#but him drowning himself was to keep belos from hurting his friends

[pandoratheprocrasticreator]

Yes yes fire imagery with belos but american witch trials never burned witches at the stake. European trials did that. American witch trials hanged them. (Except for a few fringe cases lmao i think a dude was pressed to death with stones)

Drowning was used as evidence to prove someone was a witch. People would tie you to a chair weighed down with rocks and if you drowned then you were innocent, but if you survived you would be deemed a witch and probably executed. It was a situation where youd die either way and that was kind of the point because a lot of these accusations really were just people trying to get rid of social outcasts.

Hunter almost definitely didnt know any of this but the scene where he tries to drown himself was. So thematically appropriate. Identity crisis aside, he was a witch in everything but biology. And by now he is even a wild witch, the exact kind that phillip despised the most. But phillip is no longer human. No longer a good puritan man, even if he still believes he is.

So a wild witch tries to drown himself to bring down a not-human. Both of them, in belos's eyes, an abomination of god and the natural order. hunter didnt know but given how easily belos left his body later belos could have avoided drowning at any time. But he keeps possessing hunter to hold him underwater and kill his brother (who had fallen in with the witches and was now no better than one himself) once and for all.

But hunter doesnt drown. Not because he has witch powers to save him but because camilla, his new mother figure, dives in to save him. Because unlike the "witches" of phillips time, hunter is no longer a social outcast. He has a family now. He is loved. Something that belos no longer has

[autisticwriterblog]

Hiiii a little late but here are some Hunter prompts! Sorry it's a lot and I am absolutely not requesting you do all of these, just some ideas for you to pick and choose from if you like! :)

1 - self-done stitches: Hunter having to do his own stitches after Belos hurts him, because Belos won't let him see a healer as they might figure out Hunter's being abused. I headcanon Hunter first learned to sew clothes from doing his own stitches. Bonus points if the wound is on his back and he has to twist awkwardly in front of a mirror to try to see the wound well enough to stitch it up.

4 - massage: Hunter has chronic pain post-possession from all of the scars on his body. Someone he loves (your choice!) gives him a massage to help.

8 - migraine: Hunter gets a bad migraine one day when they're in the Human Realm. He tries really hard to get through the day without his friends finding out as he doesn't want to be a burden on them. Luz notices and asks him to come help her with planning for the portal, but once they're alone she just gets him to lie down and rest for a while.

10 - forced to work while ill: Hunter is suffering from a high fever, but Belos sends him on a mission, so he has to just try to get through it. He encounters Luz and Eda and attempts to be threatening/fight them, but he's extremely delirious. They decide to take him back to the Owl House to help him, despite his weak protests.

20 - get me out: When Hunter has his panic attack at the end of Hollow Mind, he tries to run out of the Owl House, but Eda has Hooty shut down the house before he can get out because he'll be safer there. His panic attack gets worse as he realizes he's trapped, and he tries frantically to find an exit, possibly even lashing out and attacking Eda or Hooty.

23 - allergic reaction: Camila is serving dinner when they're in the Human Realm, and when Hunter starts eating, his mouth stings so bad he wants to cry, but he looks at the rest of his friends and they don't seem to be in any pain, so he convinces himself he's just overly sensitive so he keeps eating. It's only when his skin starts breaking out and his breathing gets uneven that they realize something's wrong.

24- rescue breaths: When Hunter drowns in Thanks to Them, Camila and Luz take turns giving him CPR in an attempt to save him.

30 - breaking point: In For the Future, when Hunter starts tearing up at the picture of Flapjack and Willow and Gus leave the room, he doesn't run after them and instead collapses to his knees on the floor. He starts having a panic attack and Luz and Camila rush over to help him through it. He finally just breaks down crying over Flapjack, sobbing so much he can barely breathe, and they comfort him.

alternate prompt - seizure: Hunter develops epilepsy after drowning. Your choice if his first seizure is when he's alone and he has to suffer through not knowing what's happening to him or when it will be over, or if someone like Camila is there to comfort him.

I decided to pick the migraine prompt!

Rest a While Fandom: The Owl House (Cartoon) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Hunter | The Golden Guard & Luz Noceda Characters: Hunter | The Golden Guard (The Owl House), Luz Noceda Additional Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Headaches & Migraines, During Timeskip in Episode: s03e01 Thanks to Them (The Owl House), The Human Realm (The Owl House), Hunter | The Golden Guard Needs a Hug (The Owl House), Protective Luz Noceda, Platonic Relationships, Friendship, Pain, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Caring, Whump, The Owl House Season 3, Tumblr Ask Box Fic, seth-whumps' Whumperless Whump Event July 2024, One Shot Summary: When Hunter has a migraine, he hides his pain from the others. But Luz notices and refuses to let him suffer in silence.

Written for @whumperless-whump-event day 8. Prompt: Put your head on my shoulder: Migraine / Light & Sound Sensitivity / “I can close the curtains…”

[lollytea]

Thinking about how different Hunter is in TTT and FTF. I'm not sure what made him change that much tho. Was it just the fact Flapjack died? That Belos is back? And to add on that Belos is an active threat + killed Flapjack?

