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mdhwrites · 5 months ago

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What Were the Palismens' Point and Did They Succeed?

I got a really long ask that started with asking me how I would have handled the Palisman. For a question like that, I believe there are two core tenants that need to answer. The TL:DR though for this is that despite the Palisman having presence since S1, their point in the story is only made clear in S2 and then their point is useless except for Luz, weakly, because of how TOH defies normal genre convention, in a way that is very counterproductive, when it comes to character climaxes.

Anyways: The questions.

What is the narrative concept of the element we're talking about?

What is the point of the narrative element?

For the Palisman, this isn't clear until Hunting Palisman. Before then, they are glorified broomsticks with one episode acknowledging their agency but at the end of the day in S1: They're just glorified broomsticks. Hunting Palisman very clearly and bluntly states what their point is.

They are a physical manifestation of the witch's will and desires. You can only obtain one with a clarity of purpose and conviction. This is also the point of them: They are essentially character statements. The grand thesis of whoever that palisman is connected to. Honestly, as far as creative uses of magical items to present the culmination of a character, the palisman are...

Exceptionally stock standard. Like painfully so. Anyone watched a season of Power Rangers? Yeah, the Palisman are just the battlizer. If you watched Winx Club like... AT ALL past the first season, maybe even requiring that long, it is ANY of their power ups because they always come with a big character growth moment that defines who they are as a person. It is maybe one of the basic fantasy tropes out there to have self actualization be a power up.

And this isn't just me being hyperbolic. Even from their first introduction, it is presented as a part of a witch growing up. That the school grants witches their palisman but that Luz will have to earn hers. Once she does, she has a loyal companion and the ability to fly. Even at Hexside, you still have to reach certain age to get a Palisman. They're not just giving them to kindergartners. The show itself, by all accounts, says this is explicitly what they are. It's even why Hunter can have Flapjack like he does because the two are their most at sync the closer Hunter is to being Cale- Being the good person he always was. -_- Before then, during moments like Eclipse Lake, they are out of sync, just like he says.

There's just a small, tiny, MINISCULE problem with this concept. Barely noticeable so I'm probably making a big deal out of no- HOW DO YOU HAVE TWO CHARACTER CLIMAXES LIKE THIS IN THE SAME MINUTE AND THEN ONE OFF SCREEN!?

TOH has this weird aversion to character climaxes, at least traditionally paced ones. This is any episode focused on the ending of an era for a character. When a hero falls to the darkside, with the entire episode, or episode after the fall happens at the end of one episode, being about his fall to the darkness. When the scoundrel decides that there are indeed things worth more than gold and has to grapple with that. The end of Book 2 of Avatar spends a lot of time in its last couple episodes grappling with what is a character built up over the entire season: Which side of Zuko wins out for his future? This is balanced with Aang's character climax with the guru with asking questions about how much Aang is willing to give up to the job of the Avatar instead of being the free spirited, loving kid he's always been. A LOT of time is given to this.

TOH hates giving time to ANYONE who isn't Luz. Very few people get real character climaxes of this sort of variety. Willow essentially never gets one and Gus never gets one. You could Watching and Dreaming and Labyrinth Runners specifically but those episodes aren't about self actualization. A VERY common thread with character climaxes is a choice the core character has to make in order to make things right. Meanwhile, in both episodes, HUNTER is the one to make the choice and actions to fix the problem. It is not about self actualization that then prompts a better, more refined character... It's honestly just one problem of the character amongst many like most kid's show episodic issues. This is ESPECIALLY true for these two because Gus' having this level of confidence issues has never been a thing. The closest to ever come to it is the Human Society episode and, well... That happened like a season before Labyrinth Runners with MAYBE one more hint at the S1 penultimate episode from the orb giving him a pep talk. Otherwise, he has confidence. Willow's is worse because she's NEVER taken on others burdens like they talk about. The stories they tell do not sound like Willow at all and Gus, her best friend, has NEVER called her 'Dependable Willow' before now. It has all the hallmark fingerprints of a long running kids show retconning elements to have a plotline this episode. You know, during the season that was SHORTENED.

And this is without recognizing that their palismans have NOTHING to do with either episode, at any time. They are absent from being a part of their self actualization and why shouldn't they be? They already bonded and obtained their power up back in Hunting Palisman. Both made declarations and received a palisman for it because... What the fuck?

This is the core of why when I saw the initial question, I kind of went "I can't do them better because they're pointless besides giving the fandom Patronus stand ins for OC creation." They don't do jack shit.

Amity gets this THE WORST. She makes her palisman off screen, before the shortening took effect, and we only get told what it was... As a part of comforting Luz. Her character thesis, the embodiment of who she is, her will made manifest and it's used narratively to try and comfort her girlfriend. The words actually don't matter because a character climax should not just be words. It should include action alongside it. A showing of their character alongside them telling you, if they tell you at all.

This is also why Luz's character climax blows on this front. Not only is it not well built up to (I despise Luz's character climax) but it also doesn't have action behind it. It's a big statement before she... Just shows off Stringbean to her friends and then gets ready to go fight the Collector? What does that have to do with Luz? What does that have to do with 'wanting to be understood'? It's not even like her goal is to show the Collector understanding now that she's figured this part of herself out. As far as we can tell, her goal was to kick the Collector's ass right up until the Collector tried to show he was an uwu baby, please ignore the murder stars and the fact that I actually know the consequences of my actions (he KNEW King would hate him for the dreams and so is shown to have understanding of his actions upsetting people) and yet did them anyways. Obtaining Stringbean is meaningless besides the meta context of "She just like me fo real" for the people who identify with her.

All of this because TOH won't commit an episode to just finishing a character's arc, or even part of it. I have LONG been complaining about how Escaping Expulsion IS a character climax for Amity but she's in like a collective four minutes of the episode. It is the complete refusal to continue to be who she was. To be willing to throw away even her family in the pursuit of her own happiness and desire to choose her own future. For her to be such a small part of it centers her motivation on Luz because she hasn't had enough time to explain or put focus on why she doesn't want to be who she has been. It's always just on "I wanna be with my friends." or "I want to protect Luz." or "Luz and her friends make me happy." As such, the motivating factor being Luz's life being in danger doesn't make it feel like Amity self actualizing, it makes it feel like a young lesbian throwing away everything for someone she has known for like two months. That what matters is not her character but just that this is another step towards Lumity for her. That's not exactly great, is it? Especially not with how much they want Odalia to shoulder the burden of the fact that Amity CHOSE to be pure evil to Willow for YEARS. For her to be cast off so easily... Well, it just doesn't hit right. Not like it should for a climax like this.

Almost every character climax in the show suffers from stuff like this. Eda's big farewell in Agony of a Witch? She's in like four minutes of it and barely spends time with Luz so we never get that deliberation before Eda chooses to lose her life. It can't even be said that the season built up to it because Luz and Eda haven't had a plotline together since Adventure in the Elements. At best? Grom. And Grom doesn't exactly help build up how deep their connection is, does it?

