#he mentions darius in ttt as much as any of the kids mention any of their parents lol

[misccy27]

why I prefer Darius as Hunter's primary guardian (an unhinged rant)

(This post is riddled with disclaimers because the fandom has no chill about this subject lol)

So first of all I want to say, IRL at this point it would be Hunter's decision who he wants to live with. So I'm looking at this from a narrative perspective about what would be most satisfying to me as a viewer.

For the record, I think Darius, Camila, Eda, Raine, etc. can and should all be involved in Hunter's life in some form or another going forward. Hunter needs a strong support network and deserves all the caring parental figures he can get. But I also think that he needs stability. Even if he spends a lot of time at other houses, I think Hunter would do best with a place he can start to think of as his home, instead of cycling through a rotation of 'his room at Camila's house', 'his room at Darius' house', and so on.

Now. I know there were plans for Hunter to stay at the Owl House at some point in season 2, but since that didn't happen in canon, Hunter doesn't have any real foundation for moving in with Eda now. And we sadly never really get to see him interact with Raine. So that leaves us with 2 realistic candidates: Darius and Camila.

And just to head this off, yes Camila is a wonderful person. She would be a great parent for any child, including Hunter. I'm not saying that she wouldn't be, and I'm not saying that Darius is in a better parent. Just hear me out.

1. Practical considerations

I know no one wants to hear it, but Camila has been single-parenting 6 kids for 2-3 months. I cannot believe she had no worse breakdown than a (very well-done) nightmare sequence. If Hunter does move in with her post-canon, then that makes her the primary caregiver of 3 severely traumatized teenagers. Again, I'm sure she would do an excellent job as always. But that's still a lot of stress.

Second. Hunter states his desires at the end of Thanks to Them. They are to: study wild magic; learn how to carve palismen; attend Hexside as a regular student; and play flyer derby with his friends. All of these goals would have him spending a lot of time in the demon realm.

One argument I've seen is that Hunter was the happiest we've seen him yet in the human realm, which is true. But I think a lot of that was because he was with his friends in a relatively safe environment. He should be able to get that in the demon realm post-canon, especially since most of his friends will be staying there and he plans to spend so much of his time there. And for feeling safe, he's now been successfully traumatized in both realms so. yay /s

So those are my practical justifications for why it makes more sense for Hunter to stay with Darius over Camila. But I also have reasons based on what we get to see of their relationships in canon.

2. Canon clues that I'm not just reaching

A lot of people seem to be taking it as a given that Hunter will or should end up with Camila based on canon. For the reasons given above, I don't think there's more canon basis for Camila parenting Hunter over Darius.

I also think it's worth noting that Hunter seems rather attached to Darius. During the draining spell, Willow and Amity try to help Eda while Hunter runs straight to Darius to try to wake him up.

In the human realm, Willow, Gus, and Amity draw pictures of their families. IIRC Gus is the only one who verbally mentions his dad. Luz doesn't talk about Eda and King or hang up any pictures, but she does draw them. Hunter doesn't draw anyone, but he verbally mentions one single person from the demon realm. And that person is Darius.

2. Camila's relationship with Hunter in canon

I hate how little we know about it. I know, I know, the Shortening. But it does affect how I view their relationship. In all of the interactions we see, from the learning Spanish to the sewing machine to saving him from drowning, it could have been any of the kids. There's nothing about the way Camila interacts with Hunter to differentiate their relationship from her relationship with Willow, Gus, or Amity.

What I was really hoping to see at some point was any clue about what Camila knows about Hunter's background. Like I’m assuming she at least knows that he was raised by Belos. But the way it came up and who told her what about it is entirely unknown. Does she know he was abused? To what extent? Does she know about his role as the Golden Guard? Does she know how he met Luz, when he threatened to throw her into the boiling sea? Like I know, I get that she would have been as compassionate as always. But if I'm filling the gaps for how these conversations played out, I at least want more evidence that they happened at all.