What are your thoughts on his change? (aka this is the coffee emote ask which I'm not sure is out of date rn)

Idk man it seems like you understand exactly what the reasons were.

This is consistent behaviour for Hunter. When he's in stressful and upsetting situations where he has no control, he tends to get really cagey and irritable. You can find examples of it in nearly every episode he appears in.

And there is nothing more emotionally extreme than what he endured at the end of Thanks to Them. He was completely violated by his abuser, both physically and emotionally and was forced to try to drown himself just to kill him. His best friend in the whole world was sliced through and then died so that Hunter could live.

And after all that is done with, Hunter doesn't even have the time, energy or emotional maturity to really process the severity of what happened to him. Because now Belos is out there and Hunter promised that he would never let him hurt anyone ever again. And after the lifetime of violence Hunter suffered and everything he's learned about that man, it's understandable why he would be so hellbent on putting an end to Belos once and for all. He becomes consumed by this tunnel vision rage because it's the only emotion he can handle right now.

Hunter is also grieving. And the thing about grief is that it manifests in different ways. It's not always quiet words and tears. Sometimes it makes you lash out. It makes you pissed off and annoyed about the most insignificant stuff.

On top of all that, Hunter is extremely paranoid. He thought he was safe in the Human Realm. He had allowed himself to let his guard down. But then he had received a very cruel wake-up call that he'll never be safe. Not as long as Belos is out there. And he is going to keep taking Hunter's loved ones away from him. That is an extremely stressful truth to deal with. No wonder Hunter can't relax. No wonder he's so high strung and impatient to get on with this.

So like. Consider all of these factors all crushed together. The lack of control, the trauma response, the grief, the resentment and anger, the paranoia, the fact that everything could be taken from him if he lets his guard down for even a moment.

It is very clear why Hunter has changed so much between episodes.

[seldomscilence16]

Whumptober day 14:

"Feed me poison, fill me 'till I drown."

Flare | water inhalation | "Just hold on." 

Fandom: Owl House

Prompts used: All

This once again is in the 'who the frick knows' timeline. Where I move things to fit my needs. It's before the day of Unity Fight, but Hunter gets on their side earlier on… yeah idk. :) I kinda wanted to parallel the battle they had in the human realm in season 3, cause ya know *°•☆trauma☆•°*

TW for drowning

…

Luz pretends she's an open book. She smiles and laughs and puts herself out there like the heart on her sleeve is more than just an illusion. She can pretend everything is fine, that nothing happened ever-

Until she cant.

She stares at the chaos around her, wonders what she should have changed to fix it. Her feet feel numb while the rest of her tingles unpleasantly, she wonders if it will ever fade back to normal or if it's a side effect of being turned to stone. She thinks of Eda, and how that had almost been her fate once, she wonders where she is now. 

A shout reaches her ears before someone crashes into her, when she opens her eyes again she's across the room, a pile of rubble where she once stood.

"What are you doing!? We need to get out of here!" 

"Hunter? Where's everyone else?" Luz duct tapes her spiraling mind together, she's fine.

"They're getting everyone else to safety. I don't know what you've been doing, but we need to get out of here before Belos finds us!" Hunter tugs her along, FlapJack sitting himself on Luz's head. 

Luz can't let Belos see Hunter, she needed to get him out of here, Belos was crazy. She stumbles over her legs but pushes on, they needed to-

"Oh Luzura, we weren't finished yet." That irritating, spine tingling, voice echoes across the space. 

"Miércoles." Luz mutters, pushing Hunter out of the way of a stabby slimy limb. 

"Maybe we should invite your friends-" 

"You won't touch them!" Luz stands in front of Hunter's fallen form, the former Golden Guard still staring at the hole where he'd once stood.

"Oh but they are in my way, why should I spare the traitors?" Belos floats closer, golden robes fluttering behind him, mask still chipped from her hit in their earlier fight. 

"You can feed me poison, fill me 'till I drown in it, but if you hurt my friends, it's over." Luz knows she can't beat him, knows that she helped him get to where he is, but she won't stand by and let something happen to her friends.

"I see. Well, I'm afraid we'll have to revisit this at a later date then Human. When youre more… mallable to my cause. Im sure you'll see things my way then." Its the only warning they get before he slams his spikes into the ground in front of them, the slab theyre on flinging them into the air. 

Luz chokes on her scream as she reaches for Hunter. FlapJack reaches him first, much to her relief, Hunter able to cling to the palisman turned staff and orient himself. Luz watches him shrink above her, looking over her shoulder to see what her demise might be. The foggy waters of a lake are steadily getting closer, she wonders if its swampy/bog water or boiling like the seas, and which would be worse. She wonders if its even deep enough to keep her from splattering apart and joining the liquid. Or maybe its not even a liquid or water, its the Boiling Isles, it could be anything.