And so how would I do the Palisman better? I'd just remove them. They are not used for the purpose they were built for and the show doesn't do the elements they're connected to in a way that would ever work for them. They have no point besides being cute and marketable but otherwise? They're entirely superfluous.

Which is a pretty shitty thing to say about something that's meant to represent the best your character can ever be. See you next tale.

======+++++======

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

#the owl house criticism #toh critical #toh #the owl house #palisman

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findmeinthefallair · 2 years ago

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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.

#toh hunter #the owl house #hunter noceda #camila noceda #hunter deamonne #darius deamonne #toh analysis #grimwalkers #grimwalker graveyard #loz writes a meta

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lizard-dumbass · 2 years ago

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Alright so the TOH brainrot has come back in full force after the finale came out so now i too am making one of them lists of things that i liked/stuck out to me. Also sorry if this ends up just being a bunch of incoherent nonsense

HOLY SHIT TITAN!LUZ. the design is so cool what more can i say. Furthermore,

HOLY FUCK LUZ DIED????? i was so not expecting that and good lord was it heartbreaking. Eda and King's reaction to Luz's death were also heartbreaking, and so was the Collector finally realizing what death really is. And oh my god puppet!Camila crying as the balls of light pass by her, showing us that she has had the realization that her daughter died. After the grief and trauma of losing Manny, Camila and Luz had a heart to heart which made their bond stronger than ever, only for Camila to lose Luz aswell.

LUZ SAID THE THING! NOW EAT THIS SUCKAAAAAA!!!!!

THE BOILING ISLES IS BIGENDER BABY! i honestly love the titan so much now. His bad girl coven t-shirt and glyph pants and dad-bod are absolutely everything. (Also what's with the little hooty worm sticking out of her eye socket??)

The goddamn bread pun 😭 that warms my heart so much

The raeda in this episode was IMMACULATE. I was really hoping for a kiss but i'm still happy with what WAD gave us. The loving stares, Raine's absolute joy when Eda and Titan!Luz came to their rescue in the throne room, the hugs and nuzzles, the cuddling in their new nest, etc. They seem so relaxed and happy at the end. The world has been saved and now they can finally live their lives together and rekindle their relationship. Oh and how could i forget the EARRING SWAP!! they're wearing eachother's earrings!!! I've seen quite a few ppl interpreting the exchanging of earrings/jewelry as a marriage custom in the demon realm, implying that Eda and Raine are married in the timeskip. I never cared much for the idea of raeda getting married but you know what? I like this headcanon.

Raine whistling raine's rhapsody/eda's reqiuem.

Hunter is a palisman carver! And he has a new palisman! Apparently the little blue jay's name is Waffles and that's just adorable.

Raine also has a palisman now and it's a little fox! I wonder what their name is though.

The entire hexsquad has matching Flapjack tattoos! Also Flapjack's grave, that gave me so many feels. But im so happy to see how Hunter has healed!

Harpy Lilith!

Eda is the principal of a school now?

Eda's hook arm! Also just everyone's new outfits/appearances in general. I love Raine's fully white hair and their scars and their outfit just oozes gender. I love Luz's outfit and punk eyeliner. I love Amity's hairstyle. I love how Lilith kept her short ginger hairstyle. I love Gus's new hair and his little beard. I love Willow's shorter hair and sporty outfit. Mattholomule has a real mustache now!

Fuck yeah they figured out how to remove sigils so now the BI residents can do magic like the Titan really intended!

Aladarius canon??

Everyone reuniting with their dads. Amity running to Alador whilst Odalia just stands at the side with an annoyed face. Fucking priceless. Willow's dads kissed on screen! Hunter thinking no one would be there for him only for Darius and Eberwolf to show up and accept him into their family. my heart 😭❤️

Eda and Camila finally got to meet!

Luz reuniting with King and Eda made me sob so unbelievably hard.

Luz and Vee graduated together!

Luz goes to college in the demon realm!

I thought she was giving all her Azura stuff away at first but i think she's actually bringing it all with her to college.

I love everything about Luz's quinceañera (or should i say KING-ceañera)

I love the very last part where every character we've come to know and love over these 3 wonderful years (except Odalia lmfao) say "Byeee!" to the audience. What a perfect way to end this series.

I think that's it lol i have so many thoughts

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blondebibliophiliac · 4 months ago

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The Owl House Notes

I have watched TOH several times over the past year and a half, and I will never get over it. All the character development, the little pop culture references, the world development. Ugh. It's amazing. So here are some notes.

we all know that the Clawthorne family is the family that Evelyn, the witch that Philip and Caleb met, is from. I feel that it's only right that Hunter is an honorary Clawthorne, too. He's literally a clone of Caleb. Obviously the Clawthornes are the descendants of Evelyn and Caleb's relationship. So I feel it's only right. I know we've all accepted Darius as Hunter's dad/dad-figure, but it would be cool if he was included in the Clawthorne family, too.

I think it's pretty obvious by now that I love the found-family trope. As someone that had family problems growing up, I value the bonds that end up being stronger than familial bonds. Now, Luz basically has 2 moms plus a bonus parent (Raine) and 3 siblings (King, Hunter, and Vee), and I love that. If you haven't seen fanart of all of them, you're missing out. It's just amazing.

Speaking of their relationships, I love to see how they accept and even request physical affection. In the beginning, Eda and King are confused and almost repulsed by Luz's hugs. King quickly becomes more accepting of these hugs, even getting angry when Amity gets a hug from Luz before him, calling her a "swindler and a thief". But in the last episode, Eda runs to King and Luz to give them hugs and kisses before they play the Collector's "games". I wonder if physical affection was prevelant in the Boiling Isles because in the second episode Eda asks "What is this" when hugged by Luz. I think it is because Willow and Gus hug Luz when they show up to the Owl House. I think Eda just isn't used to physical affection, or maybe she isn't used to it from strangers.

Here's another thing I'm wondering. The Bat Queen states that she doesn't remember the witch that held her staff, but that she was the staff for a giant. You know who was giant? Papa Titan. What if her witch was Papa Titan? It would make sense, because he's been dead for hundreds of years, and the mind loses memories after so long. Also, she takes care of all the other palismen that were lost, including Flapjack, whose witch was Evelyn. If we can assume that the events of TOH take place in the late 2010's/early 2020s, then the age of these palismen makes sense. Anyway, I think that The Bat Queen could've been Papa Titan's palisman because there are no other signs of giant beings on the Boiling Isles or in the Demon Realm.

