all lest she "accidentally" let off a 7th level inflict wounds and reduce him to a pile of black ichor when they still need him is like "you need to tell your little dalliance to knock it off because if you two get my husband killed i can't be held responsible for what i do. youre not even dressed like a whore this time around, i dont know what kind of hex you cast on him but fucking stop it"

and jace would ignore this because to him thats classic aurora, pissed off at him for no reason & blaming him for shit he didn't do, until invidia is like "did you bring porter to fuck with perry on purpose because that's SO you and SO petty i love it" and jace is like "no of course not, i genuinely thought we could use another tank" and ysvelde is like "okay but like, you wanted to fuck with him a little bit, right? make him jealous?"

and jace (low int) finally gets it and is like oh my god. martial classes are all fucking IDIOTS. is that why theyve been absolutely fucking useless in every fight? i shouldve gone through with marrying you ysvelde my life would be so much easier if i'd done that. and THIS is when invidia and ysvelde spill all the drama to him about peregrine and aurora's crumbling marriage and jace comes clean about peregrine coming onto him at his own wedding. and they laugh and laugh and it's like old times for a brief moment.

and then peregrine and porter get into a physical fight bc peregrine doesnt like that porter's been very touchy-feely with jace lately and porter was like "what's it matter to you? he's mine now, not that he was ever yours" or some other creepy possessive bullshit like that. and jace has to separate them and talk both of them down (well he yells at porter and is very soft-spoken and simpering with peregrine) because they wont listen to anyone else.

[superectojazzmage]

Sure it’s been said, but the real bread and butter of SpyXFamily imo is how Yor and Loid have polar opposite but equally batshit stupid and insane approaches to the whole “spies pretending to be a normal family” thing that lead to the same result of them functionally becoming their cover identities.

Loid has some weird denial complex from his life as a spy where he views everything he does as part of some kind of 5D mental chess game that he’s playing against some nebulous threat and approaches his cover identity accordingly, effectively being the “haha I was only pretending to be retarded” meme but with being a husband and father instead of internet trolling. Every interaction he has with his wife and daughter is accompanied by a machiavellian internal monologue about how this is all an elaborate scheme to further the mission. He could be taking Anya out for ice cream and be internally thinking “yes, now that I’ve given my daughter a delicious frozen treat, Westalis shall achieve ultimate victory!!!”. He could be dicking down Yor and he’d spend the entire time thinking about how his wife’s orgasm will bring about the fall of Ostania. He is so obsessed with being a fake husband that when he becomes a real husband, he just smirks and goes “all according to keikaku” while taking his family out to the zoo or helping Anya with her homework. And when the slightest problem for his family arises — like thinking Yor is mad at him or that somebody is being mean to Anya — he totally fucking melts down about it in a way that makes no sense for a detached spy, but he still goes through the effort of trying to frame his freak out as a problem for the mission; he’s not having a panic attack about his wife being mad at him because he loves her, he swears, he’s just worried about the mission!

And meanwhile Yor is just… all fucking in. She’s a method actor to the most unhinged extreme imaginable. She heard “you have to pretend to be a housewife to avoid drawing suspicion” and decided that meant she had to literally become a housewife. She’s the Daniel Day-Lewis of assassins. She throws her whole body and soul into every single thing she does, completely immerses herself in the “role” to the point that it isn’t a role anymore, it’s just her life. Within seconds of meeting Anya she’s like “guess I’m a mom now!!!!”, within seconds of Loid proposing she’s like “yep I love my husband!!!!”. She still has all her assassin instincts and training, but they’re all warped to fit her new life as a milf because that’s what she is now; she’ll brutalize or kill anybody who even looks at her family the wrong way, she approaches every situation from the perspective of “how can I eliminate this problem?”. And like any good method actor, she obsesses over whether her behavior is “correct” to the role. She is determined to be indistinguishable from a normal housewife to a point that you wonder how she has time to be an assassin anymore when all she seems to really care about is trying to win at being Totally Normal and/or being a good wife and mother.

And then in the middle of it all, you’ve got telepathic Anya just listening in on it and doing or saying the weirdest shit imaginable because she’s a kid and has no comprehension of why this situation is completely bizarre, this is just her mom and dad being cool spies.

It’s S-Tier stuff.