She looks back up, seeing Hunter making his way towards her, arm outstretched. Even with Flaps teleportation magic, Luz is falling too fast. She braces herself the best someone falling to what could be there doom can, squeezes her eyes closed and takes a deep breath- 

Like getting slammed into solid concrete by a truck. The breath is forced from her lungs, tingling sensations run down her spine all the way to her toes in waves of numbness to pain, shes surrounded slowly by the lake water unable to get her body to cooperate as her head spins on a stiff neck. She stares through murky water as the light fades away, limp limbs swaying above her. Her lungs ache in a way shes never had, like the thought of her diaphram contracting is the silliest thing its ever heard and would much rather stay a deflated bloom, but dang does she need air- 

A short breath, she chokes as thick liquid invades her nose and mouth, small contractions of the muscles still willing to work as she fights to remove the water and find air. But she is no fish… soon she will be nothing at all. Her eyes slip closed. 

Hunter curses every single thing he can think of as he pushes FlapJack as fast as he'll go. He was utterly useless in that fight, one look at Belos and he'd frozen up, how was he supposed to protect these people if he couldnt even- he plunges into the water without a second thought, eyes squinted as he follows the bubbles down to Luz's limp form. He wraps a careful arm around her back, pulling them all to the surface. 

"Luz, Luz wake up," he sputters water and wipes his eyes clear as he frazzedly looks over Luz's unmoving form. "Come on, just hold on, y-youre gonna be okay!" He quickly searches her jacket, pulling out soaked glyphs, quick to do what he remembers her doing. 

A fireball to the sky, exploding in brilliant light, a fire made nearbye for warmth, carefully rolling Luz onto her back he braces himself before pushing down on her abdomen, right below her sternum. He cant say he knows what he's doing, but this is the section of the body you push on to help someone whos choking, if it doesn't work-

After only a few pushes shes convulsing and he quickly pushes her onto her side as water- and whatever else- is expelled. He cant help the choked sound of relief he makes, holding her steady as she disolves into a fit of coughs. 

"Oh thank the Titan." FlapJack tweets his agreement pecking at the humans hand. 

She either doesnt notice or doesnt care, soaked hair curling into her face and hiding it from Hunters view, her coughing has finally died down, shivers wracking her form as she slumps into Hunters hold. 

"Luz?" 

"'M'okay." She looks up at Hunter, eyes wet and lip wobbling.

Something hits Hunter then, a passing thought solidifing before his eyes. 

For all of Luz's joking and poking and prodding, she is still a kid. A kid who apparently just faced Hunters worst nightmare, and probably almost died at least twice. Not to mention every other thing she'd faced since stepping into this world shes now stranded in. 

"We'll get through this." He says it with as much determination as he can muster, just as shadows fall over them from the sky. 

They both tense automatically, Luz's trembling hand already drawing a circle in the mud forming beneath their soaked forms, and Hunters hand outstretched for FlapJack. 

"Luz! Hunter!" Several voices reach their ears, familiar and concerned and the two relax. 

For the secrets the two share, they forget sometimes that they are not alone. It may just take a minute for them to learn what sharing burdens actually meant.

[animation-recaps-by-sean]

The Owl House-Thanks to Them Recap

Luz and the witches struggle to adapt to the human realm while dark forces gather. Also Camila is MVP of cartoon moms. Spoilers below.

Well, this was fantastic. There was some fear as to see if the shortened season would hurt it. Answer, not yet. Now The Owl House was always a lean show, even its most fillery episodes contained some plot momentum, so the shortened time doesn’t seem to be affecting them as much as it did star vs or steven universe.

So we began right where we left off. I’m a little surprised at this as I thought we would get a time skip, but we do get to see mother and daughter reunite. So that’s nice. We do get a montage of the kids hanging out on Earth. Including Luz coming out to her mom in a sweet video and some nice lumity moments. I know everyone is talking about this as an abridged season and it’s hard not to, but this does work on its own. If you didn’t know about the cancellation, it works as a good montage. The whole episode is like this. The pacing of the whole episode is perfect. I’d rather celebrate what we have than mourn what might have been if that makes sense.

Luz is not dealing well with school, with the painful reminders of her past, that look the art teacher gives man, and Luz projecting onto a character in a class book, egg is still egg, and she’s the only one who can’t do magic. We do get some foreshadowing with Luz's pailsmen, which the egg is placed next to some snake skin.

Camila is the real MVP of this episode. She’s trying to research on how best to raise nonhuman kids and she's down to find them blood. She’s even reading into gender nonbinary; I do wonder if it’s for the gender nonconforming Luz or the shapeshifting Vee. We also learn that she was a god damn trekkie. That’s so cute. What’s not so cute, Camila too was bullied as a teen and was pressured into sending Luz to the camp. It was so heartbreaking to watch Camila just get beaten down by society.

And we get to see the goth teen again. Who it turns out is non binary. Good for them. And they reveal the Whitbane brothers backstory. It’s what the fandom assumed, Caleb dating a witch, Philip kills him, but it’s nice to see it confirmed. It is weird that they don’t notice how different Luz is. Did Luz keep up with Vee’s friends when he took her life back? I think this is the only part I felt the loss of a full season. We do get to see them hang out with Vee in credits so that’s something.

