#herera rambles

[hererafjastori]

I don‘t know if it‘s fanon or canon, that some of Hunter‘s scars where inflicted by Belos when he was in his cursed form, but I can‘t get this scene out of my head.

There is this specific kind of fanfic that I love, where Hunter gets adopted into the owl house and slowly unlearns all the toxic nonsense Belos taught him. He is allowed to be loud. He doesn‘t have to earn his bed, his meal, medical supplies, the roof over his head, etc. He is allowed to be loud. He is allowed to be childish. He is allowed to take a break. He is allowed to make mistakes. He is allowed to talk back to, and disagree with authority figures. Love and care (especially from a guardian to their child) should be unconditional. Getting physically punished is NEVER an appropriate reaction, he deserved better, and Eda would never do that, no matter what he does. And so on.

But I want to focus on the curse thing. Because in Belos has a cursed form. And the worst physical scars Hunter has, were inflicted upon him by Belos when he was in this state. And Hunter thinks that Belos isn‘t at fault for those things because he wasn‘t in control. That it was his own fault for triggering his uncle in some way or another. That he deserved those injuries because he set Belos off in the first place.

Eda also has a curse she doesn‘t have total control over that makes her more volatile. And we know, that even after turning into the harpy, she still needs those elixirs to stay in control (see ftf). There are infinite ways this can play out, but I can think of these:

1. Eda turns into a harpy and Hunter inacts plans to put himself in harms way to let Luz escape without injury. (physically shielding her; playing distraction;…)

2. Eda gets stressed/scared/starteled/frustrated/… and starts growing feathers. Hunter immediately panics, backpedals, apologises, maybe he has a panic attack.

3. Luz gets injured somehow. Maybe elixirs have run low and they couldn‘t get a hold of Morton in time. Maybe Eda grew claws at an inopportune time. Maybe there was a trial and error phase before she was able to properly judge the Harpy‘s strength.

4. Luz was injured by the owl beast in the days leading up to the season 1 finale, where Eda transforming seems to have been a regular occurence. She could have been attacked. She could have stood too close during a transformation. She could have held a shiny in her hand and get badly scratched whem the beast grabbed it. No matter what happened, she and Hunter start comparing scars inflicted on them by their guardians, and tell wildly different stories.

No matter how they got there I want to see Hunter react to Eda‘s reaction. She is in a similar position as Belos. She could use the same excuses: ”I couldn‘t control myself, why didn‘t you move out of the crossfire, or better yet, never let it get to this point in the first place, this is your fault”. She doesn‘t. If there are injuries, she helps patch them up. She gives them space if they need it. She apologizes. She takes accountability. She does everything in her power to keep then out of harms way. She is open and clear about what sets her off, what can be done to avoid that, what she does to keep the curse at bay, what are signs of an oncoming transformation and what they/ he can do in case she does transform/ lose control. She offers to help him move in with Darius/ the Parks/ Gwendoly/ Dell/ anyone who can protect him, and won‘t sell him out to Belos he would feel comfortable with, if he isn‘t willing to bear the risks of living with her. She doesn‘t demand forgiveness for whatever harm she caused, or for him to trust her in spite of that.

And Hunter is confronted with the fact that Belos could have - no, should have done the same, and has no excuse for doing what he did to him.

___________

tldr: Eda would be the second parental figure of Hunter, that has a curse liable to cause anyone in her vincinity harm, and I want to see Hunter confronted with that and the way she handles such a situation.

[hererafjastori]

True, but imagine how cathartic this might be for Midoriya. Learning how to be an effective quirkless hero. Zuko is showing him how he could have made his dream a reality if All Might hadn’t given him his quirk.

Because from my understanding (correct me if I’m wrong), the mindset of “going into the hero business quirkless would be impossible and nothing but a death sentence” and the accompanying “without this quirk given to you by someone else, without this stroke of luck and the generosity of a stranger you had no hope of making it on your own” was never explicitly corrected.

So Mido not only being told that that is nonsense, but being given the tools he would have needed to succeed, would probably be a balm on a wound in him that he never expected to truly heal

Oh but I really want Zuko to teach Midoriya sword fighting/martial arts/whatever genderless combat he knows because I just want Midoriya to have new fun things to learn and also the experience of being given something he doesn't need his quirk for but can absolutely use to help people and can combine with his quirk, let Midoriya learn how to fight sneaky! he has the body slam instincts!

Okay but the thought of Midoriya being able to sneak around Blue Spirit-style is lowkey terrifying? And very bad for his teachers’ blood pressure?

Imagine looking up and seeing two pairs of electric green eyes staring down at you from the shadowy rafters. Horrifying.

[hererafjastori]

As someone who is Aro I absolutely love this Ode to the value of friendship hidden in the midst of the proposals, one of the most romance driven things you can do. I am just so deeply appreciative of the fact, that even though they are in love with Lucy (something that is widely considered as „more than friendship“ and often regarded as or at least implied to be more deep and true and of greater worth than ‘simple’ friendship), both of the rejected suitors are deeply aware of the value of friendship. Even in the middle of a rejection, the time where such sentiments are most likely to come up, they don’t suggest any of that.

While they obviously and naturally feel dejected about not getting a chance to start a romantic relationship with her, they never discredit the worth of the chance at a deeper friendship they are left with. It’s just two sentences. One from Seward and one from Quincey, but they touched me deeper than anything else that has happened in the novel until now.

Also I am in awe of how careful everyone involved in these difficult conversations is to not hurt anyone any more than necessary, even if they are not perfect at it.

Seward stops himself from accidentally pressuring/guilt tripping Lucy into accepting his proposal, the moment he realises he is doing it and that hes hurting her, because he recognises that this accidentally performed emotional manipulation is not fair to her. And he is so careful not to hurt or demean or shake her, if he can help it, when he asks if there is any sense in him holding out hope.

Quincey might misjudge the impact of his tone at the beginning of his proposal, but he switches course the moment he realises that in an effort to keep the atmosphere light he was miscommunicating how serious he was and quickly and directly dispells that misunderstanding. And when recognising that she seems more stressed and torn up about his proposal than happy he actively creates room in the conversation for her to voice her rejection in order to make that process as easy for her as possible. He reassures her that he is greateful for her honesty, and that she shouldn’t feel guilty about rejecting him and that he will recover and be fine.

While both of them ask her if she has already given her heart to somebody else, in order to ascertain whether there is any sense in holding out hope for a romantic future, neither of them act like that is the only acceptable reason for rejecting their proposal. Especially John accepts her refusal before ever asking about her being in love with someone else. They both recognise that she doesn’t want to hurt them and that rejecting them is thusly hard for her. They therefore reassure her that they won’t hold her rejection against her, that they still want to be close to her and value her as a person and their relationship, no matter if it stays purely platonical, and that they are happy for her and wish her the best

Lucy in return softens the blow of her rejection in every way she knows how to, only missing the mark when she misreads Quinceys jovial attitude. She clearly communicates that while she doesn’t see them that way, she still cares about them as people and doesn’t want to see them hurt, and she gives them as clean a break and as much closure as she can.

They are all incredibly emotionally vulnerable, and through their clear communication and obvious care for each other, the three of them left a conversation that centered on a rejection closer than ever before, secure in the knowledge of where they stand with each other, new assurances in their continued friendship having strengthened their relationships. From a Rejection!!! Incredible work on everyone’s part, stellar example of the conduct during emotionally charged conversations.

Vows, Spoken and Unspoken