#like I love world building and stuff but I'm also bad at media analysis which is something I want to get better at

[ihopesocomic]

Something I would just really want to thank you guys for is how much stuff I learned about mental health and the lgbtq community, despite being a part of it I still have so much to learn

One thing I learned that really stuck out to me and may have rewired my brain was the talk about ASPD back when Bright was being accused of having a mental illness. Let me tell you, it gave me the ICK when someone mentioned that–like yeah I didn't really think about that when I encounter similarly mannered characters with Bright, and it's immediately understandable if it was explained otherwise in the characters backstory, but OH MY GOSH please do not just throw that accusation around 😭

Anyway back to my point, I never heard that the term ps*cho was a very harmful and albiest term for people with ASPD (a condition I also wasn't aware of) and ever since then I would flinch when someone gets described as such.

As a follow up question, how do you guys come to know so many things about these topics? Like where do you even begin with your research, because I would love to read on stuff on my own (as a way to also understand myself cuz I MIGHT be autistic, not fully claiming it yet, just a suspicion for now) to better understand others too.

This is one if the things that made me fall in love with the comic and it's world building, I learned so much from it. And to the point I get shocked when I get hit with reality cuz in IHS the world is free of homophobia and the likes so I'm like "Huh, but isn't that normal?" Lol

Thank you so much, anon. It's always great when we hear that we've helped people understand things better.

To be honest, just... listening to people when they try and educate you is a major component to learning about things. Not everybody is out to get you when they correct you on things. We didn't know much about ASPD until a few years ago when somebody brought up that we misused the word 'psychopath' in the MP analysis when, in reality, we should've expanded on the fact that it was the creator's bad attempt at depicting such a thing.

I think another thing that helps is when you have something that the media deems pretty adjacent to ASPD - schizophrenia - you realise that the same stereotypes and misconceptions apply to your condition too, even though they're totally different. That's just schizophrenia and personality disorders in general, though. People will confuse them until the end of time.

Outlets like Reddit are also very handy if you wish to have first-hand experiences for what you're looking into too. Mainly because there are tons of communities for people with various conditions where they come together and discuss their day-to-day lives. And professionals in mental health will also sometimes contribute to such communities as well.

There are things about my own condition that I didn't even know before I started this comic. Things such as negative vs. positive symptoms, which I automatically assumed was media-based and was not an actual medical definition: I'm an idiot sometimes. lol

As for your feelings that you may be autistic: self diagnosis is certainly a thing and very valid. An autism diagnosis is very hard to get as an adult, especially if you do not have the money for it. I thankfully live in a country with free healthcare but even then, I had to spend the ages between 16-24 having to convince people that I was autistic.

And I only got put on a waiting list - where you have to wait for years to get a diagnosis - after I had a mental breakdown and got my schizophrenia diagnosis. You literally have to jump through hoops to get the answers you want, sometimes at the cost of your own well being (i.e. it took me breaking literal bones to get my dyspraxia diagnosis oof). So, anybody who says you're not entitled to have your self diagnosis either had an unusually easy ride through the system or they don't know the system as well as they claim they do.

So, if this is something you feel quite strongly about, I recommend doing what I did when I found a character in a show that was autistic and related to her hardcore and just do research and see how much of it applies to you. A lot of the time, you just need to look around for five minutes to tick a lot of boxes in your head and come up with the diagnosis you need.

But anyway, sorry this got super lengthy, anon. Thank you for the sweet ask and we hope you enjoy the comic as it continues. c: - RJ

[phantom-does-a-thing]

talk to me about toh what are your thoughts on everything

HI!!!!! Phantom is literally going to go kerblooey if there is any more studying done tonight so I'm gonna talk about toh for a lil bit.