Because it isn't a given. Again, Camila is working a full-time job and taking care of 6 teenagers, 5 of whom have to live in hiding to some extent and are struggling to adjust and have unique needs because they aren't human. That is so much stress and responsibility on Camila. So the montage and photo album we saw were mostly the kids bonding with each other. We didn't get to see Camila interact one-on-one with anyone but Luz. Which again, yes, the Shortening. But also maybe Camila just didn't have as much time to spend bonding with each individual child as everyone would have liked. It is a very real possibility that a lot of topics relating to Hunter and his childhood simply haven't come up yet.

Also, we know that Camila still has a shaky grasp on the Boiling Isles by the end of TTT. It is totally understandable because she's never been there and has never seen it; the kids are having the same issue adjusting to the human realm. Hunter didn't seem overly eager to talk about his past. Luz didn't seem overly eager to talk about the Boiling Isles in general. I think most of Camila's understanding comes from what Vee told her prior to and during TTT, and what Willow, Gus, and Amity told her while they were there.

So that leaves a lot of room for interpretation about what Camila's understanding of Hunter's situation is, which in turn makes it hard to imagine how any specific interaction or conversation might play out. Like yes, Camila would of course be loving and supportive, and she would say all the right things and model all the correct behaviors, and that's great. But without any canon basis for how Camila uniquely views and interacts with Hunter, it all ends up feeling more like wish-fulfillment to me than a relationship between 2 characters who know each other in canon.

For example, Camila doesn’t seem to be expecting Hunter to stay with her long-term. Because after months in the human realm Hunter is still sleeping on the floor of the basement. But there are so many possible explanations for this, because we don't know anything. Maybe Camila doesn’t know yet that Hunter is functionally homeless. Maybe she does know, and they had a really fulfilling heart-to-heart about it off screen. Maybe Hunter really is already planning to stay in the human realm. Or maybe Camila is under the impression that Hunter already has a place to stay in the demon realm.

Which is its own thing. I am being a bit of a hypocrite. For all we know, Hunter did talk to Darius about this before the Day of Unity and already has plans to move in with him. There are plenty of gaps to go around! So I will move on to:

3. Darius' relationship with Hunter in canon

I will admit it, I'm biased. This relationship is so much more interesting to me, just from the set up.

Because Darius is the only adult we see actually try to help Hunter while Hunter is still living in his abusive situation.

I know there's been discussion and debate about Darius' behavior, so I'll try to keep it brief. Darius did not help Hunter for a long time. He also didn't have any particular responsibility towards Hunter. Darius failed Hunter as much as every other adult Hunter interacted with over the years.

It is unclear based on canon how often Darius and Hunter interacted or what those interactions were generally like. It is unclear what Darius knew or suspected about Hunter's situation prior to Any Sport in a Storm. I think a lot of fandom disagreement comes down to how generously or harshly you interpret Darius when filling in these blanks. So I'll focus on what we do know.

Darius gave Hunter a mission in ASIAS. He didn't mean to; he was just trying to get rid of Hunter. He seems to view Hunter as a lost cause for most of the episode. Because of that and/or the traitor thing, Darius makes no effort to explain what he thinks Hunter is doing wrong. Which is unfortunate, because he is pushing Hunter in the right direction.

Darius encourages Hunter to think for himself at a time when Hunter is still loyal and Belos is still actively working to keep Hunter unquestioningly obedient. And this is before Darius has even taken any real interest in Hunter. He goes about it horribly, but he is already taking the right stance on these fundamental issues, and that matters to me.

Then at the end of the episode, Darius' attitude towards Hunter changes completely. And yes, I know it shouldn't have happened this way. I know Hunter shouldn't have needed to prove himself to earn help and attention. But this show is full of flawed characters who change for the better. So why not Darius?

And Darius shows that he is capable of change. He admits to Hunter "I had you all wrong". He praises Hunter for both making friends and for disobeying him, which is huge for Hunter while he's still in his abusive situation. And then Darius' first action after his revelation is to give Hunter a scroll and encourage Hunter to make connections outside of the castle.

