#but in this case I think it's more likely that it's going to force Luz herself to confront some issues she's been avoiding

[wingsyliveblogs]

Despite everything I just said, this is really cute. I bet Amity believes her wholeheartedly, too. 

Yup, that’s pretty much how I feel about spiders too. 

And with that, I’ve reached the first ad break point, and I’m feeling a bit sleepy, so I’ll call it here for now! We’ll pick this up again very soon. This Grom fight is a trainwreck waiting to happen, and I’m both excited and extremely apprehensive about how it’s going to go!

[pincushionx]

Blood warning!

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I see lots of fanfics that talk about the Grimwalker stories and myths as Grimwalkers being these predators that hunt witches and are these monster that feed off of flesh, but all of these are usually false and like I said just myths.

So what if that wasn’t the case? What if Grimwalkers were the flesh craving beasts everyone thinks they are. Aka me giving Hunter the Tokyo Ghoul treatment (kinda)

This image takes place during Thanks to Them, he’s hunting and consuming animals to sustain himself but they can only do so much. He keeps it a secret because he’s ashamed, scared and full of self loathing. Unfortunately you can only sneak out and wash your clothes so frequently until you get caught.

…

The craving flesh started around the time Hunter started hitting his second stage of puberty, so around 12 to 13 years old. It started off as spouts of aggression, weight loss and odd carvings that he suppressed until he eventually snapped and attacked a scout. Once he consumed flesh, there was no going back.

This happened with a few Grimwalkers, typically one made around pubescent years due to this being a natural development. Grimwalkers who are made as adults don’t get this since get miss that developmental period. A reason why Belos made Grimwalkers strictly adults for hundreds of years before trying out a new experiment.

When Belos made Hunter, he was aware of this and rather than kill Hunter off or just make an adult Grimwalker, he decided he can benefit from a “monster” needing a source of food.

Hence, Hunter picking up a reputation for being “feral.” Belos supplies Hunter with blood and flesh but not enough to satisfy him, just the minimum to keep him alive. This is to keep Hunter at a state where he’s willing to do more work to earn more food but unfortunately this just results in cases of Hunter going “too far” aka mauling different beings (witches, beasts, demons, ect) during missions on the accounts he’s literally starving and being triggered in fights.

He can eat normal food but his sense of taste is bit dull and doesn’t give him the nutrition he needs. He can eat and eat and it will do nothing. He learns to satisfy himself through eating animals he hunts during missions. When he gets to the human realm he eats his food with an overwhelming amount of seasoning just to taste it.

He also has a very strong jaw and sharp teeth, like hyena type stuff.

(Imagine a scenario he pauses a mission mid way to go hunt some voles and eat them raw and the scouts just standing there like-)

After Hollow mind Hunter struggles because now he’s has little source of witch or demon flesh (he raids the healing classes for blood and kitchen for uncooked meat)

So during thanks to them he’s forced to live with three witches, a basilisk, two humans who are somewhat similar to witches and oh boy he struggles. His friends are concerned. Camila notices Hunter eats a lot but still looks like he isn’t gaining weight, Gus notices that he sneaks out, Vee smells something wrong with him, Luz sees how on edge he is, Amity catches on to his burst of aggression (caused by hunger and stress) and Willow notices he avoids them.

They all already knows something is off with him (heightened senses, unusual teeth and jaw strength, glowing eyes, unusually tight and powerful muscles despite how gaunt he is) but only Luz knows he’s a grimwalker but hasn’t quite put the peices that’s he’s a unnatural, natural predator to witches and demons. The witches, Vee and even the humans feel a slight primal fear around Hunter but they can’t quite put the reason why, he puts them on edge even if they love him but something’s off.

Despite the fact that all of them are willing to give him blood, even some flesh if they could, the boy just refuses, since he sees himself as a literal monster that needs to be locked up.

This is me giving Hunter Grimwalker trauma x100. Anywho this is my late Halloween post aka my billionth AU idea. This was inspired by Tokyo Ghoul, Ginger snaps(2000) and the fic [redacted] Hunter by ApaMonkey on ao3! Yall should read it!

I have a weakness for flesh craving characters who aren’t villains but they aren’t so common so of course I had to project that love to my own skrunkly!

[mymanyfandomramblings]

Hair Storytelling In The Owl House--The Good and The...Not-So-Good

The Owl House is a very good show, and it's really interesting to look at in terms of visual storytelling, because it tends to oscillate between very very good and...not quite so good, I think the hair storytelling is a good way to demonstrate this, because there's so much interesting stuff to get into with it. Without further ado, let us discuss (and in case you're worried this is going to be overly critical, I do love the show, and there's a lot of positives to talk about with this too).

