#toh snippet

[sokkas-first-fangirl]

If you’re still taking prompts, how about Eda taking bets with the other Owl House parents on which kids will be proposing first?

"Willow," Darius said, like it should have been obvious. "Of course it'll be Willow."

"You're betting against our son?" Camila demanded, eyebrows raised.

"Yes," Darius said.

Alador nodded. "Yeah, my money's on Willow," he said.

Camila threw her hands up. "Am I the only one who has any faith in him!?" Camila vs Hunter's sort-of-dad and sort-of-step-dad; it wasn't a battle of wills that Eda expected, but it was one she enjoyed watching.

"I agree," Perry said. "I'd say Willow."

Raine looked contemplative. They hummed, tapping a rhythm on the table, but didn't offer a side yet.

"Actually, I side with Camila," Lilith said slowly. She looked like she was thinking hard. Weighing the pros and cons would be Eda's bet. "Hunter is shyer than Willow, but he loves her dearly and he's brave. He can be very determined. I can see him proposing."

Darius and Alador exchanged dubious glances. Camila smiled smugly.

"Well, what about Luz and Amity?" Raine asked, tapping their chin.

"Luz," Camila and Eda said.

"Amity," Lilith said.

"Honestly, considering their track record, I expect them both to propose on the same day," Alador said with a shrug. "Or they'll try to anyway. Hopefully without Hooty's involvement this time."

"Is something wrong with Hootsifer?" Lilith demanded.

"You don't want me to answer that."

"Okay," Darius cut in quickly. "What about Gus and Matt?"

Perry snorted. "They'll need to actually date first," he said. "And my hair will be entirely grey by the time those boys sort themselves out. They're both painfully oblivious."

"Are they still calling it a rivalry?" Camila asked sympathetically.

"Unfortunately," Perry sighed.

Alador snorted into his apple blood. Eda gave him and Darius her most shit-eating grin.

"Yeah," Darius sighed. "We'll all be waiting a while on those two."

[crimeronan]

"It seems like he's good for you," Camila says.

The Luz sitting at the kitchen table is certainly different from the one Camila has gotten to know over the past few months. The hope in her expression is guarded, still, like she's scared to feel anything good - but it's a thousand times better than her usual listless stare.

"He's my best friend," Luz says. Then, more cautiously, "I need him to stay here. With me."

The boy is the reason that Camila's search history has just gotten very peculiar and probably put her on a watch list. Things like Stahl's ear and oculocutaneous albinism next to unsolved missing children 2000s connecticut. That last one pulls up way too many current-day news pieces about Luz for comfort.

"Baby, I know you don't like to talk about it," Camila starts, and Luz tenses. "You don't have to answer me if you don't want to. But have you been missing him this whole time? I would have found him, mija. I know you don't like the police, I don't either. But if I needed to find a way, I'd find a way."

Luz blinks rapidly, pressing her palms to her cheeks.

"Is there anyone else you're looking for?" Camila asks, very gently, very non-judgmentally. "Maybe someone you don't want to get in trouble?"

Luz shakes her head and clears her throat. Then she smiles in the peculiar, diplomatic way that never reaches her eyes.

"I just thought he was dead," she says lightly. "Silly me. I should have remembered humans don't kill people. I got some bad intel."

"Okay," Camila says. "Do you understand why that was a concerning thing to say?"

Luz shrugs.

"He has a lot of scars," Camila adds.

Another shrug.

"Baby," she says, "I need to know at least a little bit. I can't keep guessing forever."

Luz's mouth crumples. "I'm not what you think I am," she whispers.

"That's okay." Camila takes a seat across from her, exhaling softly. "I'm all ears."

[ammonitetheseaserpent]

Collector/Titan headcanons? :0

Oh heck yeh!

- The Collectors have some eldritch aspects to them; one of these being that no mortal can look directly into their eyes without risk, as the person’s mind and senses will be scrambled/overwhelmed as if the cosmic eyes were boring into their very soul.

