#she just has a more proactive personality and he has a ton of baggage that makes him hesitant

[whydotheycallmechimney]

one of the things I love about haylijah is that the entire relationship is on hayley’s terms. she’s the active party in their dynamic (if she wants something she takes it!).

she pursues him. she sets the ground rules. she challenges him to take her or leave her. he might have no problem showing how he feels through acts of service, but when he takes too long to vocalize the depth of those feelings, she tells him to give her space (because while she is a woman of action, she’s also the queen of communicating how she feels.) when they break up, it’s because she decided it’s what’s best for the life that she wants, and he respects that. she’s the one who seeks him out, even when he’s off in amnesia land.

I know people have hangups about the girl loves boy more trope, but sometimes it can be so satisfying to see a woman’s feelings and desires be the center of a romance. and their relationship isn’t built entirely around hayley always being the one making those big moves. she sets the pace, but elijah meets her there. he chooses her in season one and he does so again in season three. even without memory he’s drawn to her. that’s the push and pull of their relationship, hayley sees something that she wants and goes for it, and elijah in return, matches her energy and then some.

[blueengland]

She was like this in late S2 as well. There were a lot of episodes in S2 that were very one-note (mostly Hunter's episodes and the ones where Luz was a mopey mess instead of the proactive destruction child she normally is when her friends are threatened.) I think it's quite telling that Luz gets back to her S1 mentality as soon as her palisman hatches that they were just padding for time.

Like you can't see Luz in Hunter's role ever, I couldn't see Hunter in Luz's role either. Hunter is such a boring character, and Luz is such a fun one (when she's not a mopey mess). Luz is proactive, weird, and so so much fun. Hunter is a block of wood. He doesn't have a personality. He is the white boy with baggage in all cases except one. He is a sad little child who has tons of potential but none of that potential is ever used. Hunter genuinely deserved a better story instead of the slow-paced mess of S2-S3, if everything in TOH was like in S1 the pacing would be so much better, there'd have been more time for Gus and Willow to get spotlights and Luz wouldn't have became a mopey mess, instead becoming focused on getting her friends back from the isles.

Roleswaps between Luz and Hunter are cool but I actually think the true roleswaps should be between the whole Hexsquad. For fun.

Willow as Gus as Amity as Hunter as Luz as Willow. Willow who’s allowed to study her plant magic from the start and is an unquestionable prodigy but finds all her friends either using her or being jealous of her until she becomes friends with Luz, who’s made fun of for being unable to do magic because she’s human, whether or not she knows here is up to you, till she finds her own way, glyphs. Gus gets to have parent issues here - sorry Perry Porter - as well as his already there gifted kid trauma - and he’s probably even lonelier given he wouldn’t make friends w everyone till later than canon and he doesn’t have Willow. Amity gets to be raised by Belos - oh maybe he for some reason decides to take her in after Odalia and Alador die in a ‘accident’ or something and Edric and Emira are trying to get her out all while she’s being slowly indoctrinated and abused by this fucker? And idk how Hunter would end up in the human realm - maybe he doesn’t. Maybe he just fucking leaves Belos and is promptly adopted by Eda who takes one look as this sad feral child who will bite her and goes ‘mine’.

[darkmanagement-blog1]

How Destructive Dark Managers Can Be

    The best criminals can commit crimes without anyone ever noticing that they even existed. Good ones can still commit crimes without anyone ever suspecting that they’re the culprits. Bad ones can only commit crimes without anyone ever having any means to stop them even though everyone knows they’re the criminals. The worse ones simply can’t commit any crime without being caught right away. The same applies to dark management tactics utilised by dark managers.

    (Actually, some crimes, like stealing information, must be committed in ways that no one ever know they’ve happened at all in order to completely succeed; Some others, like stealing items, must be committed in ways that no one ever knows who the culprits are in order to work at all.)

      The best dark managers can practice dark management without anyone ever knowing that it’s in effect at all. Those dark managers have blended those practices so flawlessly with reasonable ones that even themselves sometimes can’t distinguish among them. Eventually, those dark management practices can even be accepted as reasonable ones after their natures are revealed.

    The typical dark managers can still practice dark management without anyone ever knowing that they’re pulling the strings, but the targets can at least barely feel that something’s just slightly off deep down. They can never stop unconsciously suspecting whether they’re being exploited by elusive forces, so those dark managers need to keep proactively ensuring that their targets are always in check. They’ve to keep close eyes on and covertly micromanage them to be really sure.

    The stupidest dark managers simply can’t practice dark management without everyone knowing what they’ve been planning for all along. They’ve already exposed their true selves to everyone else long ago while still thinking that they’re well hidden in the dark. Their lies only work for themselves and the FOG created by them will eventually come back to themselves instead.

      So when it comes to the dangerousness of dark managers, you may think that the best ones are the most dangerous while the least ones can barely do any permanent harm at all. While that’s almost the case in most cases, there are really rare exceptions that can make the stupidest ones being the most dangerous ever – When they have tons of power that can be openly abused. But before going straight to that, let’s talk about how dangerous each mark manager type can be first.

    For the best dark managers, they’re usually not dangerous against a wide array of targets in a short time, but only few chosen individuals at any moment, as they know that divide and rule is the most effective and efficient long term strategy. However, those in the sniper scopes are likely in grave peril, as those dark managers know what it means when it comes to being worse than death – sudden character assassination followed by being violently betrayed by everyone around. Those preys can only witness that they’re losing more and more invaluable things in their lives without being able to do anything at all. Then their greatest enemies, who were their best friends(now covertly manipulated by those dark managers without leaving a trace), will brutally torture them mentally and physically,  to the point where they can’t commit suicide.

