#raine mentors her because if amity can get lilith and edric can get eda then emira should get raine

[yardsards]

a pet headcanon of mine is that after they're done with the sigil removal, emira expands her horizons and starts studying the psychological side of healing, pulling in some resources from the human realm and combining it with boiling isles methods (i imagine the field of psychology in the boiling isles, while existent, was often pushed aside as just a lesser branch of the healing coven back when belos was in charge. i do imagine there's often magic like the memory tweezers involved)

and i imagine she ends up focusing in on like, art therapy and self-expression, because she knows how important that can be, after having her individuality stifled so hard when she was young

[samcat0925]

I feel if Hunter had conflicting feelings about missing Belos while knowing how awful of a person he was, and mourning what could have been, he would be able to relate to the Blight kids the best about it. He wouldn't go to Darius since the previous golden guard used to be his mentor. I don't think he would go to Eda because Lilith's her sister. He wouldn't talk to Luz about since she's connected with Eda and she has her own issues surrounding Belos; the same also applies to Raine and Eberwolf since they're more connected with Eda and Darius respectively. Willow and Gus would be understanding but they wouldn't get it on the same level the Blight kids can.

Same. Abused victims often have conflicting feelings of missing their abusers even though they're not great to them so I think that Hunter would also have those same feelings regarding Belos as I'm sure that there were moments where Belos was actually pleasant to be around which is what made Hunter stay for as long as he did until the events of Hollow mind happened and honestly, I think that Amity, Edric and Emira would have also experienced those same feelings regarding their mother.

While their mother is more manipulative and overbearing than abusive like Belos, I think they would understand having to feel like they need to prove that they're worth their mother's admiration and while they've had already dealt with those feelings and worked through them, they would understand and be able to help Hunter work those feelings out.

[the-lone-witch-and-secret-room]

The Owl House and pacing, a perspective from a fanfic writer that works with a large cast

I’ve seen a bunch of complains about the way The Owl House is paced lately. People claiming that it’s bad writing, and rushed, and whatnot. But from how I see it, you’re complaining for all the wrong reasons, and to the wrong people.

TL;DR: this is an overlaying issue with Disney and the industry that doesn’t allow long shows anymore, essentially forcing writers to pick between good pacing and complex stories being told with large casts.

For context: the fandom I wrote for before I got into The Owl House had a pretty small main cast. There were a few reoccurring characters, but most of them only showed up like five total times over the course of four seasons or had little personality, so my main cast I was writing about always consisted of my main five characters, with occasional cameos here and there. All characters were living together and experienced the adventure from the same perspective. There was one overarching storyline and not multiple. The interpersonal relationships still varied, though, for obvious reasons.

Now think about how large The Owl House cast is, and why that’d send them running into issues. Or don’t, because I have a whole-ass in depth analysis under the cut because this got unreasonably long.

(Also I’d appreciate a reblog, I spent… an unreasonable amount of time on this, lol)

The Owl House is different. There’s the main characters: Luz, Eda, King, maybe Hooty, technically (someone recently pointed out that he’s technically the titular character of the show and I’m still processing that, lol).

But they also have a HUGE additional cast to work with. There’s Lilith, Eda’s sister, and the main antagonist of season one, who has a lot to her character and gets a ton of screen time. There’s Amity, and there’s Willow and Gus, Luz’s friends. They’re all very fleshed out characters, and got a bunch of screen time and development, despite “only” being reoccurring characters and not the main characters.

Then there’s characters that have played a fairly minor role so far. There’s Belos, the big bad villain, who we will likely learn a lot more about this season. There’s the Golden Guard, the new main antagonist our cast deals with personally, who we’re just starting to learn more about. There’s Camila, Luz’s mom, who, despite only showing up a couple of times in the show so far, is very relevant to Luz and how the plot will ultimately turn out. There’s Edric and Emira, Amity’s siblings, who despite only showing up a few times as well seem to have a very worked out personality and background and also have a story that is (at least to some extent) going to be told according to the AMA.

