#the experience of writing this was just going 'i want to put belos in a jar and not poke any airholes in the lid' every 20 seconds

[thousandyearphantombunker]

The Owl House Critical Post, scroll away now I don't know if I am being too harsh in this post but I wrote it anyway so if you don't wanna read something potentially upsetting this is a warning (to those who decide to read please tell me if I'm being too harsh)

I remember initially hating how the show handled its villains, they all felt like jokes, they never felt like threats or like they provided a meaningful challenges for the main cast, they never had any real depth or complexity. but i bit my tongue, I was told that I was basically a dumbass for complaining that Bump openly breaks a law that's supposed to be punishable by death so that Luz could fulfill her witchy fantasy and that he wasn't arrested. the show could've had him make the multiclass student thing be something underground- boom it lets luz live out her fantasy but doesn't ignore what was established about the setting and creates potential stakes if these underground classes ever got discovered! That already made me angry but the cult thing is what I wanted to complain about- i only had basic ass knowledge about cults and TOH fails at portraying that crap, most people in the EC can just quit and do so in a way that makes it feel like they're just quitting a job, it doesn't feel like they fear losing their friends or sense belonging and community, they don't feel like they're anything but jokes. Leaving a cult is scary, often times cults will send their followers into the real world and set them up to have bad experiences so they'll come running back, they'll hire thugs to scare them into staying or position them in away so that they suffer (sending them out without money or the skills to survive), they humiliate those who begin to ask questions so that they stay in line. guilt tripping, putting members against each other, cutting off contact with the rest of the world! The show only adds the whole 'forced to fight on a mountain' thing for flavor! Everytime it brings up actual stuff cults do it feels like it's more for flavor than actually writing this topic with sensitivity- look at how they treat Lilith! Imo It feels like the show insulting people for ever trusting belos, treating them like they're braindead and could've just realized fairly easily that he was evil. It's the most egregious with hunter who was basically fucking born into the EC. the show is also pretty black and white, which is curious for a show that gets praise for its portrayal of religious trauma. You think the show would be more grey. I did deeper research into cults and just got SO tired of people talking about how good the show was at conveying such a heavy topic. The titan reveal also doesn't help- Luz is told by an all powerful deity that she is the chosen one basically and is told that old man is evil and needs to go down- isn't that the same justification that belos uses for his actions- not saying belos should've gotten redemption or forgiveness but this feels wrong. He deserved to die don't get me wrong but using this justification feels gross. What's even worse is that the titan made Philip's life harder on purpose- ah yeah that brainwashed cult victim would totally change his mind especially if you make his life harder- yeah I would've preferred if belos was depicted in a flashback just having a bad time on the boiling isles and cherry picked those bad experiences to justify his actions. Also I hate that the show just writes belos off as greedy and glory seeking when it could've conveyed a message about how people can get absolutely get warped by religious dogma. I do wonder though if I'm being too harsh because TOH is for kids and I was told it would be hard to portray this stuff in a way kids could understand. I can come up with ways to make the breaking the law openly thing less egregious but I am struggling to think of ways the show could have handled the cult thing, I am aware that maybe I'm accidentally saying stuff that is kind of bad faith but this is my truth. I feel like TOH wasn't good at villains and it sure as hell didn't write cults well

[findmeinthefallair]

It's me again. The therapist/illustrator who can't stop squeaking and screaming about her beloved son Hunter.

I've been thinking nonstop about him finding the terrible grimwalker graveyard, imagining what would be going through my mind if I were him. Sifting through whatever moments, dialogue and frames that I can find from the existing material, along with references outside of the show, to formulate what an offscreen scene would've been like.. (And seeing if I can find editable and salvageable enough backgrounds so I could perhaps even depict this scene one day)

A soul like him who not only wants to help others, but also acquire knowledge:

heading back here to see the graveyard:

You can't tell me that this wouldn't still be on his mind, and he's even anxious while saying this below, scratching his face a little:

Whether he follows up on this or not, also depends on how he looks back on being shown this:

And is he just going to go cold turkey and totally drop these leads he was pursuing in the episodes before the finale? :

Three things prompted me to finally write this post:

@polyhexian's and @ashanimus's analyses of Hunter's fight scenes in Hunting Palismen and Eclipse Lake (links here and here, they're really cool to read!!), based on their years of experience with martial arts. Reading those was a revelation to me because learning about how high Hunter's skill level is, how in touch with his body he is by default, portrayed so well thanks to the crew...that allows me to make far more educated guesses about his mental health in the early stages of the pre-epilogue gap of about 4 years. Because he is so used to high activity and being on high alert, no thanks to having C-PTSD.

Observing how light and free Hunter's expressions are, and how transformed his demeanor became, in the epilogue sequence. That transformation is an indication to me of the magnitude of grief which had to be transformed within him. To be put back together, in order to be so radiant, generous and self-actualized in the epilogue...imagine how much had to be deconstructed and further broken beforehand. He wouldn't have room to fill his life up with all that amazing newness if the old isn't emptied out first.

This psychoeducational video by my fave author, also a practicing therapist, who specializes in traumatic grief: link. Hearing her address the topic of entering the second year after a bereavement vs. the first year, was interesting. Definitely confirms to me that Hunter wouldn't have carved Waffles until past the 2nd year of navigating his bereavement.

In the years that pass before the epilogue, Hunter will not be able to understand why the efforts he puts into all the rebuilding work, coordinating and leading others, and trying to have fun - only cycle back to him experiencing a mix of a restlessness and emptiness in the deepest layer of his mind. It'll exhaust his energy bit by bit. I bet he's going to generally look as tired as depressed Luz does below, even if he's had an acceptable hours of sleep per night:

That restlessness will be an awful psychological itch that he'll be unable to scratch, caused by losing Flapjack and now also Belos. This is the same as what happened with his anger in For the Future, except Belos was still alive back then. It will be harder to understand and messier to navigate the bereavement this time round. It'll be something gnawing into his soul which I really think only professional help can heal, especially since the show promotes that it's okay to not be okay, and more than okay to seek professional help (Steve and Lilith's conversation in Edge of the World).

He will be trying to claw his way out of that C-PTSD pit, but he'll be aware deep down that he simply cannot reach any emotional high points for long, and something will be blocking his feelings of connection with his loved ones. He won't feel nearly as free and easy the way he used to be in the human realm:

Having a routine like he used to in the Castle, and moving around a lot, was what helped him survive. However, he won't have the awareness that the shift resulting from Belos passing away has been at such a fundamental level: to the point that those old, supposedly tried-and-true methods no longer serve him in any positive way. At least, not until his mental health will be back in better shape.

As he puts in more and more effort to escape that restless emptiness, getting annoyed at himself because he doesn't know what's going on...he'll use up the rest of his strength and eventually crash. That itch won't be solved by going back to overworking tendencies, and like how it is with addiction cycles, he would need some kind of fix for the deep restlessness within. The answer? Productivity to feel useful, which we have seen even in his efforts to fix damaged clothing and well, making stuff in general.

Where the grimwalker graveyard comes in is...once he hears news about its existence, he will stubbornly insist to want to help in investigating it, saying he has already read a bunch of books about them, and can be useful, etc. Worse, if his offer to help to investigate is refused, he will do what he did in Eclipse Lake. Go to the location anyway, to fill that deep void within.

Old habits die hard.

I don't know if he may hear from King (who he'll be seeing fairly often, I think!), The Collector or even Kikimora about it. Since they were the three characters who went all the way down there in King's Tide, and The Collector already knew about these horrors for literal centuries. King and The Collector are also still young kids! Will they have the sensitivity and awareness about breaking this news to Hunter?!

On the other hand, I don't know how the timing will be with Darius, Raine and Eberwolf..Darius will want to get serious about investigating his mentor's disappearance. Once the searching and scouring extends to the location of the Head of the Titan, they will find the evidence staring them in the face. If they want to scour every inch of the Isles, there's also a high chance they'll find the godforsaken grimwalker lab.

Worst of all, Darius would be aware by then of how much Hunter loves to help out in operations like this to be productive. At the same time, Darius's own grief will surface even more, I'm not sure he'll be able to hide that, and Hunter is highly observant. If Darius is trying to hide his own priority of finding closure re: his mentor, I think Hunter will sense that.

Therefore I wonder if this will happen except it's Hunter with Darius:

and then this poor beloved skrunkly son of mine, who so famously said these words at the beginning of his arc:

is probably going to get reckless, and endanger his mental health...not unlike moments like this:

by venturing to the graveyard, whether stealthily or accompanying the grownups, because he'll rationalize it as "getting closure" and once again "being useful". Remember how used he is to moving around so much and being active, combined with growing up isolated so that asking for help can still be a foreign concept to him. He would be anxious about grinding to a halt, and he'd want to be on the move instead.

He may demand to see the graveyard, and holy Titan I'm not sure any dilemma will be as tricky for Camila and Darius to navigate as this one. Because preventing him from seeing something he already knows exists is, in a very twisted way, also an unhelpful form of avoidance. Avoidance is a hallmark criterion for diagnosing both PTSD and C-PTSD.

How far do they go in protecting him from himself? Where do they draw that line? They might reach a compromise where Camila and Darius accompany him there. Once he sees it, it'll hit harder than this:

Letting him see it means his new parents would have to fall with him, in the sense that they follow him to that emotional place: but while he figuratively does not have a safety harness when falling into this deep dark hole, Camila and Darius are equipped with harnesses a.k.a. higher maturity, less of a trauma history, and some tools to help him get better, navigate the trauma, and manage his symptoms.

Camila will have the warmth and sensitivity to catch and meet him as he falls (she interacts with animals in her profession, who don't have the capacity for human language, in a similar way to how serious trauma can't even be put into words at times: it makes you voiceless). Darius's shared past living in the Castle and grieving over his mentor will help Hunter not feel as alone once he has seen these horrors.

And because his heart generally became more open to receiving love and support,

I doubt he'll close himself off almost completely, the way he did in the first two-thirds of For the Future (god, remember these deleted storyboards??):

It wouldn't surprise me if he weeps and panics as soon as he sees the graveyard, and his parents give him maximum support through that breakdown. As complicated as it would be for Camila and Darius to give in to his desire to see the graveyard, a response like this from him - a child seeking attachment with proper timing - is a good sign of growing into healthy attachment with parental figures.

It is an arguably better response than one of the hardest aspects of C-PTSD: where the outpouring of grief only happens after a delay, sometimes a significant delay, at very inconvenient or strange times. Hell...if I were Hunter, I'd probably want Camila and Darius to just hold me close in wordless silence for half an hour until my initial distress and shock passes.

If I use King - a child who is securely attached to Eda, who's definitely had a more stable upbringing - as a control experiment here, he could have the appropriate response immediately in Echoes of the Past and expressed his emotional needs clearly enough:

Whereas this is what Hunter has to now learn, at twice King's age, as he settles in with new parents who take care of him instead of mistreating him the way Belos did. Hell, I can't imagine what kind of Belos punishment awaited him if he cried to demand attachment.

(I need to use more King scenes as a comparison to Hunter's upbringing in my next metas! I realize this can make my explanations clearer)

Anyway, what may happen next after he can't unsee the graveyard is...Hunter will then swing to the other extreme of high activity. I.e. being passive, physically inactive and psychologically crashing into depression, which may translate into habits such as oversleeping (catching up on all that lost sleep...but at what cost?). Supposedly sliding deeper into the C-PTSD pit. A place from which he has to express the desire to seek the forms of help he needs.

Remember that this kid has only known extremes for most of his life. Until he settles in properly with his found family and attends therapy, he has no clear reference point for more balanced approaches in living.

The trauma he went through is a quadruple whammy for a 16-year-old who just survived growing up in a cult. It would be so much. I can't see him not falling into months of deep dark depression, as unfortunate as this sounds.

Grieving over Flapjack, grieving over Belos, over his childhood/upbringing, and now a grisly memory of his predecessors who didn't make it (to add to what he saw in Belos's mindscape). I simply cannot see him handling a load like this without a highly-equipped and sensitive professional, paired with his support network of family, friends and even possibly the wider community at times. Especially now that we've seen him in action during the epilogue.

The epilogue sequence would've had a different feel (and in my opinion, a not-so-good feel) for me if Dana had established that the grimwalker graveyard was still untouched after those 3.5-4 years and if Hunter never found out about it. Something like that is different compared to Dana mentioning in the recent Post-Hoot that in the he does not know about Caleb and Evelyn, or that he is related to the Clawthornes. Mysteries like the Clawthorne heritage can remain an eerie secret that only us in the audience know about, but I wouldn't feel comfy if this were the case for the graveyard as well.