- I saw someone (I wanna tag em but I forgor their username) bring up a headcanon of theirs that if you beat a Collector in a game, they’ll be bound to do any favor you ask of them.

- Promises between Collectors and other beings have actual weight and power behind them, which is part of why our Collector puts so much emphasis on pinky swears.

- Both Titans and Collectors have the ability to control if or not they’re affected by language barriers - especially with mortals. As a young Titan/Collector’s magic strengthens and develops, so too does their capacity to tap into an understanding of all different languages.

- Referring to the previous one, our Collector chose to keep this power closed off so they could learn English from Belos - as he knew they would need to talk to each other a lot if they were to work together, and if any Collector were to speak their cosmic god language to a mortal, the words being processed through the person’s ears and mind would overwhelm them to the point of an intense headache and feeling of dizziness.

- If a really young Titan child sees you as a potential threat, and you want to show you mean no harm, you need only to bow down below the Titan’s current stature, as being at a higher stature will trigger a sense of safety within a Titan child and dissipate any fear of you. A Titan fully grows out of this instinct in their adolescent years.

- In the days before Titans were mostly wiped out, parts like their skulls, horns and fur were believed to contain magical properties and were highly sought after by some. Nowadays, these beliefs are still somewhat prevalent among the Titan Trappers.

[wysteriaisapenguin]

Phillip’s defeat in the Top Diseased Polls was a prophecy 

@topdisease

[stevecoven]

I'm intrigued by the Sturphy coffee AU snippet you wrote -- do you have headcanons or anything for a fully mundane modern AU? Anything urban fantasy or modern-with-magic flavored? What kind of mundane dynamic or scenario fits them best do you think?

The coffee shop is a fully mundane human AU! It's set in Gravesfield (the human realm town in TOH) but that's the only connection to the canon, it's literally just a fluffy slice of life meet-cute kind of story. Murph runs a coffee shop/bakery that they took over from their dad, and Steve is the new guy who delivers their catering supplies/keeps coming in on his days off because the pastries are just that good. They both flirt, get awkward, go on dates, indulge in a little melodramatics, drift apart, get back together right at the end like any good rom com

Another mundane/modern AU I have is where Steve is in a scrappy little band (with the bards) and Murph is the hot bartender that he keeps running into at gigs in pubs and ramshackle venues. It's half Scott Pilgrim and half based on the local music scene in my own city, which I have a lot of love for

I don't think I've got any urban fantasy stuff at the moment?? TOH is a little bit of that with all the weird magic tech and anachronisms so I tend to skew towards either completely mundane or super high fantasy/sci fi. For the latter I love doing big grand conflicts and lots of epic drama but for mundane stuff I guess I like stripping all that away and giving them "real" issues and problems to fight over, it makes me really drill down into who they are as people rather than how their environment affected them (for example: Murph is not always disabled, and their attitude towards their body is very different depending on the nature of it). I also just love dumb low-consequence fluff. Workplace meet-cutes and best friends falling for each other are my faves 💕

[guessillcallitart]

Luz is for the Owl House fans✨ (I swear she's an original character, I just really liked the name and it's given me lots of inspo) also if my wip gives the same vibes as the Owl House, it'd be so cool-

taglist: @aloeverawrites, @your-absent-father, @rbbess110, @anonymousfoz, @yesireadbooks, @full-on-sam, @the-mindless, @the-void-writes, @albatris, @athenswrites, @jacqueswriteblrlibrary, @aalinaaaaaa (ask to be added or removed)

[ask-thearchivists]

Whats the end goal for collecting mortals? You gonna drop everything you collected on a rock and call it good, like whats the point of all of this? What if their nothing left to collect, your jobs become meaningless, life would become meaningless, this is what mortals want to live their own live for is to find the good in life not to be stuck in stasis until the end of time. It's like a prison or a never ending nightmare we can't wake from. I think I would rather die.

The Curator: I would say "then die" but we aren't allowed to let you die. Real weird for you to act like any time at all has passed for you since you were Collected. That's the point. We Collect you, and if you are ever released it doesn't matter if it's been a million years, it will feel like you blinked. No prison or nightmares because it feels like blinking.