There is at least one more seemingly important character whose role in the bigger story is hard to tell at this point, Raine, but according to the description of the episode, they’re probably going to influence the story a bunch.

There’s Alador and Odalia, who are responsible for a lot of their children’s toxic behaviors, and seem to have bigger plans that will probably be relevant later on.

The characters that are only focused on for an episode or two (like Matt and the troublemaker kids) all have very worked out personalities and even short arcs.

And heck, even characters like Boscha, who is extremely minor and seems like a very one-dimensional bully for the most part, get their moments that hint at there being more to them. We know Boscha has a clingy mom, that apparently has a rivalry with Odalia and works with Amity’s parents. The scene at the beginning of Wing It Like Witches tells us a lot about her general mindset and how she’s embraced that winning at whatever cost is the only thing that matters.

This leaves us with: 3-4 main characters

3 friends with fleshed out stories

Lilith, who is probably the most relevant aside from the main cast

Belos, the main antagonist, and the Golden Guard, currently starting to become a lot more relevant

A whole handful of minor reoccurring characters that have the potential to become bigger characters at any point in time

A handful of minor reoccurring characters that mainly seem to be there to further the story, but still get to have distinctive personalities and motivations (looking p.e. at the troublemaker kids)

That is AT LEAST 9 pretty major, relevant characters whose stories have to be tackled in the same show, in addition to the people that joined in season two and a huge supporting cast of well-developed characters that clearly also have stories of their own, even if not all of them will get told.

On top of that, the Owl House lives from exploring different relationships and different storylines. There’s the overarching story of how flawed the system is that will likely end with them overthrowing Belos, but there’s so much more.

Eda and the curse. Eda becoming a better mentor for Luz. Eda coming to terms with the loss of her magic.

Luz learning to cast magic with glyphs. Making friends for the first time. Slowly falling in love with Amity. Fighting to be able to learn whatever kind of magic she wants to. Learning that she’s not a burden to people. Struggling with her relationship with her mom, and trying to restore the portal so she can get back to her. Figuring out her future and what she really wants.

Lilith trying to cure Eda, and now in season two coming to terms with the loss of her magic and fixing her relationship with her sister. Lilith learning to ask for help.

Willow switching tracks. Willow growing more confident.

Amity becoming a better person, fixing her relationship with Willow, standing up to her parents, falling in love with Luz. Starting to fix her relationship with her siblings.

King finding out where he came from.

Hints at Gus struggling with decision making and stressing himself out less. Gus learning to be more selfless. Struggling with his magic track and being the youngest in his grade.

The newly introduced plot point with the Golden Guard. The plot point about the rebellion that will get introduced next episode.

The mystery with the letters.

And I’m like 90% sure I’ve forgotten something.

That is… a lot of different plots and relationships that are in some way important to the story.

In comparison, as stated, the last show I wrote for focused mostly on the same five characters and their relationships with each other, and one overarching plotline aside from some minor interpersonal relationships with two people’s family members that weren’t even introduced for several seasons. The first season fully focused on establishing the bond within this found family with exactly 1 important reoccurring character, an antagonist that had little personality and got a total of one line of backstory before he died.

If you have 90% of a season to develop 5 characters who live together, that’s a lot easier to do than developing twice the amount of important characters + introducing reoccurring characters season one of The Owl House has—the majority of which have separate lives and do not live together and thus can’t be focused on at the same time.

I’ve seen a bunch of people complain recently that the pacing of The Owl House is off, that the writing is bad, that the show is rushed, etc. etc.

And I get those complains. Believe me, as a viewer and also as an author that takes a lot of time to develop each character and their issues individually, I 100% get it.

But as an author that’s currently learning how hard it is to tackle a cast of the size that The Owl House has, I’ve also come to a whole different understanding from the perspective of the writers on the show.