To quote @idlescree's video essay about Hunter's death (link), the show's writers didn't pull any punches when it came to Hunter's development arc. Which means they had to take his story to the "categorically appropriate place for him to overcome" his greatest challenges.

Something tells me that with respect to the grimwalker graveyard and the avoidance theme in C-PTSD recovery, Hunter would've had to put in more work to confront a number of terrifying foes even beyond his Thanks to Them speech. One of which was the graveyard containing the remains of his predecessors.

PS: This is a spontaneous post which branches out from my giant post-finale meta (link) that I pinned to my blog, I suppose.

[imminent-danger-came]

Why do you think s4 lmk is sometimes seen as a drop-off in writing quality compared to earlier seasons?

IS IT REALLY. That's so funny, I personally think s4 elevated lmk's writing to unbelievably high levels. It recontextualized previous seasons in ways that cemented my faith in lmk's writing team, and proved to me that this wasn't just going to be good, it was going to be GREAT, an honest to god masterpiece.

I find that the more complex the writing, when things like love and devotion aren't put into "good" or "bad" boxes, when characters are hypocrites and things develop in a way people don't like (it doesn't make them "feel good" but the writing itself is solid), that's when people start to say things like "the writing's gotten worse". I've seen plenty of takes for characters like Wukong and Viren (from The Dragon Prince), where folks want to boil down the mess and the complexity into "the writers don't know how to write this character," when the truth is the opposite. Sometimes, characters say one thing and do another and that's on purpose, thank you. Sometimes, characters mean well and have good intentions, but they still suck. Writing like that is fucking awesome.

(Big Owl House rant incoming, turn back now if you're not interested in that)

It's not really a surprise to me that something like The Owl House, where the characters are fairly one note and everything is said out loud and the themes are much more simplistic, is/was far more popular. Obviously, I don't want to shame anyone or make people feel bad for loving toh—like it's great if you love it, keep doing that—but I do think that objectively, toh has pretty weak writing (which honestly doesn't/doesn't have to determine how much you love it).

I was discussing this with a few friends last night, how with toh, the implications are hardly thought through, and characters aren't viewed beyond the role they can serve in the episode or the arc. Like, I think of the beginning of Hollow Mind, where King says "No one wants to believe they've spent their life following the wrong person", which is fine, it's something that could be interesting given the proper execution, but when you analyze it deeper, try to find the consistent character thread...it doesn't make any actual sense for King or the development he went through at the beginning of s2. Had he said something along the lines of "No one wants to believe they've spent their life following a lie", now THAT ties directly into the lie he believed for his whole life, and to King as a character. But that's not what happened, and that's never what happened in toh.

Even with Belos, the main villain, it's clear the writers wanted Grim Walker angst for Hunter, but they didn't want to explore the implications of Belos recreating his brother over and over again. So at that point, it's like...why not just have Hunter be adopted? Why have him be a grimmwalker at all if it's not something we're going to explore deeper on Belos' end?

Needless to say, lmk isn't like that. If a character has dialogue or a scene, it's going to contribute to our perception of them and their internal motivations. If Pigsy is worried about his relation to his ancestors in s4, and what that says about him, we can actually trace that back to 2x04: tradition matters to Pigsy, and it's a huge part of his heart, identity, and life. Of COURSE Pigsy is affected when he learns his ancestor was someone he doesn't like, someone who tried to eat the love of his life. He even tries to comfort MK with what he thinks is a shared experience, and it's AGH. It's so good

If something is established in lmk, it's expanded upon. Hell, even the Mayor of all characters was given his own spotlight outside of LBD. He even has a direct parallel to Azure—following and giving service to an Emperor before becoming disillusioned and changing loyalty to the person that will bring about real change: their Lady and their King.

Anyways,

I went on a super long tangent. I can't truly know why some people think of lmk s4 as a drop-off in writing quality, but those are some thoughts from me to you!

[raineydaywhispers]

I want to write an essay about Raine's (short, but sweet) arc in The Owl House now that the show is officially over, but for now I just want to put my thoughts somewhere about their arc in the final episode, as to not lose them. Thoughts under the cut!:

I am glad that Raine had an active role in defeating Philip, and had their own symbolic break away from the covens when they broke their violin.

I also loved the return to the bard magic they invented- the whistle-during both the struggle to cast Belos out of their body, but in the last fight as well. It was a part of their return to self agency, a nod to a time before the coven system where they were allowed to be free and explore magic on their own terms.

It's interesting to me that Philip calls them "annoyingly powerful," and it makes me believe honestly that their ascension to being a coven head was, while based on skill, also based on the fact that he knew they were. Belos always wanted to take advantage of that power, and control it. We see this with Lilith, and Eda as well. I believe it stands as a further explanation for the brain washing and the only time we see a sigil used against somebody.

Raine is one of the most powerful witches on the Boiling Isles, even with the constraints of their coven sigil. They not only broke out of the collector's puppet spell as a show of that true power, but would break from being possessed by Philip as well multiple times- and they almost stopped him on their own.

But Raine failing to stop Philip on their own is also significant. Raine needed help to do that- and Eda being the person to put their glasses on them, pull them from Philip's corruption of the isles, and show them that they're safe was the final crossing of the threshold for Raine. It's another return to a time before they lost their agency, but in a way that shows both themself and Eda have changed.

If they're going to defeat Belos and share the new future free from constraints with somebody, why not Eda their childhood friend, and her adopted children Luz the human and King the Titan. Why not end it all by quite literally stomping out the coloniser monster that caused them so much pain and heartbreak?

I'm also okay with them not returning to being a bard in the epilogue. I wish we would've been able to explore why exactly, and I'd like to think that their arc that was scrapped due to cancellation would've. But I think their separation from that part of themself makes sense no matter the reason. It's part of an old, long lasting traumatic experience. Maybe they did return to it and we just sadly don't get to see it. Or, maybe they'll return to bard magic on their own terms. Maybe they won't. I guess I'm going to have to fill those gaps in on my own time through writing and fan content.

But in summary, I guess, I'm glad that they finally had a way to regain agency over themself. I'm glad they got an ending where their skills as a leader are respected and put to use. I'm glad the show continued this notion of trust with Raine working with the old Hexsquad and new Hexsquad members to rebuild. And I'm glad they get to share a community with Eda that they can both flourish in, with each other. Even if we didn't get a Raeda kiss.

I'm going to be mourning the loss of a character that as an nb transmasc person, is the first time I've really felt represented on screen. I'm so thankful to Avi Roque, Dana Terrace, and the entire crew of the show for bringing to life such a good, kind character. Eda's Requiem aired during a time where I was questioning what my gender meant to me, and was struggling to find the light in my life as a trans person. I will always be grateful.

Though I'm not optimistic that we'll get extra content in the future, I hope we do. I want to explore the Boiling Isles again, this time as it heals, and I want to do it with Raine, Eda, Luz, King, Lilith, and all the other characters that made this show so special to me.

But for now, I'm content I got to experience The Owl House. It was such a weird, proudly neurodivergent and queer show. Though I would've preferred a full third season I'm glad the ending was a sound, well written send off. Until we see more (if we ever do) I'm going to be watching and dreaming for the future, thanks to them.

[crimeronan]

On the topic of How Do You Handle XYZ Comment, I've always wondered how you handle terrible responses on your toh takes. Like I know the toh fandom doesn't lack piss on the poor reading comprehension and they also really enjoy wildly out of touch takes, but I've never seen any comments on your princess luz stuff of that nature. I'm sure they must be there but maybe I'm too early? But anyway, how do you tend to deal with the "acktually shipping luz and Hunter is incest" and the "ur not a real lesbian because putting amity in a poly ship is lesbian erasure" and the "as a white person kinda sus you make the poc woman an empress" kind of responses? Ones that are technically not hate and maybe if you squint could be from people who aren't inherently trying to do bad but just lack the maturity needed to engage with the internet at large?

this ask made me giggle. honestly, i haven't received as much pushback as you might expect! way less pushback than i expected. in the princess AU, i've gotten a LOT more "this is actually too grotesque for me to stomach" comments than "this is problematic" comments, which is fine. horror-thriller isn't for everyone, those comments do not upset me.

i have had a Few run-ins with bad faith people, whom i mostly block. there's one prolific commenter in toh tumblr fandom who would repeatedly write angry essays on my humor meta posts -- essays that were all about how belos is too evil to be sympathetic and/or about how hunter is a soft gentle boy who shouldn't be jokingly referred to as evil. then they'd go "i can't help my active and conscious decision to type a bunch of rude fucking words and then my active and conscious decision to send those rude fucking words because i'm autistic :(((" around the fourth or fifth time this happened, i was fucking done with that nonsense and finally blocked them. shoulda done it after the first comment tbh!! no more autism exceptions.

as for the rest of it, my main management strategy is to simply.... preempt the bad faith comments?

i had a LOT more unpleasant and conflict-filled fandom experiences when i was in the raven cycle fandom. that was my first exposure to "you can't ship multi-gender polycules if anyone involved is gay" and "queerplatonic het relationships are just heteronormativity shipping that you're trying to get away with." having dealt with those takes before, i've found a few different ways to disarm bad faith readers before they get started.

first is to be super open and honest about my interests. i talk about what i find compelling in different relationships All The Damn Time. it's really hard for anyone to accuse me of only wanting hunter to fuck amity if they've seen, like.... anything i've said about hunter and amity.

same with hunter and luz. the only negative reactions i've really gotten to how they're written in the princess AU is like.... two people being squicked by camila thinking they're romantically involved. i REALLY expected more pushback on the touchyfeely bed sharing stuff, but from what i remember, there's never been Any....? not even from people who consider them siblings.

i expected a lot of pushback on how mean hunter and amity are to each other, since it's taken So much farther than the canon. but it turns out that there's a very large overlap between people who like dark horror AUs and people who like hunter and amity murdering each other. (in a fluffy fic i don't think this characterization would fly Nearly as easily.)

i find that being funny really disarms people, too. when you look at any of my toh meta posts that could be controversial, they're basically all funny. people are a lot more willing to listen to what you have to say if you make them laugh, and it's harder for them to get angry at you.

and then the last thing is that i think i'm in sort of a privileged position in toh fandom. i've written a lot of controversial subjects and relationships and characterizations.... but i've also written some WILDLY popular mainstream fic. and people who like the mainstream fic don't really want to beef with me about differing niche opinions, bc there's a level of respect there. which they might not have for a writer they don't like.

but anyway. when things Do happen, i almost always just block and move on. there are so many people here who get what i'm talking about that there's no need for me to try to convert people who don't, you know??

[polyhexian]

Thinking about the emotional rollercoaster that is Hunter and Jasper's newfound developing relationship after Jasper's no longer dying of infection and everything's come to light. Hunter now knows the truth, but can he HANDLE the truth? He was already having, like, seven ongoing crises, and now he has THIS on top of them. He's just learned about a dozen new things he gets to be angry over!

Your approach to writing Hunter's trauma recovery has always been very raw. I like a good saccharine hurt/comfort fic as much as the next person, but I really appreciate the raw approach, too. Recovery isn't perfect, it can be ugly and uncomfortable and painful, and you've never shied away from that. So I'm thinking of a still-reeling-from-Hollow-Mind Hunter, freshly dumped in another dimension with his weirdo stalker who turns out to be the father he'd just gotten used to thinking never existed, and I'm looking over at Agony!Hunter and Lament!Hunter for comparison and wincing.

I commented on another post about how I feel like Hunter would WILDLY vacillate between "you should've just kidnapped me by force!" and "yeah I was definitely super brainwashed and would've run back to tell Belos everything first chance I got" for the first…however long it takes for him to come to terms with this. But I can also see him lashing out at Jasper, like, here's some of the awful things Belos did to me, I hope that telling you about them makes you hurt because I feel like you abandoned me and I'm angry. But then that eventually goes in the complete opposite direction, like, I'm not going to tell you about what horrible memory gave me nightmares tonight even though I'd feel better if I did, because I know you love me and you were trying your best and you've been hurting every day for 16 years while you tried to get me back, and I don't want to hurt you more.