Hunter is living his best life free of Belos, getting into wolves and the star trek knock off. So naturally he gets processed by Belos. They discover a bit of Titans blood, which makes Luz’s glyphs work again. The whole graveyard fight is wonderfully done. Both actionwise and thematic wise. And they went full smooth for the fight.  Vee, you would think would be super helpful here but Willow pushes her to the side after Belos nearly punches her.

Hunter takes back control and drowns himself, but Belos just slimes out of him and opens the portal. An injured flapjack gives his life to save Hunter. God, listening to everyone talk about if the hospital could even help Hunter gave me chills. Hunter lives with a renewed view of his identity. He tells Luz she’s not to blame, Belos tricks people, that's what he does. Camila declares that she’ll go with the gang to the demon realm, helping to save Luz’s relationship with the people she loves.

Willow acts like she’ll be back, Vee stays behind which is a little sad but a) she has trauma associated with the Boiling Isles and b) the writers have enough characters to juggle for the finale two specials.

This was a fantastic episode and kudos to the crew making some damn fine lemonade from some sour lemons. 4/4

[manic-pixie-dream-dude]

What is your opinion of caleb wittebane and evenly clawthore? Do you think they parallel lunter very well?

Yeah! I've mentioned it before but I think that, while there seems to be Caleb and Philip parallels being written in now, The one that was originally (and still currently) the most prominent to me is Caleb and Evelyn.

The latter makes more sense to me because while Hunter lived the same cyclic hell as the other grimwalkers who were then killed by Belos like Caleb, Luz doesn't... have many narrative similarities to Belos? at least none that I can think of off the top of my head.

I'd thought so, early on, thinking both were people who sought a fantastical world, but that wasn't it at all, so it doesn't really make sense to me that people try to place her alongside Belos.

She has many similarities to Caleb, tho! From leaving her world to go the demon realm, getting together with a witch, and the visual framing of her holding possessed!Hunter in the recent ep which resembles the memory of Caleb hugging Philip etc.

Though, granted, I get it. Because who else is gonna fill the role? Hunter and Luz are arguably the most tangled up within the plot of the other three, so I'm not surprised that they're shuffled around to symbolize Philip, Caleb, and Evelyn depending on the scene. I only wish this was a bit more consistent in the writing.

Oh, I've seen possessed!Hunter get referred to as helos and more hilariously, Bunter.

And that's an interesting scenario.... I think if Belos had made Hunter hurt Luz seriously in any way, it would've been a similar reaction as when Flapjack was injured, where Hunter momentarily snaps out of it, trying to reel himself in or get away before he could hurt anyone else. Everyone would be alarmed and try to get Luz to a hospital, but while that was happening Hunter would be trying to drown himself and considering how Camila would be too focused on her daughter to save Hunter, yeah, that would've been awful. Bad ending.

I must say, tho... I was mulling over this wondering "Why didn't Belos hurt her like w Flapjack? It woulda been easier than to chuck her off him, surely." that's when I realized he probably doesn't want to.

It's no secret how creepy Belos is, how he has this one-sided allyship with Luz; he keeps acting like they're friends, like he's doing what's best for her, etc. I don't think he wants her to be injured or dead, he wants to "save her soul" much like with Caleb. In his mind, he thinks she's gone astray and it's his responsibility to be her savior, so he must keep her out of his way but alive.

[pyroclastic727]

Owl House said fuck capitalism

So this episode was interesting. Lilith pretty much killed her sister. Why the fuck would she do that?

Even more interesting: why is Belos like that? How did Hooty put his head through one of those guards? Who the fuck is the Titan, and why does everyone like him? And how are these all tied together?

This episode was a metaphor for capitalism

...and another delicious step towards radicalizing the youth into dismantling this fucked-up neo-feudal system.

We’ll start with Belos. 

Emperor Belos is a weird name, don’t you think? We all thought it was spelled “Bellows,” but it wasn’t. In fact, it’s five letters, starts with Be, ends with os, and describes a megalomaniac emperor that restricts people’s freedom in order to accumulate wealth for himself.

Sound familiar?

Emperor Bezos Belos created capitalism. He saw the beauty of magic and decided to make himself the most powerful.

Belos created a system that destroys the masses and boosts his power.

 I’m dipping into fan theory a little, because the fan theory fits. We know that people get branded with coven magic that makes it so they can only specialize in one area. We know that Belos is the most powerful witch in the Boiling Isles. We know that the excess magic, magic created by restrictions, has to go somewhere.

It’s the same system that many viewers see all the time. A job takes up all your day and tires you for the night, so you can only do one skill for the rest of your life. Jeff Bezos is the most powerful man in the United States. Excess money, money taken by restrictions, has to go somewhere.

The magic goes to Belos, like how the money goes to Bezos. Belos created capitalism, and he won it.

The guards aren’t real. 

Look, we’ve never seen their faces. They’re all the same. Why would you work so hard to get to the top, just to become a nameless, faceless killing machine?