The Charmer: You act like mortals don't attempt to Collect either, especially Collecting just to Have. We are actually fully equipped to preserve what we Collect, while most other mortals pathetically attempt to preserve the creatures all around them, and sometimes even others of their own species, with terrible methods only used on the dead. They could only dream of preserving things that are still alive, for the rest of eternity, like we can.

The Cartographer: I must agree. The Collections created by mortals we visit are always infinitely more horrifying than what we do, especially since so many involve killing the creature being Collected. Pin boards of tiny, impaled mortal's corpses. Horrifying imitations of life made from the skins of dead mortals, cured into shape. Using chemicals that you inject into the flesh of the mortal to preserve them, or submerging them in chemicals entirely. It doesn't have to be something you like, but the way we Collect is infinitely more considerate.

The Charmer: It's not like any of the mortals get permission from the creatures around them that do not share their elevated sentience. So it strictly comes down to the permission of those mortals, and I have said this before, I am good at my job, so most come willingly. And we Collect to preserve the life of the mortals.

[shortprince-cos]

a sneak peek into an Owl House au called Mama's Boy! I hope you all enjoy!

(scene from Eda's Requiem)

"But it'll stop the emperor, right?"

Raine hesitated.

It would. Killing Darius and Eberwolf would throw a wrench in Belos' plans completely.

They nodded.

"Then we play on!" Eda said, ponytail whipping behind her as she turned, something falling out of her hair as she did so.

Raine found themselves pausing their music and grabbing the paper out of the air, eyes widening as the processed what it was.

A photo of Eda, hair down, with two children by her side. A demon and a human.

"Eda... Do you have kids?" They asked, bewildered by the sight.

Eda's fingers halted suddenly, causing an indignant cord to ring out. "Well- They're not mine mine." She started playing again. "It doesn't matter. They both have real families to return to."

Raine sucked in a breath and put down their violin.

"I think we've both been keeping secrets, haven't we?"

That made Eda pause again, and she turned to face them as the decay around them receded.

Raine twiddled their thumbs nervously. "First, I just wanna say that a great witch once told me... something about punching fears in the face?" They shook their head. "Regardless, those kids probably need you more than you think."

Eda looked shocked by this. "A- And second?" She asked.

"Its about Whistle."

Her eyes widened at this, and they went glossy after a moment. "What about him?" Eda's voice cracked.

Raine's gaze turned cold. "He's alive."

The floor turned to sludge, and suddenly the two of them were being dragged across the forest.

(if you'd like to know more about this au, send me an ask or a dm!)

[thousand-winters]

It's May 4th, aka, Star Wars day! ☄️🌟🌠 May the Force be with you 💖

I haven't had the time to do many Dadrius related things at all lately, but I did have this snippet I wrote for an Star Wars AU a friend and I had and I thought it would be fitting to post it today, since I wasn't really going anywhere with this, I was just having fun with the concepts we had discussed (I mean, I would totally like to expand on this but it seems like a big project and I need to finish many other projects first... maybe one day).

Without further preamble:

Darius grits his teeth as the ship trembles and coughs, because of course they had to happen to steal the one machine that needed reparations. Oh, this is why he has never liked these blasted things. 

There’s another violent shake as they pass the atmosphere, and the only reason he doesn’t hit his head against anything is because he’s firmly settled on the seat, but he hears a thump and a curse from behind. 

“Just a little longer,” He promises. “Hold on tight there, Canis.”

The kid doesn’t respond, and although that’s not unusual in itself, a strange feeling of urgency compels him to look behind. Darius can admit freely that he has never been as in tune with the most spiritual side of his abilities as he was being taught to before… well… it’s simply not one of his strengths, but he has been working half on impulse here, half on vague whispers from the Force, and he has the impression that to continue listening is the right choice.