Jasper just…trying to get his kid to talk to him if he needs to. Probably at some point when Hunter's clammed up Jasper has to open up a bit himself like, look, nothing you could say is going to surprise me, that man gave me more opportunities to look at my insides than I want to remember; I'll be angry and sad about what you went through, but I've spent 16 years thinking about what he might have been doing to you and trust me, nothing you say is going to send me into a horrified shock response. Maybe he's reluctant to talk about his own experiences much because 1) Remembering sucks, and 2) He doesn't want Hunter thinking he's trying to upstage his pain, but like…they have adjacent trauma from the same abuser, they're gonna understand each other on a wavelength most other people won't get.

I do feel at the very least though Jasper would nip whatever personhood-related crisis Hunter might be having in the bud. Nope, nope, none of that; it took me 12 years to figure out I was a real person with feelings, and I didn't bargain with Belos to convince him to allow you the privilege of thinking you're a person just for you to start questioning it because you found out you're part vegetable. You've got 16 years experience of believing you're a person, that's a fantastic foundation that you should NOT take a sledgehammer to. Are we real people? We damn well BETTER be after all the work I put into figuring out emotions! Maybe this is like, the one thing Jasper really puts his foot down on. He's fine if Hunter's angry at him or if Hunter never forgives him or whatever, but he absolutely draws the line at Hunter thinking he might not be a real person.

Probably doesn't help that the whole situation is likely compounded by Hunter's guilt that oh, all his friends had to leave their family behind and are super worried about them, and he just GOT his dad back but he can't even be grateful about it?? What kind of horrible person is he??

And later on, when they've progressed past the worst of the anger, and Hunter has realized that yeah, he really does want a relationship with his dad. Then his issues of self-worth and believing love is conditional come into play.

I'm imagining some point where they're having a quiet conversation, maybe on the couch late at night. Maybe it started with Hunter asking why - why did you even care, why were you so willing to die for me when you barely knew me for two minutes. And Jasper is like I don't know, I just did, but that's not good enough for Hunter so he keeps talking. He talks about growing Hunter, all the work he put in and the attention to detail, about how excited he was, how he'd quietly talk to the planter box and spill out what he was only starting to realize were real feelings, about how he'd put his finger in Hunter's little palm and feel his heart stutter when his hand closed around it.

And Hunter listens to all of this in silence, watches Jasper smiling at the memories while he speaks, and he starts thinking about himself. About how he's never been able to maintain Belos's approval, how he's never been able to impress the coven heads, how he's just a half-a-witch who's never been anywhere near as powerful as Jasper is, how he's never been able to beat the Martlet in combat, how he's got so many punishment scars, how he's been such an awful, ungrateful brat these last few weeks to this man who loves him so much; love is conditional and Hunter has done nothing to earn Jasper's love and he probably needs to figure out how to fix that before he loses what seems to be a good thing, except his failures are many and his debt to Jasper is enormous and there is absolutely no way he will ever be able to impress or repay this man.

Jasper is still smiling into the middle distance as he says something about how badly he wanted to meet Hunter and how curious he was about what kind of person he'd be when he emerged.

Hunter feels a rock sink in his stomach, and very quietly says, "Sorry for the disappointment."

And Jasper blinks and looks down at Hunter, pure confusion on his face, and asks, "Why would I be disappointed?"

ahhHHHH

jasper completely blindsided by this. he doesn't have the proper experience with hunter's self worth issues yet to expect stuff like this, its just fully like. what?? disappointed??? when did i say that?? did i make it sound like that??? shit im doing a really bad job at this i guess. but also like. disappointed?? how could i ever be disappointed? you're alive! you have friends! I'm so happy! this is everything i ever wanted! and hunter is like no, i mean, disappointed by me and what i turned out like, i'm not nearly as brave or loyal as you, im a coward. and jasper is just floored. like ???? no! you are so smart and creative and kind and you are brave! what are you talking about??? you're a great kid! cue hunter bursting into tears

[hoshi-y]

Hii! I was wondering since requests are open if you would want to write Tsukasa, Hanako, and Mitsuba with a s/o like hunter from the owl house ok if you need personality and stuff here you go

Hunter personality: he is traumatized and isn’t used to kindness, he’s kind and is a nerd and flipping adorable but is scared of belos and people because of his past

The important things: he figured out he is a clone of belos brother who he killed and had killed many clones of his brother before him and he won’t leave hunter alone bro 😭 after being manipulated/abused for so long he finally has family and friends and is so cute around his crush willow you don’t have to make the reader a clone but maybe they were abused and learned their life was a lie and they had to escape(hunter escaped too)

Ps I love your writing

"You... Thank you.."

Genre : Fluff

Characters : Yugi Tsukasa, Hanako, Mitsuba Sousuke

TW : None

A/N : AHHH TYTYSM, It shocks me alot of people love my writing, some of them don't even make sense HAHAHHAHA and of course ! I have to watch a few of his screen times just to make sure I get his personality and attitude right, but its quite odd, he's kind yet he isn't used to kindness

I HOPE YOU ENJOY 💗

Tangerines

"[F/N]! I bought you some sweet tangerines!!" Tsukasa said as he took of his shoes and placed it on the table

You put your book down and watched as he happily walked over to you showing a very filled up bag with tangerines, probably his parents that gave him that

Tsukasa has been dating you for a week now, and you have never been this happy actually. "Here! You have to try one, mom said she picked out the best out of the group for you~" Tsukasa sat down as he began to peel one of them "for.. me?"

"Mhm! Mom has taking a very huge liking on you lately, here say ahh~" He held a piece of tangerine to your mouth but you just stared at him "I can feed myself Tsukasa—"

"Ehh but I want to feed you... Pleaassee?" He was giving you those puppy eyes so you gave in "Alright.." You opened your mouth and he dropped it into your mouth, this has been going on for awhile now, not that you wanted it to end nor did you find it weird, well it is you weren't used to this kind of thing

Despite his chaotic and hyper nature, he'd lessen it just for you because he knows how much you hate exerting energy and noise, but you don't know why he would do that

"Tsu?"

"Yes?" Tsukasa pulled you towards him more leaving no space in between you two "Why... Why do you these things for me?"

"What things?"

"Like.. Carrying my bag, feeding me.. Or not being as hyper as you were" Tsukasa hummed as he hugged you tighter tangling his legs with yours "Well.. I just wanted to let you experience the things no one ever did for you, I hated it when you told me that they would always mistreat you"

Tsukasa placed both hands onto your cheek as he peppered your face with kisses as you giggled

"I know you aren't used to it, but I want you to get used to it, alright? you'll be getting this treatment from me for as long as you're with me~" Tsukasa hugged you tightly as if he didn't wanna let you go

You yawned and found a comfortable position to sleep "Sleep, I want to take you out somewhere tomorrow" He combed your hair with his hand soothing you to sleep

He kissed your forehead one last time as he smiled at your sleeping face "Goodnight [F/N].."

Skin Care

Mitsuba is head over heels for you just saying, you were very cute which frustrated him in a good way

You placed down your burger as you looked at Mitsuba staring at you so intensely "Sousuke... Um.. Is there something on my face??"

"Why do you look so cute.."

You froze, melting?? your face was on fire though. You didn't know how to respond so you just kind of stared at him "I-i.. Um.."

"Hmp, that is not fair, what do you use on your skin? your hair? Please... Tell me..." He was all up on your face as some customers were looking at you two, you cleared your throat "Sousuke... Space please there are people around..." You felt your ears burning

"Sousuke... What are we doing in the mall.." There were alot of people today, well it was a Saturday, but being around this many people just.. Scared you, but you didn't wanna ruin Mitsubas mood so you sucked it up. "I want to follow this cute skin care routine I found online, and I'll have to swueeze some secrets from you aswell"

Mitsuba grabbed your hand and walked into the first store he saw. Despite all this you had fun, and Mitsuba did get some of the products you use on your face and he was happy about it "Sousuke, I'm gonna go over there" Mitsuba nodded as you walked over to this cute shelf filled with themed masks

As you were looking around, two sales ladies walked up to you, even though you had a different colored basket signaling you didn't want any help but you guessed they were new..

"Welcome valued customer~ What type of facemask are you willing to grab?" She asked eagerly, a part of you wanted to ignore them but you didn't want to, so the best you could do is say you didn't want any help but you were too scared to say so

"We recommend the ones with lavender scent, it has tea essence and is good for pores!" She grabbed a pack and showed it to you "A-ah, thank you.." You just wanted to run out of there by now

"Excuse me, but they are using a seperate colored basket for people who don't need assistance" You wanted to turn around and hide in Mitsubas arms when you heard him from behind you "Oh my goodness we're so sorry! It's our first day and no one has told us, our deepest apologies" They bowed and went to other customers who are in need of assistance

"And this, will be the last time I'll ever leave you alone, are you done looking for what you need? cause I am" He said proudly with his almost filled basket "Mhm.. I just want to go home right now" you and Mitsuba paid and left the mall, you really didn't wanna go home yet so you stayed over at his house

You two were doing each others skin care while watching k-drama at the back "AGH you dumb boy that's not her! that's her evil twin!" Mitsuba shouts in frustration, you giggled as your phone went off "Alright, you can take of the mask now"

You took off the face mask and threw it in the trash "And one more procedure" Mitsuba raised his eyebrow "One more? I knew you were holding something back" You giggled and sat on his lap "H-hey pervert what do you think your doing?"

You held his face with both hands and started slowly peppering kisses onto his face "My last procedure is kisses, really good for the cheeks" Mitsuba just let you do your thing, deep down, he was really happy.

Astronomy Buddies

The 1st and 2nd years were gonna have a field trip to this planeterium and everyone was excited, and you were more excited than anyone ever "I can't wait when we get to stargaze tomorrow" You placed all your things in your bag "Mhm! I heard the planeterium is pretty far too, but I think the long ride will be worth it!" Your best friend, Yashiro Nene said excitingly "Oh my gosh, what if in the dark hallways I bump into a tall handsome man?!" She daydreamed

You shook your head "The only tall handsome. man you'll meet in the dark hallways might be a kidnapper... " Your words didn't reach her as she went on and on about meeting a guy who will save her from darkness

"Still as delusional as ever Yashiro-san" Amane laughed "Be quiet!" Yashiro snapped at him, she grabbed her bag and went for the door "I'll see you tomorrow [F/N]!" You waved goodbye to her as she ran down the hall, you looked back at Amane who was taking a comfortable shut eye on your desk

"Amane.. Let's go home hm? we need to pack for tomorrow" You softly ran your fingers thru his soft black choppy hair, Amane gently grabbed your hand and lifted his head "Alright, Love" He gave you one of his signature smiles as an arrow went thru your whole entire soul

`Im having a crush on him all over again.. '

"Alright, listen up whipper snappers. We will be having a 'Buddy System'. Whoever you are seated next to will be your buddy throughout the trip, if you lose them, then that will go onto your grades for science and physical education. " Tsuchigomori said boredly "Don't make a ruckus, this is a long drive. Sleep or not just don't be too noisy."

You sat down by the window and watched as Amane placed your bags at the top. "Alright.. Now for a little shut eye cause man I am still tired.." Amane sat down next to you as he yawned "Aren't you sleepy? this is gonna be a 3 hour ride Love.." He gently placed your head on his shoulder

"But I'm not tired"

"Mhm.. Just stay there.." He placed his head ontop of yours as he slowly drifted off to sleep.

You and Amane seat at the far back, where some of the luggages, coolers, or bags were kept, no one was at the other side of you seat and mostly of the students were infront of you two. So basically it was only you and him.

"Amane.."

You felt him shift on your head as he hummed. "The moon is very pretty.." Amane rested his chin on your head as he also looked at the moon "It's very bright and full today.. But I'd rather look at you instead~"

"Be quiet and go back to sleep.." You hid in his arms as the tip of your ears were burning.

Unbeknownst to you, he had a huge smile on a his face with a hint of red.

"S-shesh its cold—" Fuji rubbed his hands together trying to get some heat for this mornings harsh winds "You wouldn't get used to it because your always up late." Akane blurted out while Fuji stuck his tongue out

While others were conversing among themselves, you were getting pretty excited even though all of you were just in the lobby "Love I got you some hotdogs" Amane gave you one as you thanked him eating it "You seem pretty excited" You nodded "I heard that were alot of sightseeing and I want to take pictures for my Journal making"

Amane hugged you tightly "God you look so cute.." He peppered your face with kisses "Amaannee.."

A few moments later they finally let all of you in, Your eyes sparkled with excitement and glee when you saw the many different sightseeing inside. The place was dark to help illuminate the planets, universe, and of course the moon and stars.

"Remember kids, if you lose your partner, that will be deducted from your grade in science. The whole purpose of this is to research and do the giver task I have given to all of you." Your science teacher said "But despite that, I want all of you to have fun."