    For the typical dark managers, they’re still quite a force to be reckoned with, as they can be rather dangerous to a well controlled target group. While the group is still moderately small, the attack surface can actually be very large in that group. Those dark managers usually first cloud the judgment of their targets with FOG(Read Dark Managers Keeps Targets Under The FOG for details) to remove their ability to think clearly, then use the Boiling Frog strategy to exploit them. These cause a wide range of attack vectors to be wide open so those dark managers can utilize them as they wish. The targets will feel being more and more overwhelmed by fear, obligations and guilt when those dark managers pressure them harder and harder(more and more duress). In the worst case, the targets might experience a mental breakdown and/or outright commit suicide.

    For the stupidest dark managers, they can range from being next to harmless to being critically catastrophic, depending on how much abusable power they possess. As they can’t even get the dark management basics right while thinking that they’re exceptionally talented gurus, they think they can openly trespass all well established boundaries and rules without being ever stopped. They’ve thus completely lost control on themselves and will target arbitrary groups with arbitrary tactics without even realizing whether they help maximizing their self interest. They can blatantly bully their targets without a second thought and won’t bother even when the opposing force has already raised to a dangerously high level. Their practices range from overt psychological abuse to obvious lies to direct physical violence including indefensibly illegal ones. In extreme cases, they’d even outright destroy everyone and everything they can when they’re about to be forced to submit. Thus the stupidest dark managers with the most abusable power are the most dangerous ones ever. They’d destroy the world if they could use nuclear weapons. On the contrary, the stupidest dark managers with only little power will be stopped very quickly, even though they’ll still make lots of unnecessary enemies. These dark managers are next to harmless as their offenses are so obvious and wide spread that they’ll be shut down right away.

    (When it comes to power, the best ones will usually use reasonable means to gain enough power before practicing dark management sustainably; The typical ones will usually practice dark management in order to gain enough power to make it sustainable; The stupidest ones will usually practice dark management regardless of how much power they’ve possessed and will possess.)

      You might have noticed that as you read on, the described dangerousness becomes increasing unstable. That’s another discriminating factor for dark managers with various levels of expertise:

The best dark managers are usually very stable – stably dangerous. If one could ever figure them out, that person would realize that they’re actually quite predictable once he/she can always get their self interest right. They can always thoroughly comprehend the situation they’re in, the goals they’ve to set, the conditions they’ve to meet in order to achieve the goals, the constraints they’ve to conform to in order to be sustainable, and the resources they can utilize in order to exploit their targets. Although their action plans are seemingly the same outside while completely different inside every time in terms on implementation details due to seamless camouflage, controlled randomness and constantly improving their dark arts, the core mindset actually only barely changes through the long term. Therefore, they’re both stable(again, stably dangerous) inside and outside as they know how to practice dark management in a stably long term manner.

The typical dark managers seem to be stable outside but are actually unstable inside. Unlike the best dark managers who always proactively stabilize the situations to be the most advantageous for them, these typical dark managers can only immediately react to the rapidly changing environment well. As they’ve to constantly adjust their self interest in order to keep being able to maximize it, even themselves won’t know what their next aims have to be. While they can hide such adaptations and appear to be consistent in front of their targets, these usually well disguised social chameleons might expose their true colors or display completely mismatched synthetic ones when they rarely failed to adapt to the environment that’s changing too quickly. Being such dark managers are constantly stressful as the environments are consistently pressuring them hard in order to blend into them seamlessly. Such emotional baggage will cause them to remain unstable inside. In extreme cases, they might just behave like the stupidest ones.

The stupidest dark managers are obviously unstable – unstably dangerous. They can blow their own legs off today while slaughtering their targets tomorrow. These impulsive outlaws don’t know where they should go even only according to their self interest nor where they’re actually heading to at any moment. They just randomly stumble in the dark while annihilating anyone and anything happening to get in their ways. They’re completely blind to the reality while thinking that they can bend it as they wish. They simply can’t put into anyone else’s shoes unlike the best or even just typical ones(they’ve to do so in order to exploit their targets effectively and efficiently), but instead thinking that they can forcibly control and dominate their targets by their ruthlessly strong will.

      Similarly, the best dark managers have immensely concentrated target scopes like invisible yet deadly lasers and no one will ever notice that anyone’s being targeted at all(Or those dark managers will let the others think that someone else’s the culprit instead); The typical dark managers still only limit their targets in manageably controlled areas and those targets will suspect that they’re being targeted but won’t know who’re targeting them; The stupidest dark managers have totally uncontrollable scopes like endless random explosions at random locations and everyone knows who are pushing buttons after buttons like insane predators without limits.

      Usually, if there are dark managers among the key people thorough the history, then the best dark managers are almost always portrayed as legendary heroes while the stupidest dark managers are almost always portrayed as the ultimate dominators in the hall of shame. Typical dark managers, on the other hand, are more likely to be portrayed as having a bit hit and miss.

    Of course, there are also true legendary heroes that are portrayed as such, and there are actual legendary heroes having their characters assassinated and thus ending up in the hall of shame. There are even true legendary heroes who make themselves a bit hit and miss for the greater good. After all, the history’s usually written by the victors and is thus full of lies favoring them.

    As the final reminder – The goal of a dark manager is to maximise his/her self interest instead of being dangerous. In fact, being dangerous can easily be one of the biggest deterrent towards the eternal success of a dark manager – Being falsely portrayed as a legendary hero forever.