At some point, we catch a glimpse of the "recipe" for creating clones. If you didn't catch it, here it is: Galdorstone, Palistrom Wood, Stonesleeper Lungs, Bone of Ortet, and Selkidomus scales. This would partly explain why there's a shortage of Palistrom Wood, why the Galdorstones are so rare and so well hidden, and why Belos instructed Hunter to hunt down the Selkidomus in season 2. It also explains why the clone he attempted to possess in the final episode didn't work out. He likely didn't have all of those materials or didn't have enough to make a fully formed clone. When he initially tried to take over one of the clones, I was worried that there would be two Hunters walking around and that Belos would try to impersonate Hunter, which would have derailed all of their plans. The Bone of Ortet, by the way, is basically just a bone of the one you wish to clone.

I wish there could've been a longer season 3. Although I love the 3 episodes we were given, and I think they're perfect, I wish it could've been drawn out. I would've loved to see the gang in the human world more, to see the rebuilding process of the Isles, see them do a field trip to the human realm from the university. But, I'll take what we were given.

I love the random pop culture references we get. During "Eclipse Lake" we get a Dragon Ball reference and I found that extremely hilarious. In "For the Future", Caleb says "It's not like a swarm of ghosts will inexplicably appear if you say his name...I think", which gives us the second Harry Potter reference of the show (the first one appearing in the first episode where Luz is trying to fly on Owlbert and says "expecto"). It's just great. I love to see it.

I always have more thoughts about the show when I watch it. I need to start adding them more often.

#the owl house #toh #luz noceda #amity blight #eda clawthorne

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theprinceandthewitch · 9 months ago

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Huntlow is so funny to me because the writers were like...

"Shit... it makes no sense for Hunter's arc to end with him not getting a witch gf because Caleb's whole thing is that he left the human world to go start a family with a witch... and we wrote all that Lunter = Caleb/Evelyn stuff in previous episodes... but Luz is unavailable and we don't have the time to write a break up and Luz falling in love with him...

Yeah it sucks bc we foreshadowed a Lunter kiss in SAI, so now that episode is gonna look sus on a rewatch. Let's punt him off onto Willow even though she has never made it obvious she likes boys or that she even likes Hunter.

Yeah like, it doesn't make sense for Willow's arc to end with her getting a bf but Hunter getting a gf is more important than that tbh. ALSO give Willow, Luz's season 1 haircut. AND put her infront of Flapjack's grave even though she wasn't the one who introduced him to Hunter and she has never bonded with Flapjack the same way Luz did.

Okay cool, also let's not even make it clear if Willow and Hunter are dating by showing them kiss in the post credits or photos in the final episode. :)"

I'm supposed to think they're a thing when the show couldn't even commit to giving us explicit evidence that they're dating... this shit is too funny.

#me: sleeping peacefully knowing TOH couldn't even commit to making Huntlow canon with a kiss in it's final episode.#me feeling well rested bc I know Hunter would never sell Luz off to prove something to a person he out ranks #Me being energized knowing Luz had to be written out of EL bc Hunter would have folded like a lawn chair is she was there #look if TOH ever gets a spinoff or a reboot... i aint watching it. aint no way Im watching a Dana Terrace cartoon #maybe if there are good writers on the team but... nah... not even bisexual solidarity would make me watch another one of her shows

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childlikegoblinqueen · 1 year ago

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Huntlow Week Day # 7 Waffles/Wedding

Hunter brushed off his forest green vest and slid his golden dress jacket over his arms and shoulder, adjusting his matching bow tie.

His eyes passed over his own reflection in the long mirror that hung against the door of the room where Raine's wedding party changed. Hunter wore long slacks that matched his jacket, and of course, a pair of crocs which he knew were out of sorts with the rest of his outfit -- but after spending his entire life dressing on model to appease a lie, he truly did not care.

Formal attire? Check.

Freshly cut hair? Check.

A little personal flair? Check.

"Looking sharp man!" Steve Tholomule's grinning reflection joined Hunter's

"Sharp?" Hunter raised a brown, "W-were we s'pposed to bring weaponry? A concealed blade? I - I know Eda and Raine still have enemies and their wedding would be a target but .."

"Nah!" Steve gave Hunter a playful elbow bump. "I mean you look good!"

Hunter nodded and added the word, "sharp" to his list of slang words that sounded harmful but meant something good.

Like when Willow had called his flying skills, "sick" the first time they met.

Hunter smiled at the memory. He was a different person back then -- so eager to get ahead. To prove his worth. And yet, he was a possession of someone else. Someone who told him what he should want in life.

And yet? Between meeting Luz, and Flapjack, and, Amity, and Gus, and Willow of course ... Hunter was on a collision course with someone else.

Himself.

"Hey Steve?" Hunter cleared his throat.

"Hmmm?" Tholomule was adjusting his straight tie but he turned around to meet Hunter's eye.

"Is it weird that I'm sorta surprised that Raine and Eda are getting married?"

Steve quirked a brow, "Weird because you're still thinking about how Coven Heads were forbidden from having romantic -- entanglements?"

"Huh? Nah. Nothing like that." Hunter shook his head. He hardly even thought about Raine as a former Coven Head anymore. They were his music teacher, his friend, a truly kind soul -- and someone who had invited Hunter to stand with them on one of the most important days of their life.

But Eda?

"I guess I just always knew about The Owl Lady -- errr --Eda as this free spirit? A Wild Witch who did as she pleased and was always breaking free of -- well, everything?"

"Hmmm." Steve smiled warmly, "Well, there's a lot of ways to be free, buddy? And when you find someone who you can look at and say, 'I'm yours, you're mine -- and together? We're free to be ourselves?' That's the stuff, man."

"The stuff." Hunter took note of the vagueness of the slang. He'd heard it before and felt confident that while he didn't quite know what "The stuff" was specifically, that was probably the point in this context.

"Hey Steve?" Hunter said slowly, "Have you found 'the stuff' with anyone?"

"What?" Steve's eyebrows shot up, "Oh no. You know me man. I'm STEVE. A free agent."

Hunter recalled how tenderly the Bard, Katya had been with Steve just moments ago as she helped him with his tie and pinned a flower on his lapel.

And then, Hunter thought to himself, "Maybe sometimes you find that thing. The person who makes you feel so free that you don't even realize they're yours and you're theirs and that's how you know its real."

The door to the changing room opened and Willow was waiting on the other side, dressed in a lovely forest green dress -- matching his vest and shirt. Her hair was tied in braids. Her eyes were sparkling and her cheeks were red. At the sight of him, a bouquet of flowers bloomed in her hair.

"Wow." Hunter breathed.

"Uh, have you seen yourself guy?" Willow giggled.

Now Hunter was blushing. Shyly, Willow reached up and pinned a tiny bouquet of flowers on Hunter's lapel. He hunter reached into his pocket for a glyph which he tapped and a colorful corsage of fresh flora bloomed before them. Gently he slid it onto Willow's wrist -- his calloused fingertips brushing her soft skin.