[jennycalendar]

HI thank you SOSOSOSO much for answering my questions abt your girlies!!!! i have more if that's okay <3

i have questions about interactions now. bakery girls & scooby gang who they like who they don't: go

how old are they relative to each other? like, who's the oldest, what are their age gaps, etc etc

is sophie not like, technically a bakery girl? what's up w/her

what is lion's whole... situation.

what is up w/him & evie.

why is evie a cryptid.

could evie be popular? like, if she tried? i feel like yes

norie & nora my beloveds!!!!!!! BESTIES OF ALL TIME. idea: if there was like a younger girl version of donovan, would norie go for her? feel like she would

how do the what you make ppl feel abt bakery girlies. who do they like the best? who do they hang out with?

of thea & jaheira & jenny & giles: which of them would hook up w/each other if not in established couples, which of them would get along great, and would any of them have threesomes/foursomes

who are jaheira's kids? do they hang out w/the bakery girls? who are they closest to?

why was elodie not also adopted by thea. what was she like

who are roslin's other family members? what?

I LOVE THEM SO MUCH.

would brie get along with any of them. whom.

ANYWAYS THEY'rE AMAMZING

I LOVE THEM SO MUCH

THANK YOU FOR ANSWERING ALL MY QUESTIONS WITH AWESOME ANSWERS

<3

!!!! HI THANKS !!!! SO MUCH !!!! i literally love talking about these girls this is making my evening <3333

sooooo

marigold gets into like a really weird passive aggressive Thing with willow because they both have a complex and they both need to be the weirdest smartest most adorable girl in the room and honestly there's a non zero chance they have some kind of xander/cordy makeout about it where it's so clear this is not what should be happening and yet it is for sure what's happening. she's tight with giles. this makes it worse

evie gets along really, really, really well with spike and drusilla, specifically because spike has a lot of experience dealing with women who communicate unconventionally and need a little extra support to function, and evie is incredibly forthright and sweet (and, crucially, unafraid of them both). i don't know if there's a romantic aspect to it but i know for certain that evie takes tea with drusilla and the two communicate with a lot of warmth and mutual respect.

roslin has an uncharacteristically shy crush on oz. i don't really think this helps marigold's standing with willow At All. she also really enjoys bothering giles because she thinks his life choices merit some general bullying. leave the teenage girls alone man

norie is outraged by anya's attempts to make herself small and appealing and tries to chase xander down and kill him to death about it. throws herself into being anya's self-help manual in a way that is very, very, very, very gay.

thea is so immediately obsessed with jenny it's not even funny but handles it SO BADLY by defaulting to her hundreds of years of Bluntly Flirtatious Womanizer and just going all in. jenny is delighted by the attention and even though thea is not necessarily her type in terms of personality. hot salt and pepper butch, yknow. in any au where these women meet the scoobies, giles and thea have been long term college friends for some time (i can do what i want), so the energy is very much "STOP FUCKING FLIRTING WITH MY WIFE???? STOP THAT" (giles) vs "man if your wife's looking at me when i flirt with her maybe you're not treating her right" (thea). this is the best day of jenny's entire life btw

2. this one is a little interesting because there's their dnd ages and their kinda general ages! thea in the fic is a dwarf, and i put her at about 260-ish, which i think would probably translate to late 50s/early 60s in an all human situation. roslin and lenora are both close enough to human that i think their late twenties/early thirties general ballpark would apply, and marigold, though she's in her late twenties in the fic, is kinda operating from a delayed half elven maturity, so i would place her very decisively at early twenties in an all human situation. evie is early twenties in the fic but i think she'd be like 18-19 (not a very big age gap btwn her and mari; similar levels of maturity). sofie's age is whatever i want it to be lol but always decisively a little kid.

3. sofie i shuffle in and out depending on how i'm feeling about it! she initially started out as marigold's apprentice but the narrative shifted and now she's very decisively marigold's little daughter. she's about 12 but i write her like she's 6 in the fic for Baby Elf Slowly Growing Up reasons, which means i'm still figuring out how old i would want her to be in an all human situation (the consistent through line is that mari is a little too young and flighty to raise a kid without the insane amount of third party support that she's managing, but she and sofie have a really deep connection). i sorta feel like she's a little too small to have a full-fledged character arc, but i definitely think about her as like 1/2 a bakery lady.