For context, Locked Out focuses on a couple of serious themes, in the same way that the show does. It has 4 main plotlines: Amity Camila and Luz, Edric and Emira, Eda and Lilith, Willow and the Grudgby Squad (as well as a Gus arc that ties into the last one while also being its own thing, we’re getting to that part). So far, it prominently features: Luz, Amity, Camila, Eda, Emira, Edric, Willow and Gus, and to a lesser extent King, Lilith and Boscha, Skara and Amelia in relation to the separate plots.

That’s eight main characters across five different households. And then there’s the reoccurring characters that will have a larger role later on that I’ve not even had the opportunity to bring into the story yet/feature in a more prominent way. The cast is still growing.

And heck, I have all the time in the world to write this thing, because I don’t have an episode limit, or a deadline, or a limited amount of money to produce it.

For Locked Out, it took me 120k to get through a single week of plot at a very high level of character development, with about as many important characters as TOH has in season 1, and with an equally high number of reoccurring characters, some minor, some major. I think you can compare it to the show pretty well. I’d say, if I were to split Locked Out into episodes, I’d set one episode at about 10k. That would be 12 episodes. 12 episodes to get through a single week. Heck, even if I said 20k words were to be one episode, which I’m pretty sure is too much realistically, that would still be 6 episodes for one week.

And TOH covers more than three months.

That would be at least 72 total episodes to get through the three months of summer camp. And we’re currently progressing past that point.

72 episodes.

Let that sit for a while o.o

Everything that’s happened in season one (which as we know now was about 2 months) would have happened in 48 episodes rather than 19. Pacing-wise, everything would happen at less than 0.5x the speed. The first four episodes of season two would’ve been 24 episodes, assuming we hadn’t skipped a week and a half and had instead shown the immediate aftermath of the petrification ceremony, too.

And I’d love if we could have that, and if we could actually develop the characters and their relationships that thoroughly.

But the sad fact is that shows like The Owl House do not get the amount of episodes that would be required to develop every single aspect of the show to its fullest potential. Disney rarely greenlits shows of 150 episodes anymore. They used to, once, (Phineas&Ferb for example had 130+ episodes—you could tell one hell of a story in that many episodes), but that’s not a thing anymore. And the writers know that going into a show. They know the chances their story will be told in that way are very low.

And thus, the writers, especially ones working with large casts, have to make a choice: cut characters they love, and plots that are important to them, because they know they won’t get the amount of episodes required to do everything perfectly, OR include most of what they want to do, but at the cost of the pacing being off and everything seemingly happening too fast.

The Owl House crew went with the second option. The biggest issue the show has isn’t bad writing. The show’s biggest issue is that its cast and the story the crew members want to tell are too big for the amount of episodes they’ve been given (especially now that Disney decided to cut season 3 down into just three 44 minute specials).

And that’s on Disney, and Disney alone.

The crew is making the most of the amount of episodes they have, and unfortunately the lack of time forces them to rush things, and to sometimes sideline characters to focus on others.

Lilith got a bunch of screen time in the first four episodes. I’m sad to see her go, but she’s basically guaranteed to be back by season 2B. And there’s other people that have gotten way less focus than her so far. We‘ve seen basically nothing of Willow and Gus for the first few episodes, and I’m super happy Gus finally got some focus! We haven’t been inside Hexside all season except to see Luz expelled! And episode seven is even going to introduce a new character. Sometimes there’s parts of the story that certain characters don’t have a place in. And it sucks if they’re characters you like. But Lilith has to go for a bit so other characters can get the same amount of spotlight she did. At the end of the day, Lilith is not part of the main cast. She’s a very important reoccurring character, yes, but so are Amity, Willow and Gus. The main characters are Eda, Luz and King, and they’re the only ones that will always be around. And heck, even Eda got sidelined for a bit in the last two episodes, because we needed to focus on other characters. If not even the main characters are always around because we need some spotlight time for other characters, you can’t expect any more minor reoccurring cast member to be.