Oh, also Hooty stuck his face through one. There is nothing under the armor.

Why? Well, it’s the same reason you see all those celebrities going around flaunting their wealth and bragging about how hard they worked. Like all those songs about how they grind every day and work harder than everyone else while you’re out clubbing, and that makes them dope. And then you take a closer look at them and see that they had a small loan of a million dollars fueling them, or an entire talent agency behind them, or their dad was a famous country star in the 80′s. 

They’re fake. They’re hollow. They’re a ploy created by the capitalist emperor to try to delude you into working harder. 

Let me put this into perspective. I guarantee that every single one of you has heard stuff like this: “Hard work makes you successful.” “I put in the work, and that’s why I’m successful.” “If you work hard enough, then you can be as successful as Mark Zuckerberg.” 

And unless you’re a robot or really lucky, I’m sure all of you have failed at this. Maybe they told you that hard work would make you good at math, so you spent 22 hours a week working on calculus, only to pass it by 3 percentage points and have it destroy your perfect 4.0 GPA. Maybe they told you that if you talked to people enough, then you would make friends, so you spent a lot of time talking to people, only to end up lonely and friendless. Maybe they told you that if you did well in school, you would get a good job, so you spent all your time working hard to be a good student, and then ended up in a soulless, dead-end job.

The guards are there to delude you. Look, who really gains from you being productive? The answer is the ruling class, the CEOs, the government, the bourgeoisie. It has always been that. All you get from working is a paycheck that lets you survive. They get a paycheck that lets them get rich. Just like Belos gets the magic and productivity of the specialized coven witches.

The guards are there to trick you. The truth is that nobody can join the Emperor’s Coven. It’s just there to make you think that hard work will make you successful. Then you spend your entire life working hard, trying to prove to the person in charge that you’re worthwhile. You give your whole life to the Coven, and they give you nothing. 

Magic is supposed to be something you pursue for fun. Being skilled at things, being good at something beautiful...that’s supposed to be something you do because you want to. But they took that and made it into a source of productivity. It doesn’t matter if you make good content. All people fucking care about is if you upload the day of premiere, if you make a lot of content quickly, if you maintain a million different conversations with strangers who expect you to be the most interesting person in the room. They don’t care how it hurts you. They don’t care how you crack from the stress. How you cry when you think no one can see you, and then you check your phone and someone can see you, someone did see you, and you have to put on your face and be the charming, magnetic person they want you to be. (oh by the way that’s why I wasn’t online much last week)

And it ruins it. Suddenly you can’t watch The Owl House without being stressed. You can’t make any content. You can’t make spells as powerfully as you want to. Your passion is replaced by perfectionism and insecurity, a voice telling you to keep being the best at what you do, or else they’ll forget you and let you die.

There’s also the Titan. 

So nobody has mentioned him before, because in addition to the Boiling Isles being a hellscape full of witchcraft and queerness, it’s also full of atheists. 

But suddenly we have people saying all this shit about him? Shit like, he gave witches the gift of magic, and then they learned to use it in a civilized manner, since being uncivilized was disrespectful?

I mean, first off, that’s fucking wrong. The island gives people magic. The island, which just so happened to be shaped like a titan-sized human. But the island/titan gives everyone all types of magic. Hell, even Luz gets to use magic, and she’s human. 

It sounds really fucking familiar. (tw for discussion of homophobia and colonialism and misogyny). It sounds like when the news is on and they show some Tr*mp supporter talking about how fetuses have more rights than people and it is their holy duty to take away a woman’s control over her body and force her through unbearable pain and into an 18-year commitment she didn’t want to make. It sounds like all the times people tried to say homosexuality should be illegal, citing a single line in a book written two thousand years ago and heavily edited by a European king. It sounds like all the times people said God wanted them to conquer, to own the entire earth, to force the other races into pain to support them.

This is that bullshit thing people do where they commit awful sins and justify it by citing the will of God. 

Or, it’s the Coven using religion as an excuse for evil.

Look, the Emperor’s Coven is clearly colonizer-coded. Saying that people’s original form of magic was wild (and showing a picture with the same joyous, rowdy energy of an 18th or 19th -century Black or indigenous party), and that it was God’s will for them to be “civilized?” Sounds like that thing that powerful white people did where they went and murdered people and forced them into their twisted capitalist system. God, gold, and glory, is what they said, because history books just love to omit the gore.

Lilith is passing the abuse cycle along. 

You know, like a good little colonizer. God I fucking hate her. She’s a MILF, in the sense that she’s a Mother I’d Like to Fling off a cliff. 

Ah, enough screaming about how much I want to drown Lilith in a tub of Hooty’s mucus. Let’s go into why I want to do that, and how she took the evils of capitalism and just...adopted those.

So, Lilith is sick and twisted for what she did to her sister. But, uhh, that’s the point. You see, there are so many other people out there like Lilith who would do the exact same thing, if given the chance. These are the people who do mean things when the teacher isn’t looking, and then act nice and try to frame you. These are the people who will hate you if you’re better than them. These are people who would do anything to bring you down, if you dare outperform them.