Willow's hair bloomed even more, and Hunter's ears flicked as they grew hot at the tips.

Willow smiled slyly and offered him her pinky, which he took in his own and together, they went to join all of their friends and family at Eda and Raine's wedding.

And then? Years later?

Willow and Hunter would meet again on the day of their own wedding. This time Hunter would wear a yellow button up with a blue vest, embroidered in flowers and Willow's dress would wear a lacy dress colored a light sea foam green, with a high color of lacy floral.

"You ready for the ol' ball and chain?" She'd joked.

"Pfft. What ball and chain?" Hunter shook his head.

"Yeah, I kinda hate how people call it that too." Willow sighed. "Marriage shouldn't feel like a prison sentence."

Hunter's lips bloomed into a smile. Then a grin. "It should feel more life freedom alongside your best friend."

"Exactly!" Willow smiled. "So let's get hitched so we can be free together."

And pinky in pinky, Hunter Noceda and Willow Park strode towards the altar together while their futures lay wide open on the horizon.

#toh fanfic #toh hunter #hunter noceda #the owl house #willow x hunter #spotify #willow park #huntlow #a03 fanfic #huntlow week #huntlow week 2023 #prompt: Wedding

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callipraxia · 7 months ago

Text

The Interview: A Running 'Live' Commentary

Well, you asked, kinda, @the-orion-scribe...

Disclaimer: One of my…things is that where there is a transcript, I'm gonna read the transcript first and then may or may not tackle the audio version later. As such, I'm inevitably going to get some of the subtler bits indicated by gesture and tone of voice wrong. I hope it won't be anything that significantly changes the meaning, but we shall see. I'm doing this live, (redact) it! And partially on my work breaks at that, so apologies if anything gets repetitive or disjointed as a result of different bits being read several hours apart. Full transcript is available here from, I believe, @fordtato, who seems like awesome cool folks.

That all said, let's begin.

[On the SAG-AFTRA strikes]

Alex's grandmother was an actress? Interesting. Also, generally approve of the sentiments stated there, very good, no actual notes.

[On the pilot and the 'Next On' reel]

When I was a much, much younger Callipraxia, I also had an interest in TV work - we had this class at my middle school call Careers, and we had to do a research project on, well, a career every year, and one year I did mine on being a soap opera writer (early nineties soap operas were my first literary influences, and I suspect it still shows). I therefore find this glimpse into the industry fascinating, even though I don't have much to say about it beyond giggling at the image of executives having such reptilian, limited-intelligence brains that they could be tricked into thinking something already exists and therefore just approving it so they don't have to think about why they're being asked to approve something that already exists because it would make their heads hurt.

"I was working...on a cartoon called 'Flapjack.'"

I'm 99% sure I've never seen a single frame of this show, but also 99% sure I've heard of it somehow. Not sure why. No idea what 'Fish Hooks' is, though.

"Then, when we did the Cipher Hunt, I was running out of rewards and treasures to give the audience because I'd already bled Gravity Falls dry of every drop of content that was inside it..."

See, this is what I find fascinating about Proper Creators, and this one in particular. Their creations can seem so much fuller to us than they do to them. This baffles me, because even when I don't do things on purpose, I generally do realize that I did them sometime, you know? (Edit: ha, Hirsch actually talks a bit about this at the end)

"I remember asking him, 'Hey, Mike, you read the bible, right? What do you think about this Jesús character? Do you think it's working? Do you think people will get it?'"

Even though I clearly read the words 'series bible' right above this, my first thought was that Alex was asking Mike if he'd read The Bible - y'know, the religious one. And I was so confused. And then I stopped being confused and I facepalmed in real life.

"Instead of embracing that this is part of lore that fans love...in his mind, he, as a serious videogame programmer, made a mistake, and is ashamed of the mistake, and doesn't want to acknowledge it, doesn't want to encourage other people to corrupt their own game, and so he said 'there's no such thing as MissingNo.'"

This is another "I just don't get Proper Creators" moment. I'd have embraced it so thoroughly I'd have written a sequel just about it and only revealed that it was actually serendipitous (not 'a mistake' - word choice, people!) years later!

Sometimes no answer is better than a boring answer.

This is why I love that thing Robert Jordan used to say - "read and find out!" and the fandom shortened it to "RAFO," and now that's a one-word response to questions you don't want to answer, at least if everyone in the room is familiar with The Wheel of Time books and fandom history...so many times I've wanted to just reply "RAFO!" in a review, but then realized the odds were excellent that the other person would have no clue what I was talking about.

"I know that we did cut like 12 pages from the journal, just due to length."

I've been told that I can make people feel cussed out without ever uttering a single swearword, when I'm annoyed enough with them. I would like to try to do that to whoever it was who decided on this length restriction. Give me lore! All the lore! More! More lore!

[On the walls of genre cards and character beat cards and how this led to rejected episode ideas]

I'm gonna try this writing method out, it sounds interesting. Thanks, Alex! And also thanks to everyone involved who's mentioned any of these rejected ideas over the years, as this allows us to play with them instead! (one day, y'all will know the tale of Wendy as a weather witch. I've got a whole arc planned for her with that one).

"When [Rob Renzetti] and I are together, we're very much like Grunkle Stan and Ford, and he is Ford and I am Stan."

I wish so much that someone had asked if there were ever any RL fistfights during the production of the book. It's barely even funny and would have wasted time, but I wish they had anyway.

"I still recall when Ford had a long beard and was a hippie."

...No.

"We were thinking it'd be kind of more like a zen kind of guy"

I mean, technically I suppose he still is. Apparently quite big on meditation back in the day, and the Journal strongly implies he's a firm believer in divination now. He could have been a sort of hippie lite, had he gone for drugs other than brain demons and/or Truck Stop Coffee I Initially Assumed Was A Euphemism For Significantly Stronger Stimulants.

"I remember talking about, maybe, J.K. Simmons and then thinking, 'Gosh, you know, he's got a very familiar voice, is he gonna feel too overexposed.'"

Ford was actually the first character I ever heard Simmons voice, because I have acquired what passes for my pop culture literacy mostly completely backward. My mother was watching reruns of whatever that cop drama he was on was (was it The Closer?) one day, though, and I did a double take at the TV because why is Ford here on one of Mama’s shows? Did he get arrested again or something? Why are they acting like he's one of the...ohhhh.