God, I wish they’d be given more time and more episodes to bring every part of the plot to its full potential, but they don’t have those, so they sometimes have to take shortcuts that unfortunately cheapen the story here and there. It’s the only way they can hope to tell their story to the end at all. And that makes me hella sad because it’s so obvious that they have an incredible story to tell, and that there’s so much more to so many of the characters we just don’t have the time to focus on.

The thing is: I liked the episode with Gwendolyn. It sends an important message that will hopefully get some parents who watch with their children thinking, and I’ve seen a couple of people talk about how close to home it hit for them. I have also seen a couple of people complain about that being too fast—and also just in general about things in the show getting sorted out too fast. And I get it. At least with this particular episode, I 100% get it.

(I’ve also seen some people complain that “Amity stood up to her parents too fast in Escaping Expulsion”, but I vehemently disagree with that. We’ve been building towards that moment since season one, with her doing more and more things that were technically defying her parents. I don’t see how this was rushed.)

Just… please don’t blame the writers. Dana even said that Keeping Up A-Fearances is one of the episodes that hit very close to home for her in the recent stream iirc? So I highly doubt this was rushed on purpose, or because the whole thing is “bad writing” when the entire writing quality of the show says otherwise.

A lot of shows in general have the issue that they have to be written season by season rather than as a full story these days, because there’s always a chance that they won’t get a next season. How large scale the story they want to tell actually is doesn’t matter if there’s a solid chance they won’t get to do any of it.

From a viewer perspective, I get being frustrated at the pacing being off. But from a writer perspective, the chances are very high that this is a choice they had to make, rather than one they wanted to make. And I don’t think you can truly see this if you’ve never worked with a fleshed out cast that large—Locked Out was really eye-opening for me in that regard.

This isn’t simply a case of bad writing/bad pacing by choice. It’s forced. They’re forced to rush through their plots because otherwise they won’t get the chance to tell certain parts of the story at all. And the saddest thing about this is really that those 72+ episodes to flesh out these plot points further wouldn’t have been an impossible thing to get, at a time.

Go for Disney’s head. Yell at the industry for being what it is today, for constantly axing shows before even giving them a real chance. But this isn’t on the crew.

[hootysblog]

Day 17 of the fan fiction challenge!!

A reunion fic between Luz and Amity

You can't be here

"EDA!"

Luz crashes into get mentor. "I haven't seen you in a year!"

"Kid, is only been a couple of months."

"Don't care. It's felt like a year."

Eda smiles and returns her hug. The Owl Gang has been working on a permanent portal after Belos's defeat. "I told you we would get you back."

"You're the one that shoved me through the portal."

***The portal was becoming unstable. Eda knew that this might be Luz's only chance to get back home.

"Kid, you have to go now!"

"But I told you Eda. I don't want to leave!"

The gang has the upper hand against Belos and if the portal was destroyed, Eda knew that they would win.

"Eda, please. Don't make me choose."

"Well then, kid. I'm choosing for you."

"Eda, what..." Luz was cut off by Eda flying towards her and picked her up.

The gang knew what was happening, but kept fighting anyway. Eda told them about her plan beforehand, and even thought the gang was upset, they were supportive of her plan.

"Listen to me Luz. I'm going to make this quick. Everyone is going to miss you. I'm going to miss you, tremendously. You've changed everyone's life here in the Isles and we wish you this best. I'm proud to call you my apprentice and I promise you, we will try to build a permanent portal to bring you back."

Luz started crying. "Eda, I love you too." Luz was about to say more, but Eda shoved her through the portal.***

"So what's changed in the BI since I left?"

"Hmm, Kiki is in the Conformitorium and Lily and Hunter are working together to rebuild the system."

"Woah. That's awesome!"

They hear footsteps coming from upstairs. "Who dares disturbs the King.... LUZ YOU'RE BACK!"

King rushes over and grabs onto Luz's leg. Luz picks him up and hugs him. "King, I've missed you!"

"It's felt like a year!"

"See, I'm not the only one!"

Eda rolls her eyes. "So, when do you want to meet your friends?"

Luz thinks for a minute. "Do you think I can meet Willow and Gus first?"