It’s greed, my friends. The mental illness that capitalism blesses us all with.

Lilith herself said it: she dedicated her entire life to the Coven. What she wanted was to be the best. And she almost was...except for her own sister. Someone who lived with her, annoyed her at home, bested her at school. Someone she could never beat, no matter how hard she worked. And her sister was younger than her, too! How insulting was that? Lilith wanted to be the best, and someone in her exact situation did better than her.

Lilith was insecure. And it consumed her.

But why? Why does insecurity consume her? I mean, no one can be motivated by insecurity forever. Well, not unless someone conditions it into you.

The lovely thing about the capitalist system is the morals it teaches you. Things like: “You’re only useful if you’re the best.” “Being school smart makes you smart, while being social smart or sports smart or creative smart or fandom smart is worthless.” “Your worth can be quantified by numbers and is based off arbitrary measures like your income or your grades.” Things that can and will drive us crazy if we let ourselves believe them.

And it did drive Lilith crazy. She got so twisted by a society that said being good at magic is her only worth. Look, Lilith used to be good at things, probably. She was good at sports. At times, she slips up and does an okay job of being Eda’s sister. She has a powerful presence when she’s in a room. And she’s wicked good at manipulating people. 

But that didn’t matter. Lilith bought into the lies. She let herself believe that magical skill was the only way to measure her worth. And since she needed to be the best, she hurt Eda for it.

The beautiful thing is, Eda didn’t buy that. "It’s my power, kid. And before you showed up, I spent my whole life wasting it.” Is what Eda said, as she used up the last of her power, the last of her life, to save Luz. In her final moments, she proved that she’s not like them. She’s stronger than them.

None of this matters. Not magical prowess. Not the hierarchy. Not the promise of joining the Coven and having more power than anyone else.

The only thing that matters to Eda is her family. Her real family. Her Luz, King, and Hooty. And by extension, Willow, Gus, and Amity. Those are Eda’s real reason for fighting, for dying: to protect them. Look, there’s no way she would’ve come out of that fight alive. She has a family, and her love for them is stronger than greed or jealousy or capitalism. 

Lilith never understood that. She thought the water of the womb was thicker than the blood of the covenant. Or, that the water of the womb and the blood of the covenant are stronger than the bonds of found family. She thought it didn’t matter if Eda loved, her, only if the Emperor loved her. Fucking bitch.

And now, a little something to worry about, before we go. Amity Blight. The girl who wanted to join the Emperor’s Coven more than anything, who dedicated her whole life to doing well in school, to being the best, to being perfect.

And then she met Luz. She fell for Luz. Now she’s in a tricky place, where habit and conditioning want her to join the Emperor’s Coven, but her heart wants her to do the impossible and destroy capitalism.

She wasn’t in this episode. Funny that being injured and unable to work ended up saving her from watching her future mother-in-law die. So she bought some time.

But Luz’s true mom is dead. This is the second mom she has lost, and she’s only fourteen. As powerful as King and Hooty are, Luz needs Amity. Luz needs Amity to support her and help her get back her mom.

So Amity has to make a choice. Fear and insecurity, or love and a high chance of death? 

She’ll probably choose death. Because that’s the message that this family-friendly show is giving us kids. Fuck capitalism. All you need in life is to do what makes you happy and be with the ones you love.

[crystallhamptonhersheykiss]

Watching the owl house season 2 episode 1 separate tides, I already like the owl spy/the golden guard. I think he's going to end up being a fan favorite if he isn't already.

So far he's a little different then I thought he'd be. He's younger, I've heard that Dana said he was 16. He definitely acts like a teenager. He acts a bit goofy. And honestly I think he acts like Eda a little bit. (He likes to play around, the way he says bye like she does, and he also annoys and frustrates Lilith too.)

We saw him interacting with the main three, I'm excited to see him interacting with the rest of the owl house gang. Lilith I think it'll be fun to see what their relationship was like. We know what Lilith thinks of him, but how does he feel about her? Does he dislike her? Enjoy annoying and messing with her? Or something completely different. And someone pointed out what about him and Gus? They already have some things in common. Lilith described him as being a prodigy, and Gus skipped two grades and is the youngest of the main kids.

I've seen some theories about him being Belos's son, or that he's related to the clawthornes. He has an owl mask which according to Dana, birds are a Clawthorne thing. (Its interesting to note that birds also seem to be an emperor thing as well.) He also has the same hair color as Belos. Uses the same kind of staff, And again he kinda acts like Eda. None of that really means anything. But nonetheless those are interesting theories, But I think its a little early to say if any will be true.

I've also people saying he might be redeemed. Which again I think is too early too tell. Keep in mind he did threaten to drown King. Not only that but he also threaten to give Luz and Eda third degree burns. (The boiling sea). He did keep his word about not arresting all of them. And when he left he did say "Try to stay out of trouble." Still doesn't excuse the fact that he threatened to hurt all of them though.