Which yes, means I found my way to Portal 2 via Gravity Falls instead of the other way around. That isn't so surprising, though, because video games are another of my...things. I absolutely love a lot of the stories and will happily read about them and watch cutscenes and video essays about them and player-keeps-quiet playthroughs all day, but I've never actually played video games because I have poor hand-eye coordination and rather low frustration tolerance when it comes to entertainment. The puzzles would drive me mad. I adore complex things, but I hate having to figure them out before I can move on with the story if I don't want to stop. Let me figure stuff out at my own pace, dangit -

Er, that got off-topic, sorry. The point was, I've watched a ton of clips of Portal 2 now, and it's kind of fascinating to me that it possibly wasn't a conscious influence, because Cave Johnson is...not really that dissimilar to a thing that Ford could have become, in a lot of ways. Or what he and/or Fiddleford might have actually become in the "Better World," for all we know. He's probably closer to what Fiddleford did become in canon, though, at least for a while/in my possibly somewhat weird interpretation of Fiddleford.

"So we're putting this character together, we're putting blocks together, we're moving blocks and putting them up, and it's only at the last second that a Ford is revealed that we're like 'I guess we did it?'"

This is how I construct plots basically, more than characters, but - oh, gosh, I wanna do a lore dump so bad but this isn't the time or place. Never mind, I'll ramble about character development another time.

Also, I am amused by the visual of, like, Stan or someone performing a dramatic flourish and being like "Behold: A Ford!"

"What to you comes across as 'oh, Rob understands Ford's ridiculous recklessness' to me comes across as 'Rob IS Ford and Ford does rationalize.' That's what he does. One of Ford's greatest powers is rationalizing. So you're seeing Rob as Ford rationalizing Ford's bad decisions. In that moment, I think what's being revealed is less Ford's recklessness, and more Ford's ability to justify anything."

Why not both? But yeah, fair, I've observed this about the character myself. He censors himself when he doubts. It's a defensive mechanism I think - it keeps him alive and functional to a degree, because, well...we've seen what happens when Ford admits he was wrong, twice. In the Journal, he nearly lost his mind, and in the finale, he basically went from thinking of himself as He Who Shall Save The World to He Who Is About To, However Reluctantly, Become Death, The Destroyer of Worlds in an alarmingly short period of time. Extreme black and white thinking with him a lot of the time. Not a psychologist, just a nerd, but the longer I think about the character, the more probable a personality disorder seems. Which is one reason I worry about him and Stan both after the series ends. They're both going to be confused as all get-out when it dawns on them that "...wait, we're not suddenly better after all? We're both still really, really screwed up?"

"When you do a clone story, the point of a clone story, in my mind, is a character seeing themselves in a different light, right?"

Depends on which side you're looking at it from, really ;)

"They're all wonderful, wonderful dumbasses, all of them."

Accurate.

"They know that I am a detail-oriented bastard."

...Less accurate, in a way. I've spun whole worlds out of details that the writers have admitted were unintentional or screwups, not to mention the later discourse on Alex as the "emotional" story one while Rob was the "make it a story" guy, or the specific detail that was actually under discussion here. As for that one....

"When you're editing, when you're writing, and then you reread your writing and you edit it, and then you reread your writing and you edit it, there's a very subconscious process of streamlining, literally making paragraphs look nice - it's entirely possible that me or Rob made that change out of one in a million changes specifically because we knew that psychologically Ford is not traveling this path alone, he's traveling it with his muse who he has a very complex and fucked-up relationship with, and even in Ford's private thoughts, he would not say 'I'm alone,' he would say, 'Oh, I have a very important relationship in my life with Bill, but I don't have a friend, that is a difference!'"

...except he canonically referred to Bill as his friend, too, so, uh...yeah, there's that.*

Interesting to hear someone else's perspective on rewriting and editing; I'm pretty sure that there's very little sub-conscious going on with me when I'm editing. If anything, I'm double and triple checking to excise anything that even hints of subconsciousness out of the manuscript, and I am very, very conscious of times when I go out of my way to make paragraphs physically neat and pretty, because I always feel really stupid about doing it. So I suppose I'm glad to hear other people do that, too.

I also found it interesting to see the description of the relationship with Bill as "very complex and fucked-up." Ford, at least, wrote and spoke as though he was under the impression that his relationship with Bill was very straightforward pre-betrayal, but here's the Guy, on the record saying it was in fact "very complex." This doesn't confirm that Ford was on some level aware of this, but it does make me feel more confident about my theory that Ford invited Fiddleford up not so much because he really needed the technical expertise as because his subconscious was throwing up enough red flags to cover every square inch of land in the U.S.S.R. and he just couldn't admit it to himself consciously because admitting that he is not in control of a situation tends to render him non-functional.

*Full disclosure since nobody's read this far anyway, but hi if you have, have a full disclosure: I would not say I ship it, because in context - Fiddleford married, Ford on the brink of sanity, Ford as Fiddleford's employer, Fiddleford mind-wiping both himself and Ford behind Ford's back after a certain point, and that's all before we consider that on occasion, it's entirely possible Fiddleford was interacting with someone who mostly looked like Ford but, uh, wasn't - it would be incredibly dark and messed up and suitable for nothing but a full-blown adult psychological horror story, but I do consider "Ford was in love with Fiddleford, regardless of whether it was reciprocated or not" as a perfectly valid reading of the Journal. I also consider it perfectly valid to read it as Ford just being prone to really intense attachments, regardless of what kind they are - he either adores you or he hates you, whether you're his brother, his muse, his friend, his romantic or sexual interest, or what-have-you, which is kind of what I was saying earlier about the potential for personality disorders there. Ford writes in a style more like he's from the mid-nineteenth century than from the mid-twentieth, or at least like he's trying to imitate that style, so that could make things sound gay that aren't gay, but by the same token, much of Ford's rhetorical style seems to exist to allow him to not-quite-lie to himself while using his superpower of Justify Anything, so ultimately that means nothing, too. I went through the Journal line by line once and determined that you could make roughly equally strong cases for Ford being some form of straight, some form of gay, some form of bi, and some form of ace, and that it also wouldn't be unreasonable to come away with the view that he's not into humans so much but might very well be into one or more types of alien. I don't know and so will potentially read any variant of these things, as long as it's a decent story.

"You know the thing about working with a big company, it's like working with a friend who swaps their head with a different head every couple of years."

Huh, Alex has met Olm, has he?

[Hana] "By the way, I know there's a lot of fake blood on this page, that's for one of my YouTube videos, ignore that."

Why is this the moment I laughed out loud?

"That's the trouble of a puzzle box, is it's like, there's two flavors of it, there's a question with a satisfying answer, and then there's a question that is sort of an open-ended invitation to a kind of, uh, you know, group improvisational session. We've created a prompt for fans to 'yes and' their own story out of it, and the sense that there might be something in there creates a sense of excitement along with it."

Pretty sure this is sums up my general thoughts on the Interview/is the part of it I regard as Important so far. Also, I wish I could write something like that. If I leave a loose end hanging, it's very blatantly a loose end. I can improvise a 10,000-word essay about Ford's anger issues on the fly, doing that out of someone else's work is incredibly easy and natural for me, but I can't do the same in my own work. It's a frustrating thing.