"Wow.. these projectors are no joke.." You looked at the ceiling as it displayed the whole solar system "Amane look over there!" You grabbed his hand as you two entered another dark room that illuminated the kinds of stars. "Its so pretty.."

"Not as pretty as you~"

"Lets just do our task and have fun.."

You and Amane did the task easily and fast since both of you had the same knowledge with your chosen topic, actually you two were the first to be done. "Thats not fair these two are nerds with astronomy..." Fuji sighed in frustration "Are you gonna help me Yamabuki or not?!"

Students scurry off to find information or to discover theor topics while you and Amane spent your leisure walking down halls exploring the many sightseeing things in the planeterium.

You two walked in a dark room illuminating all kinds of stars, as you stared in awe Amane took a sneak picture of you. "Hey, delete that!" You tried grabbing his phone but he was taller "Nu-uh~ This will be my new phonescreen for a year. Scratch that I'm never gonna take it off"

A few teasing here, a few flirting there. And of course, the sharing of love you and Amane had on a specific topic, Astronony. You two were basically nerds about this, people would often call you two the 'Star Couple' or 'Planet lovebirds'.

"Ahh, which reminds me. I have a gift for you" Amane reached into his pocket as he pulled out a cute little red box with a white ribbon on it, he handed it to you but you placed it back onto his hand "Amane.. I told you to stop buying things for me.."

"And I want to spoil you.. So open it up for me?" You hesitated but opened the box, inside was two rings. One with a star on it and one with a moon it. Amane grabbed the one with a star and placed it on your ring finger and placed the other on his

"So, what do you think?"

"Its beautiful.." Admiring the ring on your hand "Thank you Amane.." You hugged him tight as he returned it.

It was time for the stargazing event in the planeterium, rather than the both of you staring at whats up in the sky, you looked at each other

Because you already had what the people adored to look at

and he was sitting right beside you, shining ever so brightly.

Idk if I portrayed Hunters personality right 😞

[rhineposting]

You do have to admit that it's pretty funny seeing people in the fandom freaking out over the people who are coming up with these stories and aus of Belos being good or redeemable.

You know chief, I don't really see "having to admit to finding something funny even if you actually don't" on my contract anywhere.

Though, in all seriousness, I think some of those people are partially justified. Some of those Redemption/good AUs are, to put it as kindly as possible, poorly executed at best and brain damage inducing at worst.

That and what's the point of enjoying a character if you're just going to scrub away all the things that make them an interesting character to begin with, for the sake of fitting them into a feel-good story? Doesn't that just defeat their entire purpose? If you want the character defined by their manipulative tactics not to be manipulative, then why not make an entirely new character?

Then again, I understand two things.

One, the need to see your favourite character in some domestic scenarios, it does feel nice. As I mentioned before, I am very much guilty of writing both villain redemption fanfics as well as AUs where the villain takes the role of a protagonist now. It takes a kettle to know a pot.

Second, I know for a fact a good amount of authors for said AUs are just young fans without much experience in writing yet. Ripping into them just feels cruel. So not gonna do that either.

Long story short :

yea people are freaking out because Some of those aus are just objectively bad and really bland imo, but i understand both sides of the debate so im just gonna shrug.

[smooth-goat]

1, 2, 3, 4, 10, 20, 69

lmmao mmost of these are from my hunter owl house playlist afjdsl

Welcome To Eden - The Wild Honey Pie Buzzsession -- Samia

And I'll love her forever but how could she know When I look in her grave and her cold fingers reach up and Rachel, I'm sorry for calling you by the wrong name It was just a suggestion

I really like the quick transition on "reach up and--Rachel" like whatever is happening at the grave is too difficult to talk about that the narrator has to switch subjects. And "I'm sorry for calling you by the wrong name / it was just a suggestion" is very Character for the Character Playlist.

2. Rät -- Penelope Scott

I bit the apple 'cause I trusted you It tastes like Thomas Malthus Your proposal is immodest and insane

The lyrics here are pretty dense writing, with the Biblical reference (which is a common throughline), the name of Thomas Malthus (anti-Irish, classist, genocide man), and the word "immodest" referencing Johnathan Switft's "A Modest Proposal", which satirizes Malthus. I think it's pretty clever writing.

I mean this is very much a song for the Hunter OwlHouse playlist. I could go into a whole infodump about Hunter and Belos and maybe I'll do that to you on discord afdjlks but basically there's a lot of little things here that work in addition to the basic premise of betrayal felt by a tech daddy role model.

3. Trouble -- Cage the Elephant

I said it was love and I did it for life Didn't do it for you

Something interesting for me there in those lines. About how the relationship was more about checking off a box and wanting a good life experience over the person they're actually sharing that experience with. Mostly though what I like about this song is the moodiness of it. It has this vibe of like, being lost in a city and turning round and round looking for where you're going, asking for directions but no one's talking to you, helplessly going in circles. Also, I like the "the wicked get no rest" line referencing another of their songs; I love when musicians do that shit.

4. Bumblebees Are Out -- Jack Stauber's Micropop

Kind of odd and difficult to pick favorite lyrics here because there're so few of them. But I put it on because of the unsettling tone, implicit child abuse, and the contrast between said abuse and disowning with picking flowers, and how even picking flowers can't be free from some pain.

10. Problems -- Mother Mother

You and me, we're not the same I am a sinner, you are a saint When we get to the pearly gates You'll get the green light, I'll get the old door in the face

I don't honestly have strong opinions about this song? It just fills a transition gap in the playlist for me. I do think though that it has a strong opening. I also like the line "Some go to baseball, some go debase a face they can't seem to save" because of the repetition of the "s" sound; I think that's fun and clever.

20. Art School Wannabe -- Sorority Noise

Maybe I'm my own greatest fear Maybe I'm just scared to admit that I might not be as dark as I think Maybe I am not the person That I never wanted to be

I like the commentary this song has about the persona of the tortured artist. How the creative community (in this case, the music world) places so much value in the romantic ideal of depression, when not only is the reality not that but also that wanting to be happy and recover is actually good; it won't make you a worse artist and it won't make you a less interesting person.

69 (nice). Campus -- Vampire Weekend

How am I supposed to pretend I never want to see you again?

I just think this song is fun and catchy fjdsakl And I think it's very evocative of the specific lifestyle of college casual sex: having "important" things to focus on but hooking up instead, learning how to navigate a sexual social life with new relative independence, and being in a fairly small and confined social space making it hard to avoid past encounters.

[eli-elien]

Ask game - 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 11, 25

[a lot of questions, sorry xD but I love those, they're good ones]

4. Fav character/subject that's a bitch to draw

Kyo, I would love to draw religiously symbolism-esqe stuff with him and Elijah cuz he's The Bitch that really twists the story up in reverie but I gotta know who is outfitter is why so many belts? Why the tubes? the weird ass accents and cloak, uuuggghdhjghgh

5. Estimate of how much of your art you post online vs. the art you keep for yourself

Maybe more than 50 I keep to myself, most are doodles without context but I think maybe thats pushing it cuz I did do a worstie without context doodles

one day I'll make a post abt them and the aus I have with them (also general aus for shield hero I've made lol)

6. Anything that might inspire you subconsciously (i.e. this horse wasn't supposed to look like the Last Unicorn but I see it)

Hmmmmm off the top of my head I think Belos from TOH considering most of my characters are brunettes with their eyes leaning to blue, another one is just ben tennyson and his overall personality and body of being a twink with an ego who is also extremely self sacrificial altho it differs how much depending on the type of character I actually want and ofc their age

8. What's an old project idea that you've lost interest in

I had an old story called Terminal something something and the mc was a nonbinary kid who was secretly related to an ancient family of warriors that now has to fight the ancient evil that's abt to come back, but is the evil really so evil?

Think of Tales of Arcadia's Trollhunters, Randy cunningham 9th grade ninja and jack long

Say hello to Piper! there were also going to be a set of weapons that get collected over time that cast use but they didn't seem like weapons. For example Piper's was a mask that turned them to the Sun Warrior (able to use it bc of their family blood) and another example is a vase that controls wate! A mirror! A book that has people and things sealed within it able to release said thing and control it with a key! and a painting! theres more but I don't want to have this be too long

10. Favorite piece of clothing to draw

PUFFY SLEEVES AND SKIRTS/DRESSES

I love love drawing elaborate lavish dresses

these are old but still hold up well with what I like to give my characters if ever there's a ball :p

11. Do you listen to anything while drawing? If so, what

Alot of different things depends on the vibe sometimes I listen to classical music esp while animating or doing a piece that's "classical" yknow oooorr esp when it's abt my fave duo

The Worsties Playlist

or hannibal edits on youtube bc hannibal fans have such a way with music and the lines they put in there inspire my characters and art

25. Something your art has been compared to that you were NOT inspired by

hmmmm I think once I was told my style looks like early 2000s animes like full metal alchemist and ok the story and writing yes but the style I wouldn't say I got inspired by it esp considering my coloring being akin to stuff like cyberpunk and arcane lol

[numericalbridge]

TOH rewatch semi-liveblog. Season 2a

episodes 6-10 and season 2a thoughts

Episode 6

- This was one of the s2a episodes that i really liked on the first watch, but my memory became soured because of Hunter's fandom. So i was apprehensive watching it again. Spoiler: it's still good, but it's good because of Luz and decent episode structure.

- Lol, i've remembered the Coven Heads' scene as the last scene of the episode.

- Hmm, yes, we do see Darius entering first and then being placed in the center of the Coven Head group, like the viewer's attention is meant to be drawn to him🤔 Sure, they couldn't bring Raine in the spotlight in this episode, but why not Terra?

- No offense to Kikimora and her fans - and i do think there are some interesting aspects of her character and why Belos chose her as his attendant - but also her role could've been divided between the Coven Heads.

- But the Coven Heads really don't feel like this Inner Court the way the fandom portrays them. Even the Healing Coven Head is not attending to Belos's illness, none of the Coven Heads are shown to be present at the Basilisk experiments, Belos barely talks to them, and instead Kikimora does almost all the talking, Belos is not the one inagurating the new coven head.

- I like how the union of the demon and human realm and what it means to the Coven Heads and others is just never properly explained.

- THE most underrated scene of the show is the Coven Heads just standing there blissfully gazing into the magic cauldron while the Emperor is being taken out of the room, sick (possibly faking it), by Kikimora and Hunter. Is Belos pretending? Does he need an excuse to go punch a wall because he had to see too many witches without masks? Are the Coven Heads unaware what just happened or it's a situation where 7-8 out of 9 won't be too sad if he had to die, and at least 3/9 of them are ready for an opportunity to take the throne? Is it insulting for Hettie that she isn't trusted to take care of the Emperor, or is she feeling like that 'out here living my best life' meme?

- Again, is Darius in the frame more often or are my eyes just drawn to him👀

- But, yeah, Belos is really intriguing on the first watch, and a good villain. No, he didn't need to be more sympathetic.

- Meanwhile at Hexside - i like how the Bat Queen seems more open and friendly towards the students. And, really, Luz helped the Bat Queen, Bump and Eda all become more open and better mentors/teachers/etc not just to the closest people to them but also in general, and i think it's a shame that fandom ignores this part to focus solely on family dynamics.

- Palisman staffs: in the first season it seemed like the palisman and the staff were more like separate entities, and the witch had to put them together, and the staff without the palisman would 'exist' in the material world, but here the adopted palismen can just transform into the staff form on their own once bonded, and the staff is a part of them (good for Mallow AU) Although the palismen don't seem to be able to fly in the staff form on their own (but Mallow is special~)

- If only we got more about Gus and Perry! Ok, Perry wants Gus to become a master illusionist, but why? Does he himself like the illusion track or is it his way of encouraging Gus to excel in something Gus loves, even if it is not popular?

- Sad we didn't see Scara's wish.

- Luz is so imaginative! Just from the way she starts to ramble to the palismen and goes in different directions... sorry, but she wouldn't write the cookie cutter trope-y fics. Her idea of 'just one bed' would be like that one nosleep story where the bed traveled dimensions, only there would also be betrayal and 1000 plot twists.

- Palismen are getting kidnapped and they are shaking and crying... little guys, you can fly!

(i know, i know, they can't transform into the staff form on their own)

- Again, Luz is reckless, but she is so smart! Like making Hunter say that he travels quickly thanks to his staff and then getting rid of it. I wish this trickster-y aspect of her was explored more as well.