4. lion. hm. how much can i say without spoiling things. he grew up in a house with his abusive dad and evie's a lot of the reason he stayed alive through that, possibly. he loves her tremendously and sometimes when you are incredibly traumatized & there's only one person who matters to you, you will do some really, really fucked up things to them out of fear that they will leave.

5. THIS part i can say -- lion and evie are childhood friends! they connected at a time where both of their family situations were. Fraught. and they developed kind of a really intense trauma bond that eventually transitioned into romance. and then things got bad.

6. evie is a cryptid because when you grow up with undiagnosed adhd and your mother is insane you often do not actually learn how to fit in or understand other people.

7. see i actually really don't know how to answer that question because being popular is the antithesis of evie! she is so fundamentally disinterested when it comes to socializing with 80 percent of the general human population. either she loves a person or they don't exist to her. so like Could she be popular? hard to tell. she will literally never try. what matters to her is always gonna be the people in her heart and that's it.

(so much of why she, ahem, socializes with others comes from a place of wanting to reaffirm her connection to her body! it's brutally pragmatic. she talks to people if she needs to and That's It.)

8. oh norie's taste is not nearly that stable. the two Serious Crushes she's had are 1) comphet thing for a serial killer whose face she has literally never seen and 2) literal war criminal who has killed and will kill again. that woman is ONLY interested in women with a kill count and no regrets about it AND future murderous intent, and donovan simply does not meet that criteria even in some hypothetical fem version.

9. man i am sooo not in the headspace of the what you make guys so these answers may be a bit lackluster but i will try my best!

nora, hilariously, adores thea. extremely amused by thea's obvious obsession with her and is very clear about her devotion to her husband + her heterosexuality but thinks thea is SO GREAT and is delighted to meet a mom who has priorities very similar to her own! i think once thea gets her libido under control they're actually really great mom friends :')

donovan adores thea for similar reasons. she's very nora-shaped. actually as i'm typing this in ANY situation where nora was attracted to women or thea to men this could so easily be a "sometimes thea comes around for threesomes" situation but that is just not what's happening here. she's such a good friend though.

stacey is OBSESSED with roslin. they go shopping together and it's the best day of stacey's entire life.

ezra likes marigold a lot and by proxy is also pretty fond of sofie :') he follows mari around very quietly and watches her make things. marigold has never handled people's admiration well at all so she's kind of having a minor panic attack the entire time ESPECIALLY because sofie needs mommy's attention ALL the time or else she'll start causing problems. ezra picks up on this pretty fast and starts paying attention to sofie too. expert problem solver

bella loves evie full stop. same insane adhd girl hat.

art adores sofie and marigold!!! they've all three of them got the same excited effusive chattery sparkle. he and sofie start getting along really really well like i said which again is one of the reasons why bella hates that girl so fucking much.

10. like i said lmao thea is SOOOO into jenny but in a much more superficial way than most situations! really just wants to love her and leave her, which of course appeals to jenny as a concept as well (hooray mutually emotionally uninvolved while still intensely passionate sex EVERYBODY WINS), but jenny is with giles so jenny is like (deep sigh) i guess i can't fuck the hot butch lesbian because i'm in a "serious committed relationship" with my "husband." giles is like why are there quotation marks around both of those things jenny.

jaheira would for fucking sure go for giles. suddenly things are way less fun for thea. giles immediately starts flirting back as retribution for thea trying to steal his wife; jaheira is deliberately putting herself out there for giles in part because a hot younger (by her standards) gentleman with emotional problems does sound like a super fun time for her but ALSO because thea has spent like 30 years not texting her back despite them literally co-parenting children together at this point. Lo And Behold There Are Consequences, Althea!!!! (jenny isn't helping she thinks this is fucking hilarious)

them all hooking up WOULD be on the table if not for the fact that thea is like if rupert gets anywhere near my wife i will break his stupid little face. also i'm like 99 percent sure jaheira and thea haven't hooked up anyway. they're not good at that

11. jaheira's got five kids in canon :') and i actually did write up which bakery lady each kid gets along well with some time ago bc i was thinking about it soooooo

rion (jaheira's oldest, approx. early twenties) adores marigold because they have a mommy issues warriors bond and mari is just the sweetest little sugar cookie. they hang out a lot when they can and cheerfully Don't Talk About It but there's a real Existing Understanding.