"The Mystery Shack is a bucket full of misshapen, lost, odd oddities, and these character are a bucket of full of misshapen lost odd oddities, and like the idea of them all having a place where they fit in, and - and loving each other as a family, was very important to me."

...Ok, this is another Important bit, but for completely different reasons. Basically sums up why I'm here, really.

"That means that Dipper and Mabel's parents may have had children at a concerningly young age, and is this show's intent to say that it's okay for those relationships to exist?"

Here's a thing that I think is just...me not quite getting how a lot of people work, I guess? To me, there's a world of difference between "that could be what happened" and "and that means I approve of it." The Pineses are a really screwed up family. They should have called that pawn shop Dysfunction Junction, that’s how messed up they are. Apparently it was Filbrick who knocked someone up at a drive-in movie once (one of my 4.5 Shermies is actually a much older half-brother who only gets to know Stan at all after they meet at Filbrick's funeral, though I never decided if his mom was the shotgun wedding or if that was with Caryn. Either way, though, he was vaguely aware that "yeah, Dad and his second wife had those twins" but he'd had very limited contact with them and bought that he'd mixed up which one was supposed to be weird and have six fingers without too much trouble), and Mabel's level of proto-sexual aggressiveness is...occasionally disconcerting, to me at least. One or more generations of teenage parenthood seems perfectly in character for them to me, without it meaning anyone approves or disapproves of that. It's fairly realistic, however depressing, that a much younger son in a family as dysfunctional as theirs might well have started acting out, resulting in Indiscretions - my second fic was based on the premise that the "you gotta raise a kid, your life falls apart..." was Stan talking about Shermie's lot in life rather than his own, as I hadn't yet heard the remark about it being a Filbrick quote (the whole events of that story were constructed with the idea of keeping Stan's line about how he lied to everyone, including "my family" and "your parents", literally true, so every event was created to explain how Stan got away with it for a little longer without anyone noticing, basically). Mabel also seems impractical enough, even post-character development, to get waaaaaay too into a high school relationship with unfortunate results. That's not approval of such relationships, that's just...reality? Goodness, people don't think I morally approve of everything (or even very much at all) in my stories, do they? That's an unsettling thought.

"I think we say 'damn.' I think we say 'hell' maybe, um, yeah."

Ford specifically says "I'll be damned" in the Journal (though, in context, it seems less like swearing than like he possibly means it some form of literally; there's several hints in the Journal that suggest Ford believes in...Something, though he's almost certainly not a member of any organized religion and almost definitely not a member of any organized religion we'd recognize). Stan, for his part, says "hell" in "Lost Legends," referring to a part of the carnival that he thinks would be a good hiding place.

Since Disney allowed people to refer to going to literal, capital-H Hell in at least two properties long preceding Gravity Falls, though (specifically, David Xanatos infamously says "pay a man enough and he'll walk barefoot into Hell" in the pilot of the animated show Gargoyles, and Claude Frollo sings a whole song where he repeatedly yells the words "Hell" and "Hellfire" without a care in the world in The Hunchback of Notre Dame), I am still more shocked that they let Ford say the word "suicide" on the show proper, on Disney channel. And...okay, Frollo is significantly less child-friendly than Bill, even given the torture scene. Frollo does things that are just as violent as that scene, plus Frollo is quite blatantly driven by a perverse sexual obsession with a woman, so that he attempts to coerce her into sex with everything but the word 'sex' on screen before setting her on fire. There's distinctly perverse undertones in Bill's every interaction with Ford in the Weirdmageddon Trilogy, but Bill's been an energy being without physical form since before the birth of the Milky Way, which takes the edge off...a bit, anyway. Bill in the Journal flings down and dances upon the line between "this is a metaphor" and "...okay, so, the way this is being written about is so on the nose that I'm not sure this counts as a metaphor for any practical purposes anymore," but Bill having "extract information" as a motive in the most blatantly unsettling scenes of the show proper means he's still less overt about it on screen than Frollo.

...What was I talking about, again? Oh, right. Disney Channel: A lot less squeaky-clean in general than it wants you to think, Parents! They've been letting animated people say "Hell" occasionally since I was four!

"We talked about 'is there a way for this government agent who knows about Trembley to be connected to the government agents who picked up this disturbance?' We weren't really able to find a way to make them connect in a satisfying way, so, I wish we had done more with it."

Welp, there's another one for the "Projects to Eventually Do" List. Y'know, I'd never even thought of associating Powers and Co with the guy in "National Treasure"? It's one of those episodes I kinda mostly forget about tbh, the S1 filler episodes - I remember facts from it because they're useful when constructing my "Nathaniel Northwest was a warlock who made deals with Bill and here's how that could play out" theories, but I never think about the plot. Kind of like how I forget that Dipper's infatuation with Wendy is why the Paper Twins exist, even though they're now major characters in a lot of what I've written and are even bigger players in the vast majority of what I plan to write in future....I can tell you way, way too much about "Double Dipper," but I'm always slightly surprised that "oh, the Wendy obsession is why all this other stuff even happened!"

[On a very long section of text about McGucket and the memory gun]

OMG OMG OMG I WAS RIGHT! I WAS RIGHT ABOUT THE ALCOHOLISM METAPHOR, IT'S CANON, I FEEL SO SMART RIGHT NOW, WHEEE!

Ahem...sorry about that. Got a bit carried away there. So, Alex also compared McGucket's relationship with the memory gun to alcoholism. And to taking anxiety pills, but...well, there is a reason you don't mix those, I suppose. I want to dig into this so much more, and I'm probably gonna end up printing this section and tacking it to the wall next to my writing table, but right now I have gotta do my mother's taxes, she refused to admit they hadn't been done yet until a few hours ago, arrgh, I don't have time - yeah, that bit's probably gonna get its own analysis post eventually.

"It's like he has to always have a mission in front of him, because if he doesn't have a mission in front of him, he's thinking 'how have I treated the people in my life?'"

Hey, I think I said that...like...three times in this insanely long post, and I know I've said it before. My character interpretations are being validated. It makes me faintly grumpy that I'm as pleased by this as I am. I have a...complicated relationship with validation, let's leave it at that.

"The same way you know a black hole is there by the light warped around it, it's like, you know the damage someone's family has done to them by all of their weird tics and behaviors. So who is the character who would result in Stan being this hurt and needy and mad and also longing?"