Beware, essay post ahead!

First up...

The Good

So, we can't talk about the hair storytelling in TOH without talking about the ultimate example of expository hairstyle change in this show, and the current page image for the Western Animation folder for that trope on TVTropes--

Amity Blight

I'm actually not going to spend ages going into the specifics, because it's more or less spelled out in the show--early on, Amity's hair is dyed the same colour as her mother's, and pulled into a very visually sharp, tight and no-nonsense style, which demonstrates a certain rigidity, obsession with propriety and an inability to be 'herself, but rather to be the person her mom wants her to be. Her purple hair is her own choice--therefore signfying personal autonomy--and the style is much looser and makes her look softer, demonstrating that she's more relaxed and happier. Purple is also a colour that's very prominent in Luz's design, so by dying her hair purple, Amity is incorporating some of that into hers. Excellent hair storytelling here!

Next up, one of my favourites in terms of design--

Lilith

This is the Lilith we meet initially:

Her whole designs screams neatness, propriety and severity, and her hair is a big part of it--it's very dark, which a) matches her very dark clothing--her whole aesthetic is very tied-together, b) gives her a 'darkness' association which is fitting for the first major antagonist of the show (interestingly, future villains would have very bright aesthetics, but Lilith's design definitely has a 'dark colours for evil characters' vibe) and c) contrasts very sharply with her very, very pale skin, to create an overall 'sharp' impression. Similarly, her very straight hair both suggests that she is very, very neat in a conventional way, and continues to offer very little relief to her very angular features. This all goes double when compared with Eda, who has pale grey hair which is super wild (Lilith's introductory episode even has a running gag about how big and unkempt Eda's hair is).

So Lilith's hair actually does quite a bit to tell her about who she is as a person here, especially when we see what she looked like as a kid at the end of the season.

Look how different a younger Lilith looks, especially hair-wise. Her hair is bright red, curly and even bigger than Eda's in its natural state. Very different from the aggressively straight, and very dark hair she sports as a Coven Head. This is a really simple way for the show to demonstrate that Lilith was forced to conform as a member of the Emperor's Coven and also that the Lilith we see today is very different than the person she used to be.

And it doesn't end there! Check out post-redemption Lilith:

As time goes by and she increasingly puts her time in the Emperor's Coven behind her, she increasingly embraces her hair in it's natural state. In the months that follow her defection, she appears to continue to dye her hair--although she does own her white streak--but she lets her curls come back to some degree, and even just letting the bottom curl goes a long way to soften her features and make her seem a little more approachable. And then by the epilogue, she's happily wearing her red curls again--showing that she's both embracing her less 'put-together' side and returning to who she really is, and also that she's deprogramming from all the Emperor's rhetoric. The hair storytelling is really well done here.

The next examples aren't as major, and I won't say as much about them as I did about Lilith, but I still think they're good examples of hair storytelling:

Eda

Eda's hair in and of itself tends to tell us a bit about her--it's big, it's wild, it's unkempt and full of stuff and unapologetically unmanageable, just like Eda--but that's not quite what I want to discuss. I want to discuss something that is most noticeable in Eda's Requiem specifically:

This ponytail:

When she joins the mission with the BATTS, Eda ties her hair back into a ponytail. Now, there are some explanations for this that make sense--she's about to do something dangerous, she might not want to have as recognisable a silhouette etc.--EXCEPT that none of those reasons have ever made her tie it back in any other situation (the closest we get is her putting it in a cowl in Covention).

However, we see flashbacks in Eda's Requiem and Knock, Knock, Knocking on Hooty's Door which tell us a very interesting story:

The only times we see Eda with her hair in a ponytail are in Raine (and Raeda) related situations. One wonders if this is an in-universe thing--if joining a mission with the BATTS and seeing Raine again made Eda nostalgic and chose to wear her hair the way she wore it when they were together--or if it was just a fun little thing the animators chose to include to tie the scenes together. I especially love it, because in Watching and Dreaming, we see Eda not quite wearing a ponytail, but she does have her hair tied back, and every indication in the timeskip is that Eda and Raine are back together. It's a really fun touch

Camila

When we first meet Camila, her hair is in a straight bob, but as we realize in Thanks To Them, her hair is naturally curly. It's highly likely she's been straightening it for much the same reason as Lilith--'professionalism' and/or to conform to societal beauty standards. But as she embraces the weirdness around her and embraces the fact that she should have been encouraging Luz's idiosyncracies more, we see her start to embrace her curls more. It's small but sweet.

So, as you can see, TOH does really know how to use hair as visual storytelling, which makes it a little disappointing when they drop the ball in places, which brings us to...