As soon as he makes sure they’re not gonna crash on anything if he gets distracted for a few seconds, he turns around, just in time for the boy to apparently find his voice.

“My name is…” Canis pauses for a minute, his face scrunching up for a brief moment before looking down. “H-Hunter. My name is Hunter.”

It takes Darius a minute to understand, but when he does, he feels his heart skip a beat. This is important, he doesn’t need anyone or anything to tell him that. 

“Well then, Hunter,” He says breathlessly, in part because of the adrenaline and in part because he finally has an actual name to call this kid. His previous one barely counted. “Grab onto something, I’ll get us out of here.”

Hunter smiles. Small, tentative, but sincere. He looks like the child he is and Darius feels a wave of warmth flooding his chest. Without thinking, he opens himself in the Force, like he hasn’t for so many years, and he feels the contained spark that is this boy, reaching out to him in turn and clinging to him with the desperation of someone afraid and seeking reassurance, but also with some nascent trust that Darius already knows he’s going to cherish no matter what it costs him.

He holds onto it. And the Force sings.

[acewithapaintbrush]

Hey, @sokkas-first-fangirl psssst! Remember the idea I told you about? Do you fancy a *opens coat* sneak peek?

🦉🦉🦉🦉🦉🦉🦉🦉🦉

Hunter is not afraid. 

That is the most surprising part about all of this. The complete and utter lack of fear. Here he is, back in the throne room. Back where it all started all these years ago. Him, younger and clueless, kneeling before his emperor and waiting to receive his new rank, the highest honor of his life. 

Golden Guard. 

Golden. As in precious. Valuable. Worthy. 

He is older now. Maybe still clueless in a lot of ways, but not quite as naive anymore. 

Golden. As in reflective. Empty. Cold. 

A useless bauble, one of many in the emperor's chain. 

He is not kneeling now. The urge is ever present, this ingrained need to get down, get low. Make yourself small. One knee on the ground, the other foot flat on the floor, knee in front of you and up. One arm resting on the raised knee, hands fisted, but not clenched. That is important. Too tense and he'll think you are hiding a failure, too relaxed and he'll question your training. There is a science to kneeling just the right way. Don't get down too quick or you'll hurt your knee, but also don't get down too slow or you will wobble too much. It's a dance. A choreography. One he has learned for years and fallen back on in times of uncertainty and fear. 

So his leg twitches, his balance is shot. 

But he'll be damned if he kneels even one more second in front of this false prophet. 

Kneeling or not, Belos still towers over him. Stares down at him with eyes full of rage and disappointment. 

The fear is still missing. 

But that's actually worse. 

Hunter feels nothing. There is an emptiness inside of him, a black hole sucking in all the emotions he should be feeling and can't. He tries to tell himself that it's a good thing. Unc- Belos, doesn't deserve his fear. Doesn't deserve to feel even more superior than he certainly does already. 

Hunter doesn't confuse this emptiness with bravery though. 

Luz would have been brave. She would have stared Belos in the eye and declared war. Would have stood tall and strong. 

If Hunter had gone along with her insane plan, that is. 

"Let us switch places.", she had whispered into his ear as they and their friends had been under fire. "I'm sure Gus can hold up the illusion long enough." 

Hunter had stared at her and for a second he'd been tempted. The idea of facing Belos had sent a shiver down his spine, had filled him with an unimaginable horror. But then he'd seen through Luz's confident smirk and the fire in her eyes and he'd seen the same kind of fear, the same horror. 

Not a daredevil plan. Just plain desperation. 

So he'd pushed her away, pushed his own fear away, so far down that he now can't find it again, and had told her "No way!" 

And now he is here. Captured and alone. 

Belos seems to be waiting for something, pleading maybe. Begging for forgiveness. But Hunter knows this game even if he hasn't been the best player until now. Begging only makes things worse. Pleading only opens yourself up for even more cutting remarks, a slap to shut up your babbling, more baggage whispered into your ear. Presumed faults and failures. 

Always failing. Never good enough. 

But now he at least knows why. Of course never good enough. How could a copy ever be as good as the original?