I'd argue that it was the whole family dynamic, really - Stan clearly had a ton of daddy issues on the boil even before he got disowned, and while Caryn seems to have been more openly affectionate toward him, I can't imagine it did his psychology any good to grow up with a mother he calls a "pathological liar" without missing a beat. There'd always be that uncertainty (much like there later is with Stan himself) about what was real and what was a lie, what was a performance, because Caryn, like Stan, was an entertainer - it's the thing they were good at. Meanwhile, Filbrick is a fifties and sixties father of the most rigid sort, someone who is clearly uncomfortable expressing any positive emotion of any kind, or really anything except anger. He's either indifferent or he's shouting, and he apparently calls his sons by the same name to the point that they can say "he means you" when he's bellowing for "Stan Pines," because Stan's unimportance in life has been so thoroughly underlined for him by his parents, long before Ford personally was in any position to inflict much childhood trauma, that he struggles to have any form of identity separate from "Ford's twin" by a very young age, and never really grows past this until maybe the final moments of the show - I really wish we'd had a moment of Stan claiming his own name properly, but at least it made the news. Until that point, he'd literally failed at everything he ever did as Stanley, as himself, because he had no direction without Ford - even the Mystery Shack, as built around his specific talents as it is, was created because the mission in front of him had Ford as a focus point. That's a crucial thing, too, about his bond with Dipper and Mabel, and Soos, and even kinda Wendy - he's built a life for himself outside of just being Ford's brother. It's implied none of them even knew he was a twin, that the Other had ever existed. He still defines himself in relation to other people to a large extent, but that's still less restrictive than defining himself (and being defined by others) solely in terms of one other person. Fairer to Ford, too. But I digress.

"And it's like 'oh! I think he's also aloof and distant from himself.' I think he is, uh, deeply, deeply hiding from his real feelings about things, because at some point early on, he decided that he could run from hurt by achievement and by creation, and has dug that hole so deep that he has no relationships."

Accurate, at least at times.

"The shows I was watching growing up were, like, Doug and Rugrats, and there were no holy wars about whether Chucky Finster, uh, should be interpreted this way or that way. We had no idea the world that was coming into consciousness as we were making this thing."

I found this kinda interesting, because I remember those shows, too - but by the time I was old enough to be aware of very much, Harry Potter and Buffy the Vampire Slayer had already created the core of modern fandom culture as we know it, so I at the same time have the concepts of "there is no Rugrats fandom" and "that did not make fandom a surprise to me, because it was falling into place right about the point where my memory starts/I became dimly aware of the world outside of [Microscopically small town I'm from]." I don't know if this is something where he maybe remembers early childhood more than I do, since I have very, very few distinct memories from before I was 10-11 - a few, but they're like isolated snapshots with limited context, except what I know happened because people have told me it happened. I know Hirsch is older than me, but also not *that* much older than me, so I wonder if it's down to those few years (like he said about how gay marriage had just been legalized as the show was wrapping, and it's disconcerting now to think how different so many things were back then) or if it's a difference in personalities or what.

Well! That was more enjoyable than I expected! Thanks for prodding me to finally read this thing, @the-orion-scribe. It's eaten much of my day and seems set to eat a fair bit of it tomorrow, too, since I had to cut myself short at a couple of interesting points, but it was fun.

#gravity falls #gravity falls characters #gravity falls fandom #commentary #my commentary

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polyhexian · 4 months ago

Note

eventually au - Stupid idea that takes place somewhere in the finale timeskip:

Hunter and Jasper walking on the path home through the woods from the Bonesborough market with groceries having an utterly stupid argument over something that is easy to get heated about but also pretty inconsequential. I'm gonna say it's a specific fighting technique Hunter likes to use.

Hunter's like "oh my god, Dad, it's for the intimidation factor" and Jasper is like "every time you do that you're leaving yourself open to an attack from the side" and Hunter is like "I keep an eye on it, no one's ever managed it" and Jasper's like "I HAVE" and Hunter's like "you're kind of an insane fighter, Dad, you don't count!" and Jasper is like "you can't just use a stupid move and assume no one will ever take advantage of it" and Hunter is like "it's not stupid, it looks cool!"

And that's when they realize they're surrounded by a group of coven scouts in extremely tattered uniforms. Belos loyalists. Great.

The leader is saying something about vengeance and the will of the titan and blah blah blah but Hunter and Jasper are just exchanging tired, incredulous glances like "are they fucking serious? oh my god they are. ugh."

The ensuing fight is, of course, short, brutal, and absolutely not in the loyalists' favor, but also the entire time Jasper and Hunter are STILL arguing with each other because they were having a VERY SERIOUS CONVERSATION, DAMMIT.

Hunter uses the technique Jasper hates no fewer than 3 times and Jasper is like "WOULD YOU STOP THAT?" as he slams a scout into a tree and Hunter is like "NO ONE'S GETTING THROUGH, I TOLD YOU!" as he swipes another scout's legs from under them and Jasper is like "IT'S NEEDLESSLY FLASHY!" while he buries a scout up to their neck and Hunter stops with his fist balled in the front of a scout's shirt like "I'M SORRY, YOU'RE CALLING ME FLASHY, MR. KNIFE HALO?!?"

Jasper knocks out the second-to-last scout and whirls around like "The knife halo is functional and leaves no openings! You're just being overdramatic!"

"I'm sorry, are you saying you're not overdramatic?!"

"Of course not! I'm just dramatic!"

"Dad, you are more overdramatic than any fighting technique I would ever possibly use."

The scout Hunter is holding up by their collar weakly raises a finger. "For what it's worth, I served under both of you, and I can confirm that the two of you are equally and stupidly overdramatic."

"Ugh, shut up, Janethan," Hunter says, walloping them over the head with Flapjack's staff and letting them fall limply to the ground. He sighs as he surveys the unconscious bodies lying around, and then he pulls out his scroll to make a call. "Hey Steve. I'm in the woods west of Bonesborough and I've got, like, a dozen loyalists for you to arrest--Dad, what are you doing?"

Jasper is rifling through the scouts' pockets. "These assholes trampled our groceries," he says, confiscating wallets and dumping snails into his hand. "It's only fair that they pay for replacements. I'm teleporting back to the market and I will be right back. If any of these jerks wake up in the meantime, don't use that stupid move on them."

"Fine, but I'm not gonna stop using it when it works for me just fine, Dad."

Jasper teleports away with a huff.

(The next time Hunter spars with Willow, he uses that move and her vines swarm him from the side in seconds while she grins smugly. He is going to put salt in his father's eggs.)