jord (jaheira's other oldest, similar age as rion) is actually really tight with norie and i'm certain they get high together on occasion. it's a very quiet and not chatty at all relationship but it really emphasizes norie's softer side. <3

fig and jhessem (jaheira's young daughters, kinda same age as sofie) both are absolutely obsessed with roslin, because roslin is a total girly-girl which appeals to jhessem and roslin gets into a lot of bar fights which appeals to fig. jhessem however has had beef with sofie for a long time (sofie collects child enemies very easily because sofie cannot handle other children as a concept)

tate (jaheira's young son, also sofie's age) is very shy generally speaking. he does best with marigold, because she's warm like roslin but she can actually really do quiet stillness if it's for kids. sofie doesn't have as much of a problem with HIM because he mostly just wants to hang out in the same space as them, and he's not there often anyway.

12. neither elodie nor evie were adopted by thea for uhhhh reasons that are quite complicated but mostly boil down to "marigold was the only kid thea knew about at the time." evie shows up in marigold's life again in their twenties after quite a long time and it's awkward and strange and sad.

13. roslin's status as one of thea's adopted daughters came about in the dnd setting because her family (seven kids!!) wanted to send her to a less crowded place where she could learn a trustworthy trade <3 she writes her parents and siblings very often and she loves them very much! they don't have a strong narrative presence but they're super important to her. i would imagine that in a more modern setting she's staying with thea for similar job-related reasons but she calls her "mommy" because thea's a family friend + she spent a lot of her teen years living w/thea!!

14. ME TOO LOL

15. brie and marigold would kill each other on fucking sight i am 10000 percent certain. extremely unstable and VERY spoiled baby girls who DO NOT play well with others despite appearances. brie tries to start getting along with marigold's sisters and marigold is like im going to use the power of my FUCKING knife to FUCKING KILL YOU. goes downhill from there.

[knightofthegarden]

Aster Lore Collection

Over on twitter, I made a post letting people exchange likes for lore facts - and got over 30!

Twitter is no archive though, and also character limits suck, so in this post I will compile, rewrite, and reorganize all the lore that was earned. (Note: Aster "Яeverse" will get her own post, and so will be omitted from this post. You will get bonus lore instead.)

Note that this is a companion piece to a my lore video, as both help explain each other.

Quick Facts:

Full name: Aster Gardenia

Birthday: March 29th

Age: 28

Height: 5'3" (160 cm)

Representative flowers: aster, gardenia, forget-me-not, lilly of the valley, meadowsweet, bird of paradise

Representative tarot arcana: Strength

Aster is left handed (which, fun fact, makes learning the sword twice as complicated. :'D )

Aster was originally going to have a much more formal speaking style, but it quickly became limiting (both for expression and tweet character limit). My first few tweets had the weirdest vibes.. I would not have survived a stream like that.

The Garden and the Modern Era:

While Aster fell into her magical sleep "once upon a time", she awoke in @wildflowersthebunny's magical garden in September of 2014! This means Aster has lived in the 21st century for just over 9 years.

Aster's gratitude towards Wildflowers is also why she is "of the garden"; the garden protected her slumber, and Wildflowers cared for her when she awoke, so Aster now serves them in place of her former masters.

The hundreds of years of sleep also resulted in considerable muscular atrophy, and Wildflowers literally helped get her moving again. (As in, she rigged my model!) It was during this time of not being able to get up from her sleep casket, getting physical therapy from Wildflowers and hearing about the world she woke up in, that Aster also got to watch Wildflowers start her streaming career, and was inspired to do so herself.

Despite serving a magic garden and waking up from a magical sleep, Aster herself is not magical at all. She is a completely mundane human knight. She also doesn't know all that much about plants, despite being named after them. (At least she doesn't have a pollen allergy?)

Aster's weapon of choice is the hand-and-a-half sword, otherwise known as the bastard sword. She usually wields it two handed, but occasionally makes use of a buckler on her off hand. She recently joined a local HEMA group practicing German long sword, but she's lost a lot of arm strength since her long sleep. Train hard, Aster!