He'd been set up for failure from the minute he'd been born (made?). 

Oh yes. Hunter knows this game. And he is done playing. He is done losing over and over again, pretending that he ever had a chance in the first place. 

Time for the ultimate Game Over. 

The thought should terrify him. 

It doesn't. 

Hunter keeps silent, looks somewhere between Belos' eye and his ear. And waits. 

Finally the emperor shakes his head. A sigh leaves his lips. Vaguely, Hunter wonders how a monster like that can have such a kind voice. 

"You have disappointed me greatly, Hunter." 

Hunter sucks in a breath and finally meets those cold, calculating eyes. 

Time to fold his cards. Time to concede the match. 

"Just like Caleb did?" 

The silence is thick with tension. Belos is motionless, hands still clasped behind his back. 

And then he smiles. Soft and gentle. 

Ah. There it is. 

The fear. 

******

Idea for a canon divergence: what if Hunter and Luz hadn't switched places?

[sokkas-first-fangirl]

Prompt - Darius almost forgets his wallet in his bedroom and asks Hunter to grab it for him.

Have some silly family shenanigans!

Hunter had grown up in a castle; in a way, he was used to opulence. The palace corridors and throne room had been gilded with gold. There were intricate tapestries and paintings everywhere and big stained-glass windows. However, his own bedroom had been small and quite plain.

Living with Darius meant everything was fancy. Even the guest bathroom had special fancy soaps. Every room was spacious and utterly spotless.

So, when Darius asked Hunter to grab his wallet for him, Hunter was left staring dubiously at Darius's room. Everything was in its place...Except the wallet. It wasn't on the bedside table.

Darius's room was huge. He even had a walk-in closet. In theory, everything being so neat and tidy should have made the search easy, but Darius was such a stickler for "a place for everything and everything in its place," that Hunter couldn't begin to guess where to start looking.

He checked under the bed. No dice. The drawers? Nope. On the windowsill? Nada. He checked the walk-in closet, the handbag by Darius's desk and under the many many pillows on his bed.

Nothing.

"Uh, Darius?" Hunter poked his head out of Darius's room. "I can't find it."

"What?" Darius blinked, his scroll held loosely in his hand. "It's by the bed."

"It's not."

"You're sure?"

"I even checked under the bed. I checked your bathroom! It's not there."

"Oh dear..." Darius's eyebrows furrowed. He typed quickly on his scroll- likely a message to Alador- and hurried up the stairs. He brushed past Hunter, saw that his wallet was indeed missing from its usual spot, and groaned in dismay.

Darius checked all the places Hunter did. Hunter went downstairs and searched the living room and kitchen. The wallet did not magically appear for either of them.

"Well, did you leave it in one of your jackets?" Hunter asked and Darius ran back upstairs. The muffled cursing told Hunter it wasn't in Darius's jackets.

Just as Darius looked ready to explode, Eberwolf strolled into the house, whistling.

He was holding Darius's wallet.

"Eber!" Darius's hair swelled and rippled. "What are you doing with that!?"

Eberwolf frowned. "You told me to use your card, remember?" he asked. "To buy the kid-"

"No, no, no, no, not another word!" Darius cried, frantically waving his arms. They both looked at Hunter and winced.

"...Buy me what?" Hunter asked.

"Nothing!" Darius said quickly.

"Good surprise," Eberwolf promise.

"Eberwolf!"

"What? Surprises freak him out!"

Rolling his eyes, Hunter swiped Darius's wallet from Eberwolf's hands and shoved it into Darius's hand.

"I'll be snooping later," he said. "For now, go enjoy your date; you're late."