JCJRHSBFNFKDIFNF GOD WILLOW AND JASPER TEAMING UP AGAINST HIM IS SOOOOOO FUULNNYYYYYY oh my god what do you do when your dad and your wife are BOTH giving you shit. Then you know they're going to tell Luz and vee and he's going to have SISTERS on his ass TOO. They're going to be posting memes in the group chat about Hunter getting kicked in the ribs trying to be cool on the daily

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wr3nns · 2 years ago

Text

Things I thought about after Watching and Dreaming, with no particular order. Much of this is pulled directly from my notes document

Hunters tv tropes page says Caleb is hinted to be albino

Lilith may have let Luz fall in Agony of a Witch if Eda hadn't sent Owlbert to catch her

Hunter relaxes slightly with everyone else at the beginning of For the Future when Luz says she's okay after coming out of the portal. He's relieved she's okay, even wrapped up in his own head as he is

Belos lights up the Titan's opposite eye from the one the Titan has lit. The Titan has a functioning left eye but a dim right one, and Belos lit the right one. King has a crack on the left side of his skull, Eda has a grey left eye, Luz has a scar over her left eyebrow. All of the Flapjack tattoos are on the left side except for Hunter's, which is where his sigil was (or is, if they had just started developing that technology and hadn't removed it yet)

The palistrom shortage was not only from Belos taking palismen, but also using the wood to make grimwalkers

Oh no did he ask Hunter to kill the Selkidomus because he expected this grimwalker to be the last and he wasn't giving himself room for failure. He needed to complete his mission, and failure wasn't an option if he couldn't make more grimwalkers. Because he had to have Caleb in the picture.

The fact that the show itself says point-blank that Belos is genuinely delusional and his goals are self-serving (through the Titan talking with Luz)

King never saw the room full of Titan skulls in Edge of the World, so he's seeing it for the first time in Watching and Dreaming

Luz's scene of standing and watching Belos melt while he tries to talk to her perfectly mirrors the scene of ghost Caleb standing and watching Belos melt while Belos tries to talk to him. They have the same expressions, angles, shots. And it's flipped. The scene is flipped. It's literally mirrored. And she has a similar hair thing going on. A fluffy hair noodle.

The speech Belos gave to Luz probably parallels how he tried to convince his brother

Luz's Titan magic orb is like the light glyph. King also had one when he yelled at Belos. Also Luz was zapping around like Hunter, the sound effect is even reminiscent

The parallels between Belos' skeletal form and the Titan's skeletal form

Waffle/s sitting on Hunter's head at the very end,,, feels familiar. No I'm not crying

Alador doesn't hunch anymore, and his belt has three symbols for each of his 3 kids

King finally got to play catch

Willow is definitely about to kiss Hunter in the Grom photo. Also look at his suit. Atrocious. Absolutely wretched. Perfect.

Green fungus vs red grass. Just. The colors in general there's so so so much going on there I have so many thoughts about it

Polly

The fact that Caleb's kindness and forgiveness did not work on Philip. Caleb hugged his brother even as Philip was corrupted and monstrous and it did not work. And the Collector ran into the same problem. Can you stop haunting the narrative for five minutes

Dana as a Hexside student cameo

The earrings exchange

The basilisks!!! At least two others survived!! And maybe reunited with Vee! This is excellent news

The airship with the abomination styled like the way Luz styled the Blight's household abomination to look like a cat

Dana signing Luz's writing scholarship. Luz getting a writing scholarship. Remember at the end of ASIAS when Lumity had the idea of their book club also being a writing club

Amity recognizing Luz quoting Azura in Covention (which Luz also outright states) but not saying anything. Imagine her inner dialogue, must have been so confusing

The kid who introduced sigil application way back when being the one to introduce the removal process. Good for him

Amity and Lilith have a good relationship. They were sort of like a mirror of Luz and Eda's mentor-mentee relationship such a long time ago, but less healthy. Now they're friends

Hunter gets all the family ties. Clearly a Noceda because of Thanks to Them, clearly a Deamonne from Watching and Dreaming, which also makes him a Blight, and he also gets Eberwolf with Darius because of course. If you include being a clone of Eda & Lilith's great-something grandfather AND being Luz's sister AND the fact that there may be a shared guardianship of Luz between Camila and Eda, which also includes Raine, he gets to be a Clawthorne, which also means he gets to be a Whispers. And let's not forget how he's obviously also a Park. If desired, for good measure, you can cite brotherly relation and tack on Porter as well. And don't forget the actual canon where he is adopted by the entire school as the resident cryptid

Hunter is literally a cryptid and I have been thinking about this for a very long time. I wish they got to talk about that more but they didn't, which means it's free real estate

The sheer amount of love and care baked into the finale. It's splendid. The hugs and kisses and words and actions and feelings

Eda and King both got mega evolutions. Then Luz did too

Making a stand against Belos at the site of the DOU. Paralleling prior shots, like looking over the Isles and talking about destiny, the parallels between Luz's Titan mega evolution vs Hunter's possession (there's quite a lot)

How they avoided the feeling of powercreep by keeping a lot of the actions very readable and down-to-earth. Even when they were fighting kaiju puritan with decay laser, there weren't world-shattering mega-powers. Everything was built on what we already understood. We got glyphs, we got Harpy mode and Beast mode and King's powers were heightened but they were still the same powers, we got Luz with her staff and Belos with his usual strategy, Raine fighting back in ways we already understood but also ways which meant more (like breaking their instrument). The archives collapsing and the Collector holding them up with ribbons while standing on the shooting star, we understand those powers because we saw them earlier, it made sense

While the archives start falling, Hunter zips toward Willow before stopping short when they stop falling. Hmmm now where have we seen something like that before. For reference I am talking about COTH

Amity finally using a glyph

Amity using vines, Willow using fire. That's the reversal of their usual things. Amity used the fire spell in Adventures in the Elements, that was tough for her. Willow's got plants down. Hunter using ice. Gus flying around and levitating

Hunter being able to save a palisman

Eda's absolutely MASSIVE smiles throughout

Magic coming from the heart, callback to The Intruder

The massive Titan heart in the throne room appearing way back when, and us all wondering about it, and it finally FINALLY came back with significance. Awesome

Luz burning away the rot before making an ice path to give her a clear shot at Belos. Utilizing the glyphs to their fullest, one after the other, super fast. She's become fluent in the Titan's language

Luz's confident speech to Belos paralleling her prior speeches in a moment of pure epicness as she annihilates him. And that's the last she ever says to him

The Collector crowning the Titan

The Titan acknowledging that he went after the wrong person

Everyone being so very gender

The Collector explaining "Hide and Seek" scene was just so. Intense. Them not understanding how mortals work. How empathy works. They're a young child who was raised by the wrong sort of people, they honestly didn't know any better. But that's when compassion comes in

The way the Collector flinched away from Amity paints a bad picture of the sorts of expectations he has

The Hexside kids are okay!!

Belos obviously tries one last Hail Mary, and Luz Is Not Having It

Did the rain come from Luz channeling the Titan's powers?

You can see scarring on Raine's arm. Almost matching Eda. And someone else we know. They should talk

#toh #the owl house #toh spoilers #the owl house spoilers #Watching and Dreaming #watching and dreaming spoilers #text post #wr3nns ramblings #I actually ran RIGHT up against the character limit on this #which was unexpected #I'm sure I have more to say but for now I will leave this as is #I had a blast everyone #I'll be thinking about this for the next... long time #long post #read more

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