And again, Darius didn't have to do that. He could have just as easily ended the interaction there. He could have agreed to keep Flapjack a secret in return for Hunter keeping his mouth shut about letting the 'recruits' go, and then gone back home to get his beauty sleep.

But he didn't. He gave Hunter a scroll and encouraged him to break out of his isolation more. Then he gave Hunter back his cloak and fixed the cloak and gave Hunter the approval that Hunter spent all episode desperately wanted since the beginning (which is problematic, I know). And then Darius told Hunter to get a sewing lesson, which he very well may have given actually him based on Hunter comparing his stitches to Darius' in TTT.

So did Darius handle everything perfectly? Of course not. But he did consistently push Hunter in the right direction, and by the end of it he does seem actively interested and willing to help. He becomes the first (and tbh only) adult we actually get to see start paying attention to Hunter's situation and intervening with Hunter's best interests at heart.

...And then we don't get to see them interact after that. It's another place where the fandom diverges, particularly regarding whether or not one or more sewing lessons ended up happening.

But we do get some crumbs.

During Hollow Mind, Darius is alarmed when he realizes Hunter got trapped in Belos' mind.

Then in Clouds on the Horizon, Hunter reveals that Darius sent him to escort Luz. I think this scene is overlooked a lot, but it's huge to me. Because it means that Darius and Hunter got in contact some time after Hollow Mind, presumably after Labyrinth Runners.

Like Hunter must have had some pretty severe trust issues after learning that Belos is an evil sadist who manipulated him his whole life. It would've been compounded by Coven Head Adrian showing up at Hexside lying about being a rebel. So even though we didn't get to actually see it, we know something must have happened between Darius and Hunter that somehow got Hunter to trust Darius enough to go on a mission for him on the Day of Unity. And I'm assuming that required Darius to make at least some effort to confront head-on the reality of Hunter's situation and Darius' role as a rebel and all the messy complicated emotions that go along with all of it.

And again, he didn't have to. Darius didn't have to get in contact with Hunter after Hollow Mind. That is a choice that he both made and successfully pulled off. Like I see this hc a lot that Darius can't handle emotional situations, but he was there for Hunter at least to some extent both while Hunter was unknowingly in an abusive situation and while Hunter was coping with the fallout of having everything ripped out from under him. So I don't get why it's so hard to imagine Darius being there for Hunter in emotionally difficult situations post-canon.

Anyway. This scene also tells us that Darius went and gave Hunter the same mission that Eda gave Luz, presumably for the same reason: to let the kids feel useful while also trying to keep them relatively safe and out of the line of fire on the Day of Unity. (And that's it's own thing. There are plenty of parallels you could draw between Darius' relationship with Hunter and Luz' relationship with Eda, particularly in the early stages where things were a bit rocky.)

So. This turned into a little bit of a tangent of why I don't get how it's so inconceivable to some people that Darius is truly capable of genuinely caring about Hunter and/or being able to grow into a parental figure that can do right by Hunter. Because we have canon evidence for all of these things.

2. Canon clues that I'm not just reaching

A lot of people seem to be taking it as a given that Hunter will or should end up with Camila based on canon. For the reasons given above, I don't think there's more canon basis for Camila parenting Hunter over Darius.

I also think it's worth noting that Hunter seems rather attached to Darius. During the draining spell, Willow and Amity try to help Eda while Hunter runs straight to Darius to try to wake him up.

In the human realm, Willow, Gus, and Amity draw pictures of their families. IIRC Gus is the only one who verbally mentions his dad. Luz doesn't talk about Eda and King or hang up any pictures, but she does draw them. Hunter doesn't draw anyone, but he verbally mentions one single person from the demon realm. And that person is Darius.

And I'll accept the hc that the way Darius treated Hunter before was just too unforgivable,