[crimeronan]

oh, the other Vital context wrt AU luz being a covid puppy is that she has some VERY specific PTSD. like part of it is her upbringing, but the shift from "i'm lonely and bored and sad when hunter isn't around" to "i panic whenever i can't reach out and touch him" is So So So Recent. on account of. the novel's worth of horror fic preceding all her separation anxiety antics.

over the course of a year she:

is forced to kill someone with hunter's face

is told that hunter is going to sicken and die bc of grimwalker biology

gets elbow-deep in grimwalker and necromancy research

learns everything there is to know about the dead grimwalkers prior to hunter

including reading all of belos's unethical science experiment notes on them

has to repeatedly talk belos out of """putting hunter down"""

FAILS to do that. at great personal cost

gets to hear belos detail exactly how he's going to torture hunter to death to punish her

only manages to save hunter's life through a combination of luck, the titan's favor, and crazy murdering belos

it's in the Very Immediate Aftermath of all this that she has her "i woke up and you weren't there" panic spiral. and then for Some Weird Reason, her anxiety only worsens over the following time period

^girl who is suddenly experiencing ALLLL the emotions she'd been repressing while running on adrenaline for ten straight months.....

like. the amount that she is exhausted and clingy and Fried To A Crisp is. directly proportional. to the amount of horror fic there is. at this point her pathological need to have hunter in her sight at all times is just Sensible. he has died 1,000 times in 1,000 ways to her by now and that he's still alive at all is kind of a fluke.

[ammonitetheseaserpent]

Another Collector take that’s a bit of a pet peeve of mine is people saying that the Collector stopped being an interesting character after FTF or even OTWAT. Like?? My sibling in Titan, are we watching the same show???

I mean, if the Collector personally doesn’t interest you as a character/stopped interesting you after a certain point, there’s no fault in that, of course; everyone’s got their own tastes. But to say that, just because the Collector became a tragic/sympathetic antagonist who had a redemption, there’s no longer anything that could possibly be interesting or nuanced about him, and that he is only and exclusively a character to be shallowly coddled is just… not true.

[neoncherryblossom]

SLEEP

(i just love the platonic cuddling in your fics so much)

Good thing I'm writing a one shot solely based on that :D!

“Why?” he spat, ignoring the way he moved closer and not further. “Are you a child, Coven Head? Are you missing your lover so much that you choose a random bystander as their replacement?” Eberwolf stayed silent, unmoving as his small form lay on Darius’ side. He huffed, putting his head back on his pillow. That’s all this was, he was just a replacement, he would allow this for a few more moments then he would send Eberwolf away, because that’s how he should’ve started this whole thing- “Are you serious?” Until he saw Eberwolf’s head peek up at him, staring at him incredulously. “Have you never slept with anyone as a friend before?” “You don’t sleep with friends, you rag doll.” “...You poor ignorant soul.”

From this ask game!

[satiricalstardust]

New year new me. Hoping this isn't another sona that turns into a completely different character like so many of my others have. We'll see we'll see

[palismet]

thinking ab the similarities of luz and hunter and how they are so different in their experiences and yet so alike.

they are both so desperate for acceptance. for acknowledgement of who they are, who they want to be – for love, given without terms, unconditional. to be seen, in the light that is all their own, without being asked to cut off corners, pieces of themselves that aren't ... acceptable, by most, that would be easier if they weren't there.

their stories are different and yet their hearts are the same. they want to be strong, brave, enough to get through the next thing, and the next, and the next – still holding on to a hurt that makes them. that changed them, fundamentally, so long ago. how it still changes them today. how there is no separation, even still, even here, in the light of the human world, bright enough to dream by.

so can you see it, the way they are tectonic plates, shifting up against one another, holding up and together entire worlds? the weight of responsibility, of what it means (and what it is) holding on to hope. what it takes from you, and how you have learned not to talk about it, because who else would understand? and how would you hold yet another piece of it, too heavy for your hands?

the earthquakes that would result in them butting heads. the way the story has always led to the parallels of things. the way brothers and siblings will eventually come to this point, the event horizon of hurt and hope. the way the bones of it have always been lying in wait, to return to this, right here - what becomes of us now?

the way it was always going to come to this. the story doesn't know any other way. so it will do it again, it will do it over, and over, and over - until it can get it right.

(including a small snippet of a vague chapter intro:)