- Luz is great in this episode and we see many sides of her character, and that's what makes it good. Hunter's story is fine, but not that special🔥🔥🔥🔥

- it's so weird that adult fans either seriously feared that there would be a love triangle with Amity and Hunter or concluded that Luz and Hunter were written intentionally as 'basically like love interests' / 'romance coded' over one single scene of Luz waking him up when that was a visiual gag of subverting how a scene like that could have went in a different media and is concluded with a slapstick. If there were multiple scenes like that, it would've been one thing... but for fans of a primarly comedic show the audience really struggles with recognizing jokes aimed at middle schoolers.

- Hunter is pretty fit, doing parkour without his staff, i think fandom really exaggerates how frail he was. And from what i know, it makes sense for the historical/puritan mindset of 'healthy=good' for Belos to want him to be that way. Don't get me wrong, i think it's great when fanon actually explores Hunter's health from the angle of disability/chronic illness, but at the same time the fandom often tends to lean onto a very specific whumpified portrayal of abuse victims that edges onto uncomfortable 'this what a real abuse victim must be like' territory.

- Oh, and again, Luz is very smart with making the sleeping spell with the glyphs, and Hunter is not the only nerd in the scene.

- "...Garden Club was robbed..." - "By us!" LoL

- Ok, yes, this is still a very good episode. It is good structuraly and has good characterization. Bump's personality shift actually didn't stand out that much this time - i think, because it works well if you look at it from the perspective that he, the Bat Queen and Eda were all changed as mentors/teachers/authority figures once they've met Luz.

Shame that Willow and Gus are barely there and Amity's absence is explained in a weirdly throw away line (i think it would've been better if there was a moment in this episode showing Luz' crush on her, because the crush disappears until Hooty's episode when suddenly it is super important again, and that was weird) but in this episode at least there was a little bit of info about Willow's and Gus' wishes, and so it didn't feel as dismissive as other season 2a episodes.

But it is such a good episode for Luz, showing multiple facets of her personality, and i wish there were more episodes like this for her.

Episode 7

- This episode and the next one are probably the best Eda episodes, but i feel like Luz and King's b-plot could've been utilized better. And season 3 and the behavior of certain raeda shippers really soured me on Raine as a character, even though they used to be my second favourite, but then on the first watch i started to really enjoy their character in s2b, so there is still hope.

- Again team RED placed together on a banner.

- And Darius is conducting Raine's ceremony. I guess Belos can't be bothered, but if there was meant to be confrontation/real narrative connection between Raine and Belos to make the whole possession plot meaningful, here was the perfect opportunity to have them interact.

- Eda tries to save the wild witch in this episode. I wonder whether Eda helping other wild witches was something that was never brought up before or, in contrast with the first episode of the show, meeting Luz really made her less 'individualistic' (as Luz has put it in s1). Anyway, that was nice.

- Seems like Raine only started their operationd with the BATTs recently, since they are giving Raine instructions on how to make their speech and it seems like this is a new thing. Katya: "We actually helped people this time!" - yeah, feels like Raine's rebellion wasn't that successful.

- Gus helping Perry is cute. Perry at the work meeting: "You ask whether i'd rather cover the inaguration of an important coven head or a school competition? Obviously the school competition is more important!"

- i've forgotten about Eber's super vision spell, lol.

- Luz being treated as Eda's kid was always... ... to me.

- The way the fandom just happily admits that they immediately headcanoned Darius as particulary sadistic or cruel to children or cowardly... when he just throws the BATTs into an (unlocked) cell, literally doesn't care about Raine almost killing him and then hurting him by slicing his arm, and then only mentions 'tormenting' Raine, not even 'torturing' - even as a villain there was nothing worse than punch-clock villany in this episode, and yet certain fans just proudly admit that they were rushing to write him hurting Hunter. Because fandoms looove to automatically assume that the villains of color must hurt white children instead of writing them as interesting adversaries with standarts. And the cowardly part?Just plainly not true in the episode considering his reactions to the corrupted spell or his arm getting hurt.

- But, yeah, if Darius was meant to be a villain, his reactions to being hit by the corrupted spell and Raine hurting his arm really would have been so off? A vain villain who values his cloak over the involment in a rebellion? Sure. But not reacting over the threat to his life/physical pain? (but also it makes me feel a certain way over the fact that we didn't see more of his interactions with Raine even if in a background in the epilogue, because it feels like he really forgave a lot and indulged them a lot, and that was not even an intentional writing choice, but it leaves them in a weird place)

- Darius clutching his cloak x1 (i have a theory)

- My other theory has always been that Eber was upping the volume of the recording to cover the sound of Darius explaining things to Raine (and to annoy Darius too)

- the sigil spell - that's definitely something that would've affected what the rebel Coven Heads could attempt to do when going against Belos.

- Anyway, great episode for Eda's development, but otherwise pretty meh. Especially the way certain things about Raine and Darius just don't work for me - on the first watch it's frustration with the tropes that are utilized. On the second watch it's like 'ok, you set this up to be subverted later, but it still makes this episode feel weird'

Episode 8

- 'Fairies' are bug demons, fully sapient, and yet the witches eat them?

- I like King's voice acting and how his character is maturing. His plotline is ok too.

- Wish there were more episodes focused on Eda's struggle with the loss of her magic and her trying to figure out Belos's plans/how to fight him (it felt on the first watch like Eda's urgency to stop DoU plan just faded away after this episode), but this is one of her best episodes.

- The Owl Beast becoming a curse was so confusing on the first watch, lol.

- Luz's part is ok. But the way crush on Amity wasn't mentioned in 2 previous episodes and then here it's all she can think about is kinda funny. Probably not out of character for a teenager, but i wish the writing connected the episodes together in a smoother way.

- I don't feel bad for Amity being pelleted in this episode after she beat up Hooty in s1.

- The ending was way too silly. And i refuse the notion that Luz is taller than Amity.

Episode 9

- Again, hate the way Willow and Gus are utilized here, their c-plot with the music would've been fun as a c-plot in any other episode, but again they are just taken out of picture instead of interacting with Luz meaningfully.

- Yes, it would've changed ASIAS, but this could've been an episode where Amity and Willow or Amity and Gus go to the Eclipse Lake together, sneaking away while Eda stays with Luz and maybe gets to act as a mentor to whoever stays behind. You could even plot it in such a way that Willow/Gus don't get to meet Hunter, instead dealing with the scouts/separated from Amity and King. Or at least the episode could have had a better bonding experience between Amity and King.

- And i really don't like Eda's part here. Her trying to reach out to Hunter was cool, but otherwise she is just comically irresponsible and incompetent for the most part; and the whole deal with her being unable to turn into the harpy mode and then negotiating with the Owl Beast seemed unecessary and just rehearsing what the previous episode did, when the time could've been spend on other things. And the whole 'it's a wild animal!' towards the Owl Beast even seemed like going back from what the previous episode established.

- But the fandom reactions to Eda's interactions with Hunter are so fascinating (in a bad way) and just highlight the fandom fucked up hierarchy: on the one hand as a white character she is automatically assumed to be nicer than Darius towards Hunter and automatically seen as a 'mom' for him, but as a woman she is still considered too mean and failing poor Hunter even though she doesn't know his backstory and there is nothing she can realistically do in this episode, and she acts in the same 'mean' teasing way towards other kids as well.

- I found Amity vs Hunter fight boring until the end. I know fandom has knee-jerk reaction towards calling s2 Amity bland, but to me she feels like that, and it has nothing to do with her not being 'mean' anymore, but the consequences of her lacking strongly written dynamics with Willow or Gus or King or Eda.

- Even with Hunter here, if there was a continuation/development for Amity - being upset over this encounter and how trying being nice didn't work for her the way it works for Luz, it would've been more interesting.

- But still weird how the fandom focused on whether Amity would be mean to Hunter or not after this episode, while ignoring how Hunter's behavior here had hurt her.

Episode 10

- One of the best episodes in the series, imo. Probably my second favourite episode. The first time around i was too worried how Camila would be treated by the narrative to fully appreciate it, and it really just grew on me afterwards.

- I like how King got more confident: 'don't forget to mention me!' rather than clinging to Luz and crying how he wouldn't let her go like in the 1st episode.

- The way the fandom continued to demonize Camila even after this episode is wild. The first thing she does is freeing a cute animal - which doesn't mean someone is automatically a good person, of course, but in the context of the episode it's clearly a shortcut to show what kind of person she is😭But taking care of Vee and saving animals and trying to support Luz wasn't enough, she had to prove herself by being a 'fellow pop-culture nerd' and taking care of a white boy to be accepted by the fandom.

- And i like how Vee immediately is allowed to show complicated emotions and thoughts, and the way Luz and Vee were not explored at all in s3 is such a shame. If there was just a brief scene... But even with just this episode we have enough information to see Vee as a person.

- Anyway a great episode, a great introduction to Vee and exploration of Camila. Writing-wise probably one of the 2-3 episodes i liked start-to-finish.

----

Conclusion:

i kinda regret not watching episodes 6-10 immediately after 1-5 (but i didn't have time to watch anything) because i can't tell how they all work together, but right now i don't have strong opinion on episodes 6-10 as a whole, because episodes 6 and 10 are great, the rest are somewhat-good or meh.

----

Season 2a thoughts:

But overall season 2a writing is so uneven (even before the shortening) and Gus and Willow are treated so poorly, it is my least favourite part of the show. And while the first season wasn't as 'serious' and had a lot of the same problems, it still was better structurally. And yes, there are many parts of season 2a that are important, and i don't know how you would remove them, but it just shows that the series can't handle all the characters and pace their arcs around each other.

Best episode: 10 or 6

Worst episode: 2

[creativia10]

Titan Dream Talk

Request: Eda Meets the Titan

Warnings: mentions of The Titan's death

Let me know if I'm missing any

Pairings: platonic Eda and The Titan, Eda/Raine

Worcount: 1099

Notes: Requested by @MegaZRex123 on AO3

This is one of my first times writing Eda's perspective. Aside from the fic where all of Hunter's parental figures discuss who he should stay with. I hope I do her character justice. This was a short one, but I had a feeling it might be.

It should come as no surprise that everyone was exhausted after the final battle with Belos. Eda set Raine up in a nest she had made. Because goodness did they need it after what they went through. Of course, Eda gave her own share of reunion hugs, but it didn’t take long before she just cuddled up with Raine in the nest. Maybe it was just the relief of finally seeing everyone she cared about safe and sound. After spending so long worrying about everyone. Her weariness finally hit her. Eda rested her head against Raine’s shoulder from where she was in their lap and quickly drifted off.

Now Eda was used to having weird dreams. Since she dealt with the curse and her own battles of having the owl beast within her. But they hadn’t felt vivid or lucid like the one she had before unlocking harpy Eda.

Eda walks along some sort of liquid like she was on top of it. Which was weird not to sink into. There was an orange glow to it like it was reflecting off of something in the environment though.

Eda walked forward to see someone with a resemblance to someone she knew. The tall creature smiled at her with sharp teeth, yet felt more friendly than scary. Maybe it was the body language and posture. It could also be the honestly almost ridiculous-looking clothes he was wearing.

“Oh, my Titan…” Eda said.

The other laughed and gestured to himself.

“In the flesh. Or, well, I guess spirit is more accurate here. Hello, Eda the Owl Lady. It is an honor to finally meet you.”

Eda blinked at him, a bit confused.

Yet, of course, the first thing out of her mouth was,

“You’re wearing one of my shirts.”

He was wearing one of her purple ‘Bad Girl coven’ shirts. She didn’t even have very many, to begin with.

He looked down at the shirt and laughed a big hearty laugh.

“That I am. I hope that’s alright. I wanted to be a part of such a cool group.”

She laughed a little hysterically.

“Of course, the more the merrier.”

He nods.

“Why am I seeing you?” Eda finally asks. “I mean, this can’t be real…right? This must be a dream.”

The titan hmmed.

“This is a dream, but that doesn’t mean it’s not real.”

Eda huffs at that. She supposed she couldn’t exactly argue that. She had her own experiences with earth-shattering dreams. She went with the blunt question, that should be obvious.

“Aren’t you dead? I mean it sure seemed like it when Belos was wrecking the island.”

The titan sighed.

“I’ve been in between death for a while now. But yes, I suppose I am closer now. I can’t promise to understand how I am able to do this either, I don’t know how everything works after all. But I am glad I am able to see you though, even if it may be just this once.”

Eda blinks.

“Oh yeah? And why’s that.”