Aster likes retro games despite waking up in 2014 because when she was figuring out the whole technology thing, she saw the playstations and assumed you had to start at 1. She never really got to that third one. There's a lot of good PS2 games. (Nintendo 64 was very confusing.)

Aster has a degree in computer science! Why?? Well, similar to last fact - computers seemed pretty important in this time period, so she thought she had to study them to figure out living here. (It doesn't work like that.) (But swords are expensive so it all works out.)

Pierre (my lovely cat) did not come from Viatorum, he was adopted 4 years ago and has lived his entire life in the 21st century. He loves swords anyway because he has good taste.

Before the Magical Sleep:

Aster was originally from the small kingdom of Viatorum, where she served the royal family, who she refers to as her sovereign. Aster's sovereign consisted of the king, queen, queen-mother, princess, and the young prince. Aster interacted with all of them, but primarily spent time with the prince and princess (since they were similar ages), and was working towards being the prince's personal knight. Their names, and their history, were all erased when Viatorum was conquered.

Aster's sovereign were Viatorum's final ruling family, all of whom were executed when the kingdom was conquered during the war. Viatorum was merely a stepping stone on that larger, more militant kingdom's conquest, but even its name has been lost to the centuries...

There are still a few distant descendants of Viatorum who still remember its holidays, and Aster gets together to celebrate and remember with them whenever she can. The most prominent of these is January 27th, Viatorum's Founding Day.

Aster's duties as a knight mainly consisted of standing guard around the castle and accompanying the royal family - meaning she was not setting out on any grand adventures or military conquests, slaying monsters or defeating dangerous foes. Viatorum was a peaceful place before the war, and her sovereign did not allow Aster to actually fight in that war. (In other words: despite her love of swords, Aster isn't actually especially powerful, and her kill count is zero. Not edgy.)

Aster has not always been the loud, goofy, friendship-filled knight she is today. Aster had very few friends in childhood, and became a knight because she was lonely, and she figured that people would value someone who was strong, reliable, and able to be of service to them. Even among the knights, she was known as a cold, unfeeling person, and most saw her more as a drill sergeant to be wary of than a potential friend. She only knew how to market herself as an effective tool, hoping for someone to see her as "of use" to them, but despite her continuous efforts, she remained alone, because that's not how friends work.

Aster nearly joined the guard not as a knight, but as part of the military band. She plays trumpet! Joining the military band still involved doing drills, and also wouldn't let her have a sword, so she decided to work harder for the more prestigious position instead.

Aster's Sovereign:

The Young Prince: The young prince had a poor constitution, and thus disliked most martial activities, preferring the arts. He was always picking up new crafts; leather-working, sewing, puppetry, painting. He was never satisfied with his results, but Aster found them very impressive.

The young prince had periods where he was proud, brilliant, and ambitious, and others where he was timid and depressed, usually depending on his health. Aster saw his pride as his truest self, and wanted to encourage and cheer him on always. (Now, she will do that for you.)

An anecdote: Once, the young prince fell ill while he was in a different kingdom on a diplomatic trip, and Aster was so frustrated not being there to care for him that she became jealous of the nurses at the other kingdom.

The Princess: The princess was just a year older than Aster, and aimed to take on the martial activities her brother could not, practicing diligently in combat and equestrian arts. She insisted Aster practice fencing with her, and the two often went riding together or walked the gardens and talked for hours. The princess was the first peer Aster felt treated her as a true friend.

An anecdote: The princess was stronger than Aster, even before the muscular atrophy. Aster made her promise not to tell her parents how often she lost their sparring matches, fearing that her right to guard them would be called into question. Aster redoubled her training efforts so she could properly protect the princess and her family. (Now, she does so for the garden and all of her friends.)

The Queen: The queen was incredibly well spoken and well liked, and often held magnificent parties. Viatorum's long peace was often attributed to her talent at earning people's trust, and her writing was said to have built many friendships.

An anecdote: Wanting her attitude to reflect the hospitality of the house she served, Aster forced herself to to try to connect with others at the Queen's parties, even though she had in many ways given up on her ability to do so. While Aster is still not much of a party person, she was surprised to find success, and actually enjoyed getting to know the Queen's many friends. (Now she is able to put herself out on the internet and meet and encourage so many wonderful people she may have never met otherwise! People are nice, actually.)