He is still a teenager, (He does act a bit like the twins). So there's always a chance he'll get a redemption arc like Lilith. But there's also a chance he'll be an anti hero or an antagonist like Belos and won't get redeemed at all.

One thing I hope we get is see what is life in the coven is like. It sounded like he was Lilith's replacement. I believe he was also the one drawn in the live stream that said "I'm tired." Maybe he has too many responsibilities, and maybe at a job where's he's expected to grow up, probably too fast. Does he have any friends his age? Or is he by himself most of the time. Does he still talk to or is close to any of his family? And how did he cut his ear and get the scar on his arm. From the drawings Dana has posted, I'm also excited to see him and Kikimora interact in the show.

There's a lot of things the show can do with him. He's definitely a brat and will most likely be an antagonist for most of the season if not the rest of the show. But I'm interested in seeing what the show ends up doing with him. Especially since Dana and others who work on the show say they really like the character.

[mythicandco]

I have 1% Battery Left And I’m Wasting it on This

A.K.A. Philip B. Wittebane (in which the “B” stands for “Belos”)

Warning: More than 90% of this is pure headcanoning and theorizing, based on the evidence that’s arisen and the ideas of many other members of the fandom. This theory has been circling the Owl House fandom for months, I DID NOT ORIGINALLY CREATE IT. Brooke and North are from this and so is some of the story, but the majority of the details are the work of my own convoluted brain. This was kinda disproved by Yesterday’s Lie but I want to post it before my computer dies. Anyways, I hope you enjoy this summarized monstrosity… 

Everything is once again below the cut

Philip stumbles into the Boiling Isles by complete accident while on a hike through the woods, tripping into a rift in the fabric of space-time created by Titan’s blood interacting with other various magical substances. He doesn’t realize he’s in another realm until he actually stops to look around, and is startled to come face-to-face with a trio of witches. 

The first witch, Brooke, is taller than their companions, with a big ol’ witchy hat and a pair of grey, tasseled earrings. North, only slightly shorter than Brooke, has a similar hat along with a matching cloak and blonde, curled hair. Her face is covered in scars. The last witch is Kirani, who ends up being a minor character but eh.

The trio is here to collect Titan’s blood for Brooke’s experiments with magic. They believe that by using their knowledge of potions, they can create an elixir of some form to allow witches to perform magic without the use of glyphs. The exact recipe is a work in progress, but they know that Titan’s blood will be a key ingredient. 

When the group first encounters Philip, they are startled by his small, round ears. The bemused human assures them he means no harm and eventually they decide that even if he does want to hurt them, he doesn’t have access to the magical knowledge to do so. This is further proven when a dragon nearly eats Philip (more on that later). They take him to their village to help him find a way home and survive until then. 

Over the next five or so years the group spends a lot of time together, Philip begins writing a journal, and North, Brooke and Philip form a friendship, often going on adventures together with the help of their palismans. North even trusts Philip enough to let him use her staff for transportation until he eventually gets the chance to carve his own. During this time Philip also learns a lot about glyph magic and the creatures of the Boiling Isles, and is surprised at how naturally it comes for him to draw the glyphs from memory and get them right. 

At one point Philip and the others travel to the Knee to retrieve some Titan’s blood from Eclipse Lake. Brooke stays behind to start collecting the other, more local ingredients to their spell, and North is forced to stay behind due to injuries sustained after fighting off a swarm of small, dragon-like creatures.

The expedition is a disaster, and after mistaking fool’s blood for Titan’s blood, Philip is the only one who makes it out alive following the cave-in. Philip is horrified at this turn of events but simultaneously relieved that Brooke and North didn’t accompany him on this particular mission. He comes back with the Titan’s blood, but not the rest of the group, and has to explain what happened. 

The village begins spreading rumors that he killed them to take the blood for himself, or that he is too incompetent to continue leading these expeditions. Brooke and North also get a share of the blame, being the ones who brought the human to their village in the first place. Brooke retreats to their study for a few weeks, taking the Titan’s blood with them. 

Things get even worse after the Titan’s blood excursion and the neighboring witch tribes hear about the dangerous human who supposedly kills witches and other creatures in cold blood for his own gain. (Rumors are nasty things, slightly more terrifying the longer they’re out there.) Philip finds it almost ironic that in this world of freaks and monsters, he’s the target of the torches and pitchforks. 

While out trading at a small market shared by a couple of the tribes, North is confronted by the leader of another clan and accused of betraying her kind. Things escalate quickly and she barely gets out without things coming to blows. 

Philip starts worrying that he is becoming a burden and a danger to the others, not because he actually wants to hurt them, but because they will get in trouble for sheltering him. He offers to help out Brooke with the portal, which is nearly finished. While they are distracted, he pockets some of the Titan’s blood and some other magical supplies from when Brooke was experimenting with improving a witch’s ability to perform magic. 

Philip uses the potion on himself, but because he is human, not a witch or demon, and isn’t connected to the Titan, he can only use magic by taking it from another source. He starts off using various plants and the horns and tusks of the creatures the village usually uses for jewelry or tosses aside after, I dunno, making a pie with it or something, and practices using spell circles in secret, making sure he can defend himself and the others should the need arise. 