The titan huffs with a smile.

“I’m surprised it’s not obvious by now. Because you took care of my son, King, when I couldn’t be there for him. I’ve always been grateful for that.”

Eda was slightly taken aback. She supposed that made sense.

“Oh,” She said, a slight obstruction in her throat now. She took a deep breath.

“It’s, I mean, well you know…-“

“You don’t have to try and brush it off as not a big deal, Eda,” The Titan said. Honestly, reading her way more than she would have liked.

“I care deeply for my son, of course. Thank you so much for being there for him. I couldn’t have picked a better person to take care of him.”

Okay, she wasn’t going to be able to hold it anymore. Eda’s eyes got warm, and she sniffed as she blinked her misty eyes.

“Gosh I love that adorable dork,” She admitted.

The titan laughed and, to her surprise, put an arm around her.

“I know. He’s great. And you’ve been wonderful for him.”

She shook her head and found herself sitting down abruptly.

“I’ve never known if I was enough for him. Not after lying to him about what I knew of where he came from, or learning that he was a heckin’ titan like you.”

She looked over at him again.

“I haven’t known what I’m doing. How am I supposed to continue to raise the next titan!? He should have been able to be raised by you.”

The Titan sighed and sat down beside her.

“Of course, I would have preferred to look after him myself if I could. But I am still so thankful that you are the one who found him. I may not be able to be there to show him all he needs to know, especially now that I’m not even in the in-between anymore. But he’s got a lot of people who care about him, like you. And some very smart family and friends who can figure out what he needs to. Like how Luz was able to find the runes I showed her.

“He'll be able to come into his own just fine, even if not the way I would initially have wanted. Just keep doing what you’re doing Eda. You’ll all be okay.”

Eda sniffed and nodded.

“Okay. Loathe as I am to admit it, that means a lot coming from you.”

The Titan nodded.

“I know. That’s why I wanted to speak to you in this way. King is in good hands. Remember that.”

As he said that, the dream started to fade.

Eda woke up with a gasp, jolting Raine a bit. She winced as they groaned a bit.

“Sorry, Rainstorm,” She said quietly.

They shook their head and nuzzled into her.

“Everything okay?” Raine asked.

She sighed and looked over. She saw King talking with the collector about something and smiled.

“Yeah, I think so. I just got reassurance in a dream that I’ve been doing well with King.’

Raine looked at her in confusion.

“In a dream? Was this from the Titan who just passed?”

Raine was good at keeping up with the things their family learned during.

Raine hmmed.

“Well, I can’t say I completely understand how that happened, but it seems like it’s good.”

Eda nodded against them. “Yeah, it is.”

Eda already felt like she was close to sleep again. But she felt more content about it this time rather than just hit with exhaustion. Somehow, she was willing to believe things could be okay.

[socte-blue]

Hey here’s my rant about my GG oc Nio :3

Nio was their GG before Darius’s mentor, and he was made when Belos was especially experimenting with younger grimwalkers - so he was “born” around 5. He was (basically) 17 when he died.

Nio’s a huge softy, probably so much so it got in the way of the whole “soldier” thing. He cried and small things, didn’t want to kill bugs, yk, the exact opposite of what Belos wanted. But he was desperately attached to Belos and really toned himself down for his approval — he’s still a really soft kid he just pushes it down like HELL. He’s still just kind of a genuinely kind person though.

He loves calligraphy and flowers — he definitely has one of those pressed flower books he made himself. He really likes writing and he handles a lot of paperwork at the castle, so he actually does get a chance to express that. He actually enjoys company, but he has “completely uninterested aloof” thing that often kind of puts people off - but it does help him not get picked on by the coven heads so much (adds too his “I can totally do things and I do not have a raging inferiority complex” mask). Also like people pleaser. The kid needs help

He also has autism and inattentive ADHD, as well has CPTSD. He also definitely struggles with mental health in general. Also he 100% has a special interest in the The Emperors Coven. Like knows the names of all the coven heads in the last 12 years.

I can probably go a bit more in depth, but that’s pretty much all I’m gonna write lol

Last things: if he had a palisman it would definitely be a dove, he loves classical music, he bites his nails OBSESSIVELY, he’s non-binary. Anyway yeah he’s my lil traumatized kid. He

TOH OC NATION GIVE ME YOUR GRIMWALKER OC (VIA DMS, REBLOGS, ASK BOX) ^_^

[edoro]

S2E9 Hunter-Belos Interaction Analysis

And here I am again with the meta analysis of s2e9, as foretold in the ancient prophecies. (Aoyama BNHA voice) I Cannot Stop Talking About Belos And Hunter.

As I said in the other essay, I think that the exchange at the beginning of this episode really exposes the heart of the relationship between Belos and Hunter. 

S2e6 lays a foundation for us, and it’s an extremely compelling foundation, but it’s also nothing we haven’t seen before. Villainous ruler has a lackey who also turns out to be a terrorized younger relative who does their dirty work out of devotion and fear - we’ve all seen A:TLA, we all remember Zuko. S2e9 is where we realize that, for the purposes of the comparison I have just made, Hunter is Azula.

(This is neither an exact comparison nor meant to belittle the work TOH puts into its characters and plots. I find that type of relationship dynamic extremely fascinating and enjoy the unique spin TOH puts it. But it’s a useful and well-known cultural touchstone.)

He’s the golden child, the Emperor’s Special Little Boy, the genius teen prodigy who is destined for greatness, and it’s by holding that approval (or the threat of having it withdrawn as punishment for a disappointing performance) over Hunter’s head that Belos manipulates him and keeps him loyal and desperate to prove himself.

Belos isn’t simply cruel, distant, and emotionally unavailable. He hides his cruelty under a veneer of warmth and kindness and he manipulates the level of emotional distance and intimacy between the two of them depending on the situation and what kind of tone he wants to establish. He offers conditional and unpredictable access to emotional intimacy as a reward and withholds it as a punishment, trapping Hunter in this constant cycle of compulsive seeking and anxious avoidance where he’s just sort of always frantically doing things almost at random in the hopes that they will prove he’s good and make Belos love him.

The episode opens with Belos alone and unmasked, up late fiddling with the portal door he’s worked so hard to rebuild. This is the first time we’ve actually seen him on his own; every single other glimpse of him was filtered through the viewpoint of another character, defined by his interactions with them. 

We’ve seen, at various points, how carefully Belos constructs himself for others. He’s clearly a man very conscious of his image, which I think the s1 finale demonstrates especially well with the way he spins letting Eda go for the assembled citizens. We can try to reverse engineer a sense of personality and purpose from how he acts in those scenes, sure, but the fact is that every time we’ve seen him up until now, we’ve seen what he wants the other people in the scene to see. We really know very little about his actual motivations or feelings about basically anything at this point.

In the beginning of this scene, though, before Hunter comes in, we get as close as we’ve gotten so far to the real Belos. There’s no one else in the room for him to need to manipulate or cultivate a certain impression of himself for. It’s just him and this project he’s spent who knows how long working towards, and the anticipation and frustration.

He hesitates before he puts that recently made substitute key into the lock. There could be plenty of reasons behind that - checking to make sure everything’s in order, nervousness that it might not work, nervousness that it might, a sense of triumph at getting so far, a very practical concern that this might quite literally blow up in his face, I could go on. We still don’t know what’s going on in his head here. 

But he hesitates - and in the original storyboards, when it doesn’t work, he punches the door, which is an interesting show of frustrated petulance. That doesn’t happen in the final version. He just stands there instead, staring at it, his expression obscured, and we cut to Hunter watching him.

Hunter’s lurking, hanging back and watching Belos from behind a convenient bit of architecture. He looks very uncertain here. This is an ongoing thing throughout this entire scene - Hunter never seems to quite know where he stands, and the way he looks at Belos is at once fixated and fearful.

To me, this bit feels like he’s waiting for Belos to finish what he’s doing so as not to interrupt him. It comes across very much like another little bit of mood-reading from Hunter; he comes in to see that Belos is busy, so he waits, and then he watches as whatever Belos is doing doesn’t work, so now he’s waiting to see how Belos reacts, whether he seems frustrated enough that it’s a bad idea to approach him.

A second or so after this, Hunter says he wasn’t trying to hide, but honestly, he clearly was. He shooed the palisman off in a furious whisper and stayed lurking there, watching to see how Belos reacted. He’s obviously very startled to be directly addressed, but he can’t keep pretending he’s not there or slip off quietly without saying anything, so he has to go ahead and have this interaction.

That sort of tentativeness around interacting with one’s guardian is quite a tell. Hunter’s used to having to read, predict, and manage his uncle’s moods and adjust how he acts to account for them. Sure, everyone has bad days or times when they’re less patient, and it’s not necessarily abnormal to gauge what kind of mood someone’s in before you have a difficult conversation with them, but there’s very much a sense here that Hunter’s used to doing this and fearful of what might happen if Belos isn’t in a good mood.

There’s also the matter of how he addresses Belos. Here, Belos is ‘Emperor Belos’. Hunter’s form of address is very formal, even though it’s a relatively informal setting - late, no one else around, Belos stripped of his outer layers and his mask, though Hunter’s still in uniform. 

There could be a number of interpretations for that. I can see it as being a way of Hunter trying to sort of preemptively make up for having sneaking around here, as well as him being nervous because he’s planning to ask Belos something related to his recent performance, so he’s slipping into formality as a way of coming across more serious and professional. 

But it’s interesting that the way Hunter addresses Belos seems to be based on how Hunter is feeling or what kind of tone he’s trying to take, rather than the signifiers of the actual context they’re in. It goes well with the idea, I think, that Belos tends to be the one to set the tone here and that Hunter doesn’t necessarily know what it’s going to be until Belos does. 

It also speaks to an aspect of Hunter’s character we get more insight into later on in the episode, that he seems to relate to other people heavily through the lens of his own feelings and experiences. He seems to have a skill for reading people or picking up on the dynamics in a situation, but not necessarily for interpreting them unless he personally understands them.

People have talked about the face reveal before, but it really is an interesting moment. It’s dramatic for us because we’ve built this guy up over the course of a season and a half as the ultimate big bad, the spooky faceless evil emperor, and suddenly he has a face, and he’s just some kindly-looking old man - but it’s not dramatic for Hunter, because he’s seen this face before.

The casualness of it really hits home. Belos is just a person. He’s just some guy. He doesn’t look evil. He looks fond and approachable, in direct contrast to how nervous Hunter seems to be.

This, too, is a form of intimacy between them. How many people have seen the emperor unmasked? It’s probably not a list that only includes Hunter, but it’s surely a very exclusive one.

(Especially considering how jacked up his ears are there. This is not the place to go into “Belos is a human man” theories, but those are not normal witch ears, and he has a vested interest in presenting himself not only as a witch but as the most gifted and powerful witch of all. Letting Hunter see him like this is another way of making Hunter feel special, like his relationship with Belos is a privilege.)

The mask also serves the purpose of - similarly to how the Golden Guard’s mask does for Hunter - allowing Belos to disguise his emotions and reactions. All anyone who sees him masked has to go on is the deliberately expressionless mask and his tone. Even his body language is cloaked under all the layers of robes. It’s a very deliberate way of cultivating an inscrutable sort of presence.

Without it, we see some interesting things. Whatever his face might have looked before, when he turns to look at Hunter, he’s smiling warmly, inviting…

But when he turns to look back at the door, that expression drops right off his face. We get what I can really only describe as petulance. His wording, too, is interesting here: “Without the power of the real key, it refuses to open.”

Not that the door didn’t open or won’t work, it refuses to. The door is framed as not just nonfunctional but defiant, like it’s willfully disobeying him rather than being, you know, an inanimate fucking object.

The way he expresses himself to Hunter is as much a performance as it is with anyone else, but I think this is a glimpse into his real feelings. He very much wants this door to work and he’s feeling angry and thwarted that it’s not, and blaming the door itself for not doing what he wants it to do. We can easily extrapolate this attitude towards how he treats the people in his life - in fact, we’ve seen it, with both Hunter and Lilith.

Hunter’s expression here really kills me. He spends most of this scene staring at Belos with exactly this face, this mixture of fear and worship. Belos is the central fixture in this scene to which Hunter is drawn and around which he orbits. He never takes his eyes off Belos and aside from a brief bit at the end of Belos’s little speech coming up, his face never changes.

It’s the sort of expression one might expect a much younger child to direct at an adult guardian who, in their eyes, is as big as God and controls the world. On Hunter, a sixteen year old, it comes across as somewhat developmentally odd, but it fits - Belos does control his entire world. Belos is the ultimate authority to Hunter, able to shape and reshape Hunter’s reality with nothing more than a word.