The King: The king was a strict, sometimes angry man, but he was fair and cared deeply for his people. Aster often worried that displeasing him would cost her her position on the palace guard, but it was he who proved that she was valued for who she was, not her achievements.

The King's passion was for economics, and combined with the relationships the Queen forged with neighboring kingdoms, he was credited for making Viatorum a flourishing center of trade.

An anecdote: At first, Aster always arrived early to escort the queen-mother to tea, often making her feel the need to rush, which was dangerous for someone her age. The king scolded Aster fiercely after his mother-in-law almost slipped coming to the door one day, but was the one to explain that her mistakes didn't automatically make him dislike her. It was the first time she thought of relationships as other than a cost-benefit analysis, and it's a lesson she keeps reminding herself to this day, and hopes to teach her viewers too.

The Queen-Mother: The queen-mother was fiercely loved by the king and queen, and for good reason. Every conversation Aster had with her led to her learning something about people, life, or herself. It was no wonder the queen had such a way with people.

The queen-mother faced many challenges in her old age, but she knew life was worth enduring them, and that was her strength. She'd struggled through many hardships, and found many treasures at the other side.

An anecdote: Waking up in a foreign time period, hardly able to move, it was the queen-mother's memory that inspired Aster to search for a way forward, even before she could see it. It was there. It always is. Now, she hopes she can help others believe that too.

[ramennoodlezzzao3]

nobody asked me to answer, but I’m gonna anyways 😝

🎱 ⇢ post your AO3 total stats 

Idk how to do that lol

🍓 ⇢ how did you get into writing fanfiction?

I couldn’t find any fics that I wanted bc I’m too specific, so I started writing. It was purely for fun and I wasn’t fully thinking about the fact that people might actually read it AND enjoy it lol

  🌵 ⇢ share the link to a playlist you love

me and some of my moots from TikTok created this playlist lol (it’s, like, 14 hours long)

🕯️ ⇢ on a scale from 1 to 10, how much do you enjoy editing? why is that? Idk what that means but ima go off of what I’m thinking and that is just editing while proof reading and I enjoy it! 10/10

🛼 ⇢ describe your latest wip with five emojis

🙏👉😁🔥💀 (no, it’s not abt the burning church 💀🙏)

🥑 ⇢ you accidentally killed somebody, which mutual(s) do you text for help?

I’m new here, I have no EXTREMELY close moots so idk. But @paul-ster seems pretty chill so probably them (

🥤 ⇢ recommend an author or fanfic you love

I HAVE SO MANY I LOVE! But if I had to choose rn Soracha for the author and “Ron Weasley and His First Year at Hogwarts” by snoopy_owl. Two of my favs!

💌 ⇢ how many unread emails do you have right now? 

none, believe it or not. I constantly check it for ao3 updates. But I also have three separate yt accounts so I get regular emails abt comments and updates and I normally check them everyday. The only exception is one email I use for spam sites like grammarly, that email has 408 unread emails.

🌻 ⇢ tag someone you appreciate but don't talk to on a regular basis

@fictionalcharactergraveyard

🐇 ⇢ do you prefer writing original characters, reader inserts, or a mix of both? 

ooo, neither tbh. Unless its a one-shot or a mini fic where I add a S/O or like my unpublished Uber fic where I had to add several OG characters, I don’t like adding new ones bc I think it disrupts the story a lot and I normally don’t read fics when people do that. And personally, unless it’s the ones that are supposed to be halrious and satire, I think self-inserts are kinda cringey bc most people who write them over-sexulize the characters and add weird stuff in that makes me cringe (key word: MOST not ALL) but also I just cant imagine myself dating someone let alone my comfort characters.

🧃 ⇢ share some personal lore you never posted about before

I don’t think I have any

🎲 ⇢ what stops you from writing more in your free time?