"Uh, sure,"Eda says, thinking Luz would've asked to see someone else. "Hooty!"

Hooty opens and gasps. "LUZ!!" He wraps her up. "I have so much to tell you!"

"Not now, Hooty. You have a mission."

_______________________________________________

Willow and Gus are leaving Hexside, talking about their plans.

They didn't notice a dark shadow behind them.

Next thing they knew, they were in the Owl House.

"Ugh, what happened?" Gus asks.

"I don't know, Gus,"Willow retorts.

"Hooty owl pelleted you. Sorry about that, but that's was the only way to get you here in secret,"Eda tells them while getting them out.

"Why in secret?" Willow asks.

"Because I'm the secret!!"

"LUZ!" Both of her friends yell and they go and hug each other.

Luz breaks off the hug. "How's Amity?"

Eda smiles and looks at Luz's friends.

"Amity's at work right now," Willow tells Luz.

"And her birthday party is tonight," Gus adds on.

"It's Amity's birthday today?!?" Luz says.

"Yep, and your going to be there!" Eda replies.

"How?"

"I'm going to go over the plan with your friends so we can give Amity the best birthday present ever."

_______________________________________________

Amity is happy with a small party. She only has Willow, Gus, Hunter, the Clawthornes, Raine, the twins, and her father.

"Just imagine if mom was here, she would be mad that you didn't invite the whole school," Edric says.

The group laughs. Odalia, who sided with the Emperor during the battle, is sharing a cell with Kikimora.

Amity is grateful for her gifts, and the only person left is Lilith.

"Go on, open it."

Amity opens the gift. It's a pin. "Uh, thanks Lily?"

"You have no idea what it is, do you?"

Amity shakes her head. "I was trying not to offend you, but I guess it didn't work out."

"It's okay Amity. I wasn't excepting you to know what it is. The pin is an acceptance into the a new coven that Hunter and I are making."

"It's a successor to the Emperor's Coven," Hunter adds.

"And we want you to be in it after you graduate from Hexside."

Amity is speechless.

"You have grown over the past year and have shown that you have the skills and personality that we want in the new coven. Do you accept?"

"Of course I accept!" Amity happily says. "I can't wait to work beside you Lily, and knock Hunter down a peg or two," Amity smugly says.

Hunter sighs. "I told you she was going to say that."

The group erupts in laughter. "Thank you guys for the gifts," Amity is saying until Eda cuts her off.

"Wait a minute Boots. We have a second part of our gift."

"You do?"

"Yep, it's outside."

Amity is curious about the gift. She heads outside, but didn't notice that the group didn't follow her. They stood outside on the balcony.

"And here we go," Eda says.

Amity looks around and doesn't see anything at first, but then sees something rustle by the bushes.

"Who's there? I don't want to hurt you," Amity yells.

King pops out from the bushes. "Happy birthday Amity!"

"Aw, King. Thank you. Were you waiting there just to surprise me?"

"Sort of."

"What do you mean by sort of?"

"I've been waiting here, but I'm not the surprise."

Amity looks confused.

"Surprise!!!"

Amity stiffens at the mysterious voice. She doesn't want to turn around. King backs away slowly to leave the two of them alone.

Luz walks over towards Amity. "Turn around."

Amity clenches her fists. "No, it's can't be. You're not here."

"Yes I am Amity."

"No, I saw you get shoved in the portal. Eda said it would take a while for a functional portal to be working. It's only been a couple of months. This is just an illusion by my siblings. They haven't pranked me for a few months so this must be a prank."

Luz is getting tired of Amity's denial. She grabs Amity by the arm, spins her around, and says, "I'm more like an ilLuzion.... That sounded better in my head."

Amity looks into Luz's eyes and starts crying. "I can't believe it."

"Well believe it Amity." Luz pulls her into a heart stopping kiss. They kiss for a few seconds, while the group looks on, cheering for the two lovebirds.

They finally break apart and Amity holds on to Luz, crying tears of joy.

"Happy birthday, Amity."