UHHHHH I don't really have many thoughts nor are they coherent but I will do what I do best and talk. Under the cut bc its probably gonna be spoilers

Ok so this has turned into me ranting about world building and character design more than the actual plot of the story itself. Sorry I'm a writer.

anyhoo my first order of business is one of my favorite favorite things about the animation in the owl house is the fact that there is a lot of variety in the way the characters blush. Like this was such an innocuous thing to notice that I somehow did. And I realize I don't think I've EVER seen that in another animated show.

like Hunter blushes to his ears (which was the main reason I noticed that bc I realized that no other character's ears get all red like his does)

Amity blushes with her entire face and Luz blushes just the bridge of her nose and cheeks. Like that's such a small detail but I am so obsessed with it because it's so cool and it's something I've never seen before.

ironically enough, I think that the first thing that dissuaded me from watching the Owl house before I watched it was that I wasn't a big of a fan of the surface level animation style but I do really really like the animation now that I've watched it, and the designs for creatures are so so so SO cool like I kjhkb,mxbn UGH.

Belos' monster design thingy idk that's just so cool just the way he looks and how he's animated is so intimidating and I think it's crazy cool. And I think it's also really creative which is a thing that I love a lot about this type of casual slightly modern fantasy is just the way that things are translated from modern real life into the world which is something that can often be done really awkwardly.

The ravens and the scrolls things are really cool and I like that, I also like the added thing of social media which isn't usually something I like in shows and stuff but I thought that was really neat.

SORRY THE THOUGHT TRAIN SWERVED THE WHOLE WORLD BUILDING THAT THEY'RE LIVING ON THE DEAD BODY OF A TITAN IS SO COOL I LOVE THAT. In the world of one of my new stories that I've just started working on, it's sort of similar to that in the way that people on the surface live off of the bodies of dead gods like living inside them and feasting on the flesh and stuff like using the dead gods all the way through (in a way that people from the floating islands would think is sacrilegious). I didn't really get that from the owl house because I just noticed that connection right now but GOD THATS SO COOL. I hhh *fans face*

The way magic works is also super cool and like honestly, I think the coven system is also really cool, not the whole having to only chose one magic track part of it but the different sections of magic that you can do. Like all the different types is really cool to me and I don't really consume much fantasy media of this type with heavy reliance on magic systems but this is one of my favorite magic systems.

I think the bard magic is really cool and GOD THE GLYPHS THATS SO COOL THE WAY THAT WORKS. Like it's such a wonderful mix of just hjkljhflkjhjbnvclkjhlskufg. I think it's very cleaver the way that they did that, especially with the glyphs and stuff being hidden around in nature. That's something that's very very cool and also very smart. Like in my mind, in the way my mind works that makes incredible sense. Like enough sense that you could tell me that in real life and I'd be like (yeah sure). It's like molecule shapes and stuff idfk.

Also the harpy Eda (is that what they called it I remember them calling it that) in season 2 was GOD so cool, just the way she looked in that form was so awesomely designed. Also just the whole Owl Lady thing, listen I am a sucker for wings and bird like characters (I would have more feathered winged OCs if feathered wings weren't a pain in my behind to draw). Eda is feathery and sharp with claws and teeth and by god is she so incredibly cool.

Ok I'm going back to hunter because I've been thinking about him all day, I think the fact that he has a tooth gap is really neat, I don't recall seeing that often in characters and I think it's really neat. He looks very disheveled all the time, especially in the later episodes of the season where he is literally one inconvenience away from a panic attack at every moment. But he really just LOOKS like a mussed up kid.

Also I believe that witch ears, they are pointy, they can flick and move and you can pry those headcanons out of my cold dead hands for all I care. I think they deserve to move like that. (I assume you know how I write Gillion, I love those kind of small motions like ears flicking and stuff like that)

also x2 I really like King's design as well, the whole skull for head thing is so cool to me and it's something that I really really like in design. I've had characters like that and I've had characters that wear skull masks and I don't think I will ever tire of characters like that. Even the titan hunters who even though it was just a costume I thought their outfits looked really cool and also really awesome how all the skulls and stuff were different and unique. It's just so charming to me and so cute how King looks with his skull and his horns, it's just one of those character design things that I really really love.

Ok I'm done for now I need to stop before this goes on for like way longer than it needs to. I don't think I have said a word about any of the plot or lore that happened. I have been rambling about world building and character design for a good half an hour that it's taken me to type out this response. Oops.

Does any of this even contain spoilers? I do not know and I will not be reading over anything that I just typed, it's going out into the world of my tumblr blog.