princey

I know I already made this post on twitter, but I thought I could do a silly and post it for my Tumblr peeps as well! This is in reference to @nanny-nani animatic about her character's, Aster, lore: https://youtu.be/yNIxddAkx0w



Before we start, here are some warnings!



TW: child death, child neglect, sacrifice/ritual things, religious stuff, and spoilers for aster's lore, and possibly more





OKAY SO WE START OFF WITH THIS SHOT



So for some context on Aster's lore, she was a part of a very successful village that was blessed by the gods, particularly by the Nether God, Atius. The reason behind this is that the people of this town do sacrifices every decade, in order to be in favour of Atius. There's a pattern to this, one decade they would sacrifice an animal, and the next they would sacrifice a child.



Yeah, very unethical and fucked up, I know



For the child sacrifices there's a fortune teller, a woman that decides who is chosen for the deed. Essentially, the children that are picked are rumoured to be the "downfall" of the village, so these children are sacrificed to get rid of that possibility. During this time, Aster was the child rumoured to cause the downfall of this village, following tradition, she would be the sacrifice for the upcoming ritual in a few years or so!





Atius has never directly or personally gone to the village. He has no reason to, he's busy, he has better things to attend to. After all, he is the God of the Nether. But something calls for him one day. Wanting to get it over with, he approaches the area, but finds a small child with purple hair off in the woods by herself.



He finds himself absolutely adoring her, especially when the child herself is not at all bothered or scared of him. We get a begrudging, slow burn, adoption thing happen between. She is the first human he has ever cared for, and he loved her. She was his light, his pride and joy, and he would do anything to make her happy. Years go by, they're happy, they've grown very close, it's very sweet.





One day, he's unable to find her at their usual spot, and he's worried, but isn't really that bothered. Coincidentally, there's a village nearby that was doing a sacrifice in his name, so he decides to pay it a visit whilst waiting for his child.





Only to find that his child is the sacrifice!



Yeah, that doesn't end well for the village obviously, and he's stricken by grief and anger. So, so much anger.



This explanation ends now, keep it in mind as we continue with the analysis of the clip itself, which shows Aster at the altar about to succumb to her death. Despite knowing about it, waiting for years for her fate to arrive, she finds that she is not actually ready for it.



She doesn't want to die. Aster finally, finally has someone in this god forsaken world who cares about her, who pays positive attention to her, who loves her in a way her own parents couldn't, only to have it all end in a manner she never truly wanted to in the first place. Without even having the chance to say goodbye to her papa.





At the end of this clip, we see a shadowy figure hovering in front of her. I'm not quite sure what it is, but it might be the nightmares taunting her, or it might be the fortune teller (Achyls) kinda fucked up silly side. I don't know, but what I do know is that Aster (who gets revived later, keep this in mind it's important), experiences regular nightmares, which we'll explore in soon



If you remember, I mentioned there being a fortune teller (Achyls) who 'decides on' which children will be sacrificed every time. This fortune teller is a half warden, which means all of the souls of the previously sacrificed children go straight to her heart

TLDR: She feasts on the souls of the children who have been sacrificed! And in the clip, Aster goes to the space inside the Achyls' heart, and meets all the other sacrificed children.

Yeah, not very pleasant for a long, long while





Once again, there's the smiling, shadowy figure. Again, I'm still unsure whether this is her nightmares, or something to do with Achyls, but we do delve into the nightmare stuff in the next part

We're in a dark space here, and this implies we are in one of Aster's nightmare. We'll talk about it in a second.



Before that, we need to discuss Aster's revival.



After his child's death, Atius is inconsolable. For centuries, his wrath has seemingly increased, taking out his anger and grief on the people of this world. It doesn't work too well. Despite all that he has caused, he finds himself still missing his child, and so he seeks out another God, and does something he has never done before



He begs, pleading, to this God, for them to bring back his daughter.



Full deaths, in this world, are final. There is no way for someone to revive a person, especially someone who was sacrificed. All the gods have no hand in this, they are powerful, but life and death matter like this is out of their hands, except for the God Atius seeks help from.



He receives a no, for a long, long while, but the Nether God is persistent. Until finally, the God agrees, but with a condition.

Aster can be brought back into this world and live as an immortal, but once she finds true happiness, once she is content with her life, she will be returned to death, this time with no more second chances.

It's cruel.



To subject his own child to a life with nothing but misery is cruel, but Atius is selfish, and he's drowning in grief and longing and, selfishly, agrees to this. With that she's brought back, and at first she's happy, she's able to see her dad, but..

He doesn't have anymore time for her. He doesn't let her braid his hair, he doesn't give her little personal gifts, he doesn't smile warmly at her, he doesn't look at her in that soft but loving way reserved only for her anymore, he's barely even there. He's always busy, busy, busy, and she's confused and she's sad and she's-



She's handed off to another family to look after her.



During this time, Aster experiences regular nightmares. Recurring, repeating nightmares in a dark, cramped and suffocating space, with the souls of the dead children surrounding her.



She falls inside a hole, back awake, back where it's filled with nothing but confusion, pain, and misery and she just wants to be happy. She wants to be safe. She wants to be loved. She wants answers. She wants help and she doesn't understand, she doesn't understand anything



So she reaches out. She reaches out for answers. Answers for a question that she doesn't even know. She reaches out to anyone, everyone, begging and pleading for help from those around her, just as she had begged for their town leader to spare her, to give her another chance-



She calls out for Confetti, for Clover, for Achyls, for Lee, for Marie, for Marisol, for Jewelz, for Q, for Alto, for Princey, for August, for Sukey, for Toby, and finally for Atius.

She calls out to anyone, the people she considers family to look at her and help her

understand.



In the end, no one does. At least, not yet. And she's left in her confusion, her pain, and

ultimately, by herself.



Final clip before the animatic ends, we see the knife, most likely the one used to kill her during the sacrifice.

And then we see two people who were most likely her biological parents who gave her up for the town's sacrifice.

Then we see a hand, bloodied, and laid out on its own. Most likely Aster's hand.

Finally, it ends with papers, with the title being "A Guide". A lore book written by Nani on the Cozy SMP, detailing a fairly brutal step-by-step guide that helps the parents of the chosen children sacrifice agree to give up their children for the 'greater good of the village'.

All in all, fucked up story with so much tragedy in it, beautifully showcased through Nani's animatic. I adore her character and her story, and I absolutely adored the animatic as well. Go watch it, 1000/10

Ending notes: Funny how the village holds a tradition where they sacrifice a child so that they wouldn't be the cause of their downfall, ended up actually causing their downfall