When Hunter asks about the rain in the Human Realm, Belos’s expression goes from that frustrated petulance to something that almost looks a little startled, like he wasn’t entirely expectring Hunter to interject. Then, once Hunter’s finished, he turns to look at him properly and once again he’s smiling as he shares a personal anecdote.

Every time he directly addresses Hunter, it’s in that same warm, pleasant way. Everything about how he’s talking to Hunter in this scene suggests a comfortable, familial sort of intimacy. He’s friendly, smiling, sharing stories about his life - when he asks, “Have I ever told you that before?” it suggests he thinks he might have, because he’s told Hunter other things about himself.

The single, tiny, silent shake of the head Hunter does also always gets me. He’s so quiet, so still, so tentative in his movements, not wanting to interrupt this moment, this intimacy being handed to him. He comes across as painfully hungry for any scrap of closeness, any further insight into Belos. These moments come at unpredictable intervals, subject to Belos’s own unreadable internal whims, and so when they do come along, Hunter must grab onto them tightly.

But then the moment ends, and Belos brings the subject back around to what exactly it is that Hunter’s there for.

“Are you spying on me to hear these boring old stories?” Obviously they’re quite fascinating to Hunter, but here I want to focus on his use of the word ‘spying’. It’s a bit loaded, and I think this is one of our first glimpses of how he slips in these little conversational barbs with that same fond look and warm tone.

As soon as Belos turns around to directly address him, Hunter straightens up, coming to a sort of attention. Belos is relaxed, playful even, but Hunter’s taking it very seriously, and it seems to me that he heard that teasing question as an accusation. And indeed, what Belos is asking here is: “Why are you here?” with an emphasis on the fact that Hunter was sneaking around.

Once more Hunter is tentative and unsure. He doesn’t really seem to want to bring this up. I get the impression he had to work himself up to coming in here in the first place, and then the conversation seemed to be going so well, with Belos being open and telling him stories, but now he’s got to bring the mood down by bringing up the thing he’s worried about - why Belos switched him out with Kikimora.

But as little as he wants to bring it up, he needs to know. He wants to understand why, wants the chance to try to prove himself, and also, he was asked a direct question - and we have seen that Hunter isn’t very good at lying. Omitting information or misdirecting, sure, but not outright lying.

And then, of course, we get to That Fucking Speech. This is where the scene got really good for me, because the next thirty seconds or so are just pure, weapons-grade compressed emotional cruelty. 

Right here, though, this is important. “Everyone has a use, Hunter.” This is a belief we see Belos operate by in a lot of different circumstances. People are tools to him, and he manipulates and wields them in order to get what he wants, then discards them when he’s done. 

It’s also the guiding principle of Hunter’s life. He believes entirely in this idea, that everyone has a use, that he specifically has a use, and he sees it simultaneously as a gift Belos has bestowed on him - a purpose and a future for a boy who didn’t ever think he’d have either - and a cage he’s been placed in. Having a use is a dual-edged sword, because it gives him a place and makes him worthy, but also means there are expectations he has to meet and therefore consequences if he doesn’t meet them.

We see just how thoroughly he’s been conditioned to believe that later on in this episode with how he talks and acts during the trip to Eclipse Lake. But this, right here, it isn’t just that Belos says this to him, reinforcing the lesson: it’s how he says it that’s important too.

This entire time, he’s approached Hunter with fondness and warmth. He’s treated him like a family member, like someone who he cares about. This interaction has been intimate and casual. When he says that everyone has a use, he doesn’t speak harshly or coldly. He smiles, he puts his hand on Hunter’s shoulder, he speaks in the tone of a teacher imparting a lesson.

Hunter has come to believe that he only has worth when he is fulfilling a purpose which Belos defines, but this isn’t because Belos tells him he’s worthless if he doesn’t. It’s because Belos tells him he has a purpose, in the manner of a man passing on the wisdom of his age, and then offers a reward for living up to that purpose. He doesn’t simply punish Hunter for failing to, but offers Hunter the promise of greater care and affection and approval if he succeeds, which is much more powerful.

Before I get into the rest of this speech, I also want to talk about Belos’s use of physical contact as a tool of manipulation. Belos changes the emotional distance between the two of them frequently during their interactions in order to set a certain tone, and physical touch is one way he does it. He doesn’t come across as particularly distant or withholding in that way - he actually touches Hunter in two out of the three scenes we see them interact in!

Sure, he’s not pulling Hunter in for a big hug, but he’s physically affectionate. The thing is, though, that it occurs entirely according to what Belos wants. Hunter doesn’t get to initiate or ask for touch; he simply receives it. It’s something that happens to him. 

In s2e6, at the beginning, Belos puts his hand on Hunter’s shoulder in a similar way while looming over him, to lean on the sense of an emotional connection between them while he tells Hunter to be careful and not get hurt because of wild magic. 

Then in this scene here, he repeats the gesture as he delivers his lesson. He then shortly deepens the touch from a hand on the shoulder - fond but distant - to an arm around the shoulders, which he uses to physically control Hunter by walking him down the stairs and out of the room. Hunter has no choice but to move with him, and so Belos exerts both physical and emotional control over him with this single gesture.

So it isn’t necessarily that Hunter is starved of affection or touch, but rather that he receives them conditionally and without any control over them. Any form of intimacy is at Belos’s discretion to give or withhold, and Hunter simply has to guess what mood Belos is in and what actions will bring about the result he wants. Since it’s unpredictable, and Belos can change the rules at any time without telling him, he never knows where he stands and he can’t settle into stable patterns of behavior.

This makes it much harder for him to understand the patterns he’s stuck in. There is no pattern, except that Belos will do whatever he feels is most effective to manipulate and destabilize Hunter at any given time. Hunter is trying to put together a puzzle with a handful of pieces that don’t match, and Belos has the box image. 

Unpredictable stimulus like this makes it almost impossible to respond rationally or in a consistent manner. If it’s negative, like an unpredictable punishment, then the person subjected to it simply becomes anxiously avoidant. They live in constant fear of a punishment that they can’t predict or plan for. Because it could happen at any time, they feel like it will happen at any time, and they have to always be prepared for it. 

So you get Hunter being nervous, trying to read Belos’s mood, trying to interpret the doublespeak and hidden implications he knows are in Belos’s speech, trying to suss out some hint or sign of what it is he’s meant to be doing and how to act correctly and therefore avoid punishment.

When the stimulus is positive, you basically get gambling. Hunter knows he can get a reward - his uncle’s love and approval - but he never quite knows when or how he’s going to get it. Sometimes, when he thinks he needs to be stiff and formal, Belos is intimate and warm. Sometimes, when he’s speaking from a place of love and concern, Belos demands distance and formality. 

The most reliable way he knows to get it is to succeed, but he only vaguely knows what Belos expects of him, so he just tries to frantically come up with anything that sounds plausibly like a success or in line with what he knows Belos wants or has wanted in the past and then do that in the hopes that it’ll work.

That’s much harder to break away from than if he reliably knew he would not get rewarded. It’s much harder to plan for than if he reliably knew when and for what and how he would be rewarded. It’s an abuse tactic designed to keep the victim incredibly disoriented and off-balance, unable to comprehend the patterns of behavior they’re being subjected to, blaming themself and trying to alter their own actions to try and gain some sense of control over their circumstances - but control isn’t possible.

So, anyway, onto the rest of that speech. Remember, this is Belos’s answer to “Why did you switch me out with Kikimora?”

“Everyone has a use. Kikimora has her intricate little plans, the scouts carry out orders…” I find the line about Kikimora interesting. At first, I interpreted it be Belos subtly saying that he knows Kikimora’s been plotting against Hunter, and that he isn’t planning to do anything about it. That Hunter needs to be able to handle it, and if he can’t, then he isn’t worthy.

I don’t think that anymore - I think that Belos intentionally sent Kikimora to Eclipse Lake knowing it was a fool’s errand as a way of punishing or potentially getting rid of her for having tried to kill Hunter, who he needs around and in one piece - but I think Hunter may have interpreted it that way.

Hunter, after all, knows that Belos doesn’t strictly mean exactly what he says here, but he’s also not always that good at accurately reading the subtext. He also, later, takes “stay safe in the castle” to mean “go do something to prove yourself or I’m replacing you”, and I’m pretty sure Belos did indeed want him to stay the fuck home. That’s the danger of cultivating an environment of mind-reading - sometimes your mind doesn’t get read correctly.

Then we get to this line: “And as for you, well…”

Look at Hunter’s face and body language. As he has been throughout the entire scene, he’s so incredibly attentive to Belos, like Belos is the only thing that exists. He’s afraid, too. He desperately wants to know what his purpose is, what his use is, how he can prove himself.

And Belos knows it. He’s drawing it out, teasing Hunter again. He’s being deliberately very cruel, pushing buttons that he himself has spent who knows how long installing to throw Hunter into a panic. And then he’s still very vague! 

Hunter obviously wants concrete answers. He wants to know why he was switched out, he wants to know if he’s being punished, he wants to know what his purpose is and what he’s meant to do. He wants to know how to act. He needs firm, specific directions, but instead he’s left to struggle through a sucking swamp of implication and misdirection, left to intuit Belos’s desires and punished for his failure to. 

(And, of course, the beauty of this sort of treatment is that even if he does do everything exactly right, if it isn’t convenient for Belos to praise or reward him at that moment, then he can just invent an infraction. How is Hunter going to know the difference?)

Instead, Belos simply reiterates that the Titan - an entity only Belos can speak to - has ‘big plans’ for Hunter. They’re very important, yes, but Hunter doesn’t get to know what they are. Belos is the keeper of that information. Belos is the one who molds Hunter into who and what he’s supposed to be to live up to those plans, and Hunter simply has to try to grow as he’s instructed.

And then of course we have this shit. “It would be such a hassle to find a replacement.” That’s just pure intentional emotional terrorism. He knows Hunter is afraid of being replaced and constantly trying to live up to his vague, unexplained expectations. He intentionally cultivates the atmosphere of competition and backstabbing in his coven, encouraging people to fight with each other for his attention.

The message there is very clear: he could replace Hunter, and in fact has already spent enough time thinking about doing so that he has an idea of what he would have to do. He doesn’t want to, because it would be a hardship, but it’s completely within the realm of possibility.

Furthermore, because it would be a hassle, that means that if Hunter does fail badly enough to warrant replacing, his failure is, in and of itself, causing problems for Belos. One last disappointment. 

This threat is not particularly veiled at all. Hunter reacts visibly and intensely to it, absolutely panicked. And yet Belos delivers it in that exact same fond, warm tone he’s said everything else in! He could almost be making a joke, the sort of teasing “I’ll give you away/get a new one” type of joke that some parents make, that in a different relationship might indeed land as one.

It doesn’t here, though, because it’s not. It’s a threat. It’s manipulative cruelty. It’s of a piece with “These outbursts are painful, and so is watching you fail.” There is a point past which not even Belos can keep giving Hunter chances, and it would hurt Belos to have to reach that point and dispose of Hunter - but he will if he has to. 

This is why I think that while Hunter definitely needed to hear Amity tell him that there are people who won’t make him feel worthless, he’s not actually ready to hear it or really apply it to himself. It’s not that Belos makes him feel worthless, it’s that if he screws up, he will be worthless. Belos is only telling him directly what will happen. He’s making both his expectations and the consequences clear. If Hunter brings those consequences on himself through his own poor behavior, then that’s not really something Belos did, now is it?

Ironically, I think Belos really does want Hunter to stay in the castle. He does need him. I think he was genuinely rattled to hear Hunter was presumed dead for a period of time, because it would have disrupted his plans. (Also, maybe he does care about his nephew, maybe not.)

Hunter, however, doesn’t even assume for a moment that that’s the case. Which is extremely sad in its own way, but, then, he clearly learns well from example, and he’s been shown plenty of times that his physical health and safety aren’t really that important to Belos.

I think he’s pretty desperate here, too, to have been pushed to being so blunt. He tries to interpret and understand the implications, but here he’s been driven to just outright asking if this is emotional punishment for his failures.

Which earns him this chilling and sudden departure from the avuncular warmth of the entire rest of the scene. He spoke out of turn, refused to accept what he was told, and correctly identified the abusive dynamic going on of how Belos is manipulating him - none of which Belos likes.