Soon he discovers that he needs more and more magic to stay powerful - to stay stable - and slips up in front of Brooke, losing control for less than a moment before using a spare flower he’d been keeping in his back pocket as a gift for North.

Brooke, understandably, is freaked out by what the fuck just happened and Philip begs for them to keep it a secret. He admits that he stole some of Brooke’s concoctions so that he could protect himself from the witches of the other tribes, and that he needs a reliable source of energy to continue using magic. Brooke argues that what he’s doing is dangerous and unnatural, and that a human shouldn’t be able to use magic the way he does. 

Philip is furious, yelling at Brooke for hogging all of the magic for themselves. He says that where he comes from, witches were supposed to be burned at the stake or drowned. Brooke, horrified, backs away. Philip realizes he’s gone too far and flees back to the home he and the witches constructed when he first arrived in the Boiling Isles. 

His state continues to worsen, and eventually he is driven to snap his own palisman in order to consume its essence. With horrified awe, Philip discovers palismen hold far more magical energy than the little table scraps he’d been collecting before. He is able to briefly rejoin the rest of the tribe, but Brooke doesn’t speak to him and he keeps thinking about his broken palisman.

A few days later Brooke finally finishes the portal and gives Philip the key. The human doesn’t get the chance to test out the door before one of the rival tribes attacks the village out of nowhere and Philip joins in defending the people he’s spent years with. North is stunned that he can weave magic without the use of glyphs, but she doesn’t have the time to consult Brooke on where the human gained this new ability. 

At some point Philip corners the leader of the rival clan and nearly kills her, running out of magic just before the final blow is dealt. He reaches for the nearest source of power - North’s palisman - and snaps it in half. 

For a few moments, North and Brooke process what just happened amidst the chaos. Then the fighting stops and everyone watches as Philip finishes consuming the palisman’s essence. 

Philip looks up with glowing eyes and pauses, confused at everyone’s expressions. The fighting picks back up, this time directed at him, and someone throws a spear straight through his chest. It goes in one side and comes out the other, but the human(?) remains unharmed. The witches and demons start freaking the fuck out, because wouldn’t you in this situation? 

Finally registering what he’s done, a horrified Philip backs away and makes a break for the trees. He never sees Brooke or North again. 

In a clearing in the woods, Philip summons the door to the Human Realm but doesn’t have the courage to step through. He realizes that he is no better than the other monsters of the Demon Realm. He’d probably be shunned if he went home. Would anyone even recognize what he’d become? He once again briefly loses control of himself before giving up and throwing the key to the portal into the trees as hard as he can, before disappearing into the foliage himself.

North burns everything Philip touched, his books, home, everything in her fit of anger over the loss of her palisman and one of her best friends (or maybe something more). She is furious with Brooke for not telling her about him sooner and the two witches engage in an argument. Afterwards, Brooke discovers the journal Philip was going to donate to the market library, the one with all of his recorded notes and diagrams about the fantastical horror of the Demon Realm, and instead of burning it, donates it in their lost friend’s name.

A few centuries go by and Philip Wittebane’s name is practically lost to time, save for the journal that still resides in the almost-constantly growing library in what is now Bonesborough. 

A powerful, controlling figure arises, claiming he alone can communicate with the Titan, and that the wild magic used by witches is wrong. Emperor Belos unites the witches of the Boiling Isles under the Coven system, ascending the throne and becoming the most powerful being (both physically and politically) on the Boiling Isles. 

The rest, as they say, is history.

[pandoratheprocrasticreator]

like hunter was purposely going to drown himself right. thats a thing that happened in the episode right. people are saying because belos took over and jumped in the water after the titan’s blood it means hunter wasn’t trying to drown himself but like. what else did he expect belos to do?

hunter said he didn’t want belos to hurt anyone else. throwing the titan’s blood into the water was to keep him from going back to the boiling isles. but if hunter didn’t expect belos to jump in after it then in his mind belos would just be angry from that, while his friends are nearby for him to attack. hunter is smart. he knows how desperate belos would be to get what he wants. so the way i see it hunter threw the titan blood in the water knowing belos would go after it, and tried to drown belos to keep him from hurting the others.

and like. hunter is a child soldier. he definitely knows how to swim. we even see him hanging around in the water in the season 2 premiere. and belos has been adventuring for centuries there’s no way he figured out how to turn someone to stone before learning how to swim. not to mention if he didn’t know how to swim jumping into the water after the blood was a really bad idea lmao (not that phillip doesn’t have a track record of bad ideas) so i feel like hunter was more active in trying to drown belos

like belos jumped into the water and immediately started drowning but no people can hold their breath for a long time. and hunter was already fighting for control at that point so it seems like to me that hunter waited until belos jumped in and took over and breathed in a bunch of water to drown him. ofc they had to keep it ambiguous because this is a show on disney channel but how quickly belos started drowning plus hunter’s whole monologue about how he wanted to have a happy life but defeating belos was more important really screams that this was all on purpose.