I just can’t get into the writing mood. But when I start it’s really hard to stop

  🍄 ⇢ share a head canon for one of your favourite ships or pairings

PURLY! I love to think Curly calls pony “Mi Amor” or like calls him pet names in Spanish. I think it’s really cute

🧸 ⇢ what's the fastest way to become your mutual?

literally don’t be fake as hell. Don’t be all shy and sweet like, if you are comeback or Yapping king/queen then tell me bc we can yap together. Like, If I can call you Pookie within the first four interactions, we are besties, considered us married at that point

🪐 ⇢ name three good things going on in your life right now

I’m redecorating my room, I got a new puppy, and- wait, bitch, who gives a fuck, let’s be honest 💀🙏

📚 ⇢ what's the last thing you wrote down in your notes app?

can’t say bc it’s an unpublished chapter of a on going fic 😝

  🍬 ⇢ post an unpopular opinion about a popular fandom character

Harry Potter is kinda an ass

🔪 ⇢ what's the weirdest topic you researched for a writing project?

I don’t write anything too bizarre so I can’t think of anything

🦷 ⇢ share some personal wisdom or a life hack you swear on

strive to accomplish what you set as a goal, not what society set as a standard or a must

❄️ ⇢ what's your dream theme/plot for a fic, and who would write it best?

My comfort character gets ignored hard core, makes new friends, get into shenanigans, and then a lot of angst ensues. Who would write it best? Mmm…Fictionalcharacter graveyard or Soracha

🌿 ⇢ give some advice on writer's block and low creativity

if you have a scene you want to write for a fic, start writing it but ONLY WRITE THE DIALOGUE. You can add who said it but I do it all the time and it gives me new ideas and gradually helps me continue a fic. It’s also easier to add detail in between when you are focused on that instead of getting to the next dialogue scene.

🥐 ⇢ name one internet reference that will always make you laugh 

Nick Sturniolos iconic “Then he will taste the rainbow while he goes out”

🏜️ ⇢ what's your favourite type of comment to receive on your work?

“I LOVE THIS, I CAN’T WAIT FOR ANOTHER CHAPTER!” Then they go on an entire yap session about how they think the fic will turn out or parts they’re excited for. It always makes me happy to see someone enjoy my hobby as much as I do even though we have different perspectives 🤭

🍦 ⇢ name three good things about a character you hate

Alr, ik im gonna get backlash but i cant stand Cherry Valence. 1. I will give it to her, she’s a downright badass.

2. her hair is really pretty

3. She was nice to pony at the drive in, I’ll give her some points (still don’t like her too much tho)

🥝 ⇢ do you lie a lot? what's the most recent lie you told?

Not much. Okay, this is gonna sound so fricking clique but that last lie I told was “Yeah, I’m fine, just tired” even though I know damn well I’m probably depressed asf

🦋 ⇢ share something that has been on your heart and mind lately

I have only older siblings and every time one moves out, I stop talking to them so I don’t become the annoying youngest sister, so I’m afraid their gonna forget about me, and they probably will. I only have two siblings that still live with me so that’s only two more people left to forget me before I’m totally alone lol. (Depressed, see?)

  🦴 ⇢ is there a piece of media that inspires your writing? 

book writers that can describe really well.

🍅 ⇢ give yourself some constructive criticism on your own writing

I think I’m too impatient and give myself an unrealistic deadline for stuff

🐚 ⇢ do you like or dislike surprises?

I like them a lot!

🪲 ⇢ add 50 words to your current wip and share the paragraph here

I’ll add that later lol

☁️ ⇢ what made you choose your username?

it was a name my family wouldn’t be able to find. I’m embarrassed to write bc my family LOVES to pick out your insecurities and hobbies and never let you live them down.

🐝 ⇢ tag your biggest supporter(s) and say one nice thing about them

again, I’m new here, so nobody here is my “supporter” but @shae-pine has liked all of my posts so ig them? I got to say, that “The Youngest (The Favorite)” fic I really liked! Ur also just the sweetest person ever! 😭🫶🏻

🌸 ⇢ do you have any pets? if you do, post some pictures of them

I have 7 (I had 8 but my cat passed away yesterday, RIP in the comments for Sophie 🩵)

I won’t post pics because that’s a large file 😭🙏

🎨 ⇢ link your favourite piece of fanart and explain why you like it

I DONT HAVE THE LINK BUT I LOVE THIS

🧩 ⇢ what will make you click away from a fanfiction immediately?

self insert, too much OOC scenes, pairings I don’t like, oc’s/characters unless it’s the character I’m reading abt, pure smut or p*rn, over sexulization or romanticizing R*pe, over detailed non-con, specific characters are dead, and the fic doesn’t focus on a character that I wanna read about.