So now Belos is a bit more overt with the stick. He lets that look of cold disapproval and disappointment linger for a silent beat or two, then slowly and deliberately smiles a much less kind smile and simply tells Hunter, “Good night” before shutting the door in his face.

So, in a way, that’s an answer. Yes, Hunter, this is punishment for your failure. No, you’re not going to be handed a chance to make up for it. Go to bed. 

He’s also, in essence, saying, “Guess.” He won’t confirm or deny. He’ll leave it as subtext, up to Hunter to interpret the nuances of tone and expression and precise word choice for any possible meaning he can extrapolate. He doesn’t have to be overtly cruel to Hunter, because he can just do this, and then Hunter will torture himself.

And that’s what makes Belos so insidious an abuser to me. He knows exactly what he’s doing here and he does it incredibly well. The damage from this sort of treatment is absolutely debilitating; it takes years to even begin to understand the extent to which one was manipulated and abused, much less figure out how to process and reverse it and develop healthy patterns of relating to others.

And it’s so hard to identify. You can’t tell Hunter his uncle doesn’t love him, it’s just not true. His uncle smiles at him and puts his arm around him. His uncle tells him stories about his life and his travels in the Human Realm. His uncle teases him. His uncle speaks to him with fondness and warmth. His uncle teaches him how to live in the world. His uncle believes in him, his uncle knows he’s special, his uncle knows he can be better. 

You can see throughout that Hunter is hurt. He feels the knives Belos is sliding between his ribs here. But he doesn’t realize he’s bleeding. He doesn’t understand that Belos is being cruel, because Belos does it so gently and kindly, and Hunter’s been taught that this, right here, is what being loved feels like. This is how family treats you.

And on the surface, it is. I have seen plenty of people say that this scene made Belos seem softer, more personable, more relatable. That’s not just because they’re misinterpreting it, it’s because he’s doing that on purpose. 

He’s trying to come across that way. He’s presenting the appearance of a loving family member to Hunter and using that to manipulate him with. Someone who hasn’t been emotionally abused in this way or doesn’t have the context for this relationship would see this and think it was perfectly normal, because it looks and sounds that way on so many different levels, and that’s something Belos is doing on purpose.

(Whether or not he truly does love or care for Hunter is honestly beside the point. As I mentioned, I find it reductive to assume abuse and love cannot coexist, because it’s my experience that they almost always do. Additionally, I find it just more interesting to assume Belos does love him, but is still willing to hurt and use him for his own goals. But the point really isn’t what Belos feels, but how his actions make Hunter feel.)

So that’s how we get Hunter in the state he’s in for the rest of this episode, rushing frantically to do exactly what he was told not to do because he’s so afraid of being replaced and so desperate to prove himself. Belos winds him up and Hunter goes marching, abusing himself on Belos’s behalf.

Meanwhile, Belos hasn’t said or done a single thing that an outsider who isn’t familiar with this type of abuse or someone who’s privy to their other private conversations could find objectionable. He especially hasn’t said or done anything Hunter could concretely point to and say that it was done to hurt him. Hunter knows the end result is that he is hurt, yes, but that’s not his uncle’s fault, it’s the consequences of his own behavior.

It’s just incredibly insidious and very densely layered. The folks on the writing team here really knew what they were doing with this. 

Thank you for coming to my TEDTalk.

[polyhexian]

How does Vee feel about Jasper and Hunter in her home? Like sure she might realize that Hunter was just kid but Jasper is a grown man who has killed people.

YEAH LMAO UH.... how long do we think the basilisk project has been going on? Vee seems about Luz's age, but we also don't know for certain at what rate basilisks mature. She could just as easily be five as she could fifty. Let's assume she's 14/15 like Luz though. The other basilisks in her flashback definitely seemed older. Especially the season 1 basilisk. And even if they are all, somehow, fifteen- jaspers time as the Golden guard ended sixteen years ago. I doubt the project was begun and successfully completed in the year between jaspers death and vee's birth.

So the question becomes... did jasper know about the basilisk project? It's some high level secrecy stuff. But jasper isn't a scientist. He doesn't know shit about this stuff. And even Belos knows he likes kids and perhaps if he knew he had children being tortured in cages... that might not be something he really wanted him to know about. At the same time jasper obsessively stalked everyone in the castle, could belos even KEEP him from figuring it out?

At the same time, maybe he DID start it after jasper died. Belos DOES have a ton of experience with cloning.

God maybe it doesn't matter because would vee even KNOW that? Yeah no I think she's pretty freaked the fuck out by this guy

Tho... again the second she mentions Jacob was going to dissect her, that he put her in a cage and was gleefully going to murder her- lmao like? Oh my god. Nothing would stop him. Jacob was already dead the second the words left her mouth.

And I don't think he would actually tell her... doesn't want to put that on her conscience, but also. Willow definitely looked at his face and clocked that it was murder time when she said that and snuck out at night to go with him. Exciting murder bonding episode. And I think WILLOW would tell her.

And I think that would mean something. Both that he would immediately move to like- this man is willing to dissect a child, he can't be allowed to run free in the world anymore. He has to die for vee to ever feel safe again. And then also to not tell her because he wants to also protect her from the guilt of living with a death on her conscience, even one that was deserved- but she's got enough guilt and he doesn't want to burden her with anymore even if it might theoretically make her like him more. I think that would all matter to her. Not enough to make her actively Like Him. But she ALSO killed stuff. They put living things in her cage and made her kill them. And we have no idea what they made her kill, but like- they're experimenting with the limits of their abilities. Do we really think they wouldn't have tested if she could kill a witch by eating all their magic? I think they would have. And we also know from the season 1 basilisk that YEAH there was at least one basilisk that was totally on board with eating witches like candy.

I always write a vee much more conscious of her position than hunter is. She could see the bars of her cage and she always wanted to escape. Hunter has only just recently realized he was even IN a cage. She's way past him in that. I think at least part of her can understand and see some part of both herself and her loved ones in jasper. She was in a room of basilisks and all of them were forced to kill things or die.

I don't know if she would ever want to be in a room alone with him. But I think she has a lot more complicated feelings than just not liking or not trusting him.

[sqbr]

ID: Luz in titan form staring down Belos in human form, who is making puppy-dog eyes.

I WROTE A WHOLE LONG RESPONSE AND TUMBLR ATE IT >:( So now I am writing in a TEXT EDITOR where I can SAVE because I have OPINIONS.

SO.

I like your read on her character, you pointed out some things I hadn't thought of, and I agree that Luz isn't irresponsible. But I think she does do things which easily read as irresponsible, and not just because of how they're framed. I haven't read the meta you're referring to, nor rewatched the show, but vaguely recall that I did think she was irresponsible at the start, though I don't now. And some people have trouble letting go of initial impressions.

At the very start of season one, and off-screen before the season starts, she makes a bunch of decisions which seemed (to me) like they'd be an obvious bad idea to anyone who thought about it for very long or asked anyone else's opinion. Even when criticised, she doesn't seem to take in the (to me) obvious criticisms. So that read to me as not caring about the consequences of her actions or other people's perspectives. And while her behaviour going forward is more complex, she still sometimes jumps into actions that struck me as obviously unwise. Some of this is because she's young, and also everyone makes mistakes, but that's not all of it.

I hadn't put it into words until thinking about your post, but: The way I see her now is as having trouble understanding other people/the world, or being understood. Which is something I have personal experience with, and even though we're superficially very different people I feel like I can draw on personal experience to effectively model some of her behaviour: She has learned that if she asks other people's advice, or considers it for a 'normal' amount of time, it doesn't help, and just makes her more confused and self doubting. They tell her to do things that don't work/feel impossible/make her unhappy and she just feels like a bad and useless person. And so either she gets paralysed in self hatred and indecision or she just acts quickly and follows her gut, pushing through her inertia with determinedly cheerful momentum. Following her gut often ends badly, but it sometimes works, so it's the best solution she has. (I am personally more inclined towards the self hatred and indecision side of the coin, but having experienced how poorly that turns out I can see the logic of choosing the other extreme) Idk, maybe I'm projecting too much, but I feel like the model fits.

As the show continues, we see her hit situations where following her gut ends SO Badly that she flips to "paralysed in self hatred and indecision" mode, which gives new perspective to her earlier behaviour. Also, we see her finally find people she can turn to for advice and have that advice actually help: they understand what she is trying to do well enough to actually help her achieve it rather than pushing her towards 'normal' approaches that won't work for her, and she is able to understand where their advice is coming from well enough to figure out which parts are useful and put them effectively into practice. With this help, and hard work, she grows into someone who can make good, considered decisions. Which is what she always wanted to be able to do, because she isn't actually irresponsible.

Writing all that out kinda makes me want to rewatch the start of season 1 with that perspective, especially to get a better grip on her messy relationship with Camilla. They're both trying so hard but just not understanding each other :(

So there's been a lot of talk about Belos in those last moments, including from me, and now I want to talk about Luz.

A lot of Owl House fandom seems to have latched on to the idea that Luz is irresponsible - because she ran away from a world that was treating her badly, because she spent a big chunk of Wing It Like Witches not taking things seriously and got her friends hurt before correcting course, or for any number of reasons. But I think that's looking at it the wrong way around.

Luz is a very average amount of selfish and impulsive. She makes mistakes at about the same rate as anyone else. But her mistakes stand out more than other people's precisely because she is actually a remarkably responsible person: she's always quick to acknowledge her own mistakes, and she doesn't make excuses for them, and the narrative, which is largely from her perspective, treats them with that same seriousness.

This quality of hers is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, she is unfailingly great at buckling down and fixing whatever can be fixed without complaining about what it costs her. Undertaking the Bat Queen's trials to make things up to Owlbert, doing menial work for the Blights to try to get Amity out of trouble with them… She's not like Belos, recoiling at every twinge of guilt and turning all the blame back on his victims, or like Lilith in season 1, so obsessed with her own absolution that guilt becomes self-pity and increasingly destructive, selfish action. In Through the Looking Glass Ruins, her getting Amity's library job back happens entirely off-screen, because at this point we know Luz, and we know how she handles things like this, and we can picture it all easily. I like to think that that's the moment that broke Amity's composure and led to the first kiss not only because it was such a sweet thing that Luz did for Amity, but because it was such a Luz thing, just a perfect encapsulation of the person who Amity loves.

On the other hand, when she makes a mistake that can't be fixed, she ends up spiraling into self-destruction, futilely punishing herself in ways that help no one. Even if it was a mistake made with the best of intentions and there was no way she could possibly have predicted the negative consequences it would have, if there's nothing she can do to correct it, she feels like a horrible person who everyone will rightfully hate. The most obvious and important example of this is the "I helped Belos" guilt that comes to a head in For the Future, and the conclusion of that episode reveals what's always been driving it. Her deepest wish, the desire that's strong enough to awaken her palisman, is to be understood. This comes up in the context of her guilt because her guilt comes from other humans never understanding her. At school, whenever a problem occurred that could be traced back to an action she took, her intentions were treated as irrelevant: it was just her being a Bad Kid who needed to fix herself. She took that lesson to heart, and it's been hurting her this whole time.

It's still hurting her at the beginning of the final episode. Even after her breakthrough, there's still a part of her that believes she deserves to die, deserves to be killed by her own friends, that surely they're all going to turn on her at any second because one time she helped someone who turned out not to deserve it and who went on to do things more horrible than anyone could have imagined. It's easier for her to believe that than to believe that Amity would misquote the Azura books. (Though I do wonder - where did that misquote come from? Was it a different part of Luz's subconscious fighting back to wake herself up? Or was it Amity, unable to break the mind control outright, slipping through a message that she knew Luz would understand? I don't think it was just a mistake on the Collector's part, because the rest of the nightmare seemed far too accurate to Luz's fears and the other kids' voices and experiences for him to have been controlling it that closely.)

Maybe some of that hurt is starting to heal by the time the Collector makes nearly the exact same mistake that's been eating her alive, and she responds by offering them the sort of understanding that she always desperately needed but still isn't used to receiving: You did good. It's just complicated.

Which brings us here.

Staring down the same sad eyes he had when she met him for the first time (chronologically and from his perspective) and immediately rescued him from the demons whose brother he'd murdered. She's had plenty of time since then to think through the complications, and now here she is, faced with another choice between stepping in to help him or stepping aside and letting the Isle and its denizens take their revenge.

So, in the end, she does get a chance to meaningfully correct that mistake. She doesn't need to correct it for personal redemption - you did good, it's just a little more complicated - but she is going to anyway.

She's always been responsible like that.