The Not-So-Good

First things first, you will notice I did not say 'the bad'. That is because I am, for the most part, fans of both Hunter and Willow's hair storytelling (and yes, they're who I'll be talking about here), I just think both their epilogue designs missed the point of all their prior hair storytelling. Now, without further ado--

Hunter

So, there's kind of a Big Thing made out of the fact that Hunter cuts his hair because he doesn't appreciate the resemblance to either Caleb or Belos, and it's made really clear in his conversation with Flapjack where he acknowleges that even if he's not sure who he's supposed to be, he likes the person he's becoming. Hunter is at his happiest when his hair is cut quite short (and sans the Caleb forelock). But this doesn't last--he ends up with his old style again pretty soon

Because he was possessed. Because Belos--his abuser--overrode his bodily autonomy and forcefully tried to make Hunter into the person he, Belos, wanted him to be. Horrifically traumatic, right? And you'd think that would make reasonably clear that the longer hair, with the forelock, is all what Belos wanted, and not what Hunter wanted, right?

However, Hunter's timeskip design:

For the most part, I really like it--look at those sparkly eyes! my boy is finally happy!--but I can't get over the fact that he wears his hair grown out and in a style that's so heavily connected with one of the most traumatic experiences of his life, and also so heavily connected with the fact that his abuser never wanted to him to be anything more than a replacement Caleb. Yeah.

It's not a decision I love, even if I love everything else about timeskip!Hunter.

and last, but absolutely, decidedly not least

Willow

So, in this case, it's an odd case, because it doesn't exactly matter where Willow started--her initial bobbed hairdo doesn't really say much about her--but it's more when and how her hair changes that says more about it.

So, Willow wears her hair bobbed until mid-Season Two, where during Follies at the Coven Day parade, she asks Amity to braid it. Now, this is important, because it expressly marks a turning point in their relationship--both girls note that it's nice that they can do this now, and dispels most of the last lingering awkwardness between them. And in the next episode, we see Willow with her brand-new braids, plus some new glasses and a whole lot of enthusiasm for starting her flyer derby team. Any Sport In A Storm is full of Willow demonstrating her capacity for making friends, showing off her skills with both plants and sport, and generally, it's a great episode for her strength. So, the braided pigtails happen to turn up at the same time as we see Willow actively choose to take a step forward in her friendship with Amity, as well as the first time we really see her newfound confidence in full bloom. Basically her new hairstyle happens to coincide with her (for the most part) overcoming her two biggest hurdles--her self-confidence issues and the incredible amount of pent-up resentment she has towards Amity. They're a visual indicator of her maturity, and that's clear in her design.

Just compare her pre-braids casual outfit...

...to any of her casual outfits with the braids...

...you can really see this principle at play. Her outfits are more flattering, less little-girly, and generally, all the cues indicate that somewhere around Follies At The Coven Day Parade/Any Sport In A Storm, there's been a bit of a turning point, and Willow is no longer the sad, angry, shrinking violet she once was. Her braids--and her hair getting longer--are concurrent with her growing up and becoming stronger, braver, more confident and more herself.

so why does her time skip design have such short hair? why? for what reason? It feels contradictory to the rest of her hair story, and in general, I don't love Willow's timeskip design--it feels like they kind of forgot how she dresses generally and just really leaned into the flyer derby thing with her.

To conclude, TOH has a wide variety of hair storytelling moments, and while most of them are good, there are a couple misses. But in general, it's a great show, and I love it.

[blindbeta]

Hello! I have two questions, so I'll send two asks in case you want to answer them separately. First, a lot of your posts suggest writing multiple blind characters into your story to help avoid tokenism. However, when I try to write multiple blind characters, they always stand out or feel shoehorned in. Do you have any advice for writing multiple blind characters more "casually" so they don't feel as out of place?

Examples of How to Write Multiple Blind Characters Using The Owl House

Hello. Thank you for your questions! I actually started on this months ago and returned to it answering this question here.

I suspect this is what stops many writers, although they aren’t aware of it. This feeling of forcing representation is the result of society’s ableism and it can be difficult to recognize or deal with.

It might help to think about the reverse- isn’t it strange that so many characters in books and shows are abled? Isn’t it strange that so many disabled characters have no community?

When you write multiple blind characters, you are giving your blind character a community.

Another thing that might help is to show different characters having different conditions and different ways of dealing with their blindness. This is a technique I use all the time. You can even list all the blind characters and their characteristics so you can consider them all at once. For fun, we’ll use The Owl House. I feel that using all-ages examples might help writers feel comfortable engaging with the material.

The following will contain discussions of external and internalized ableism. It will also contain heavy spoilers for The Owl House up to the show’s finale.

Here is an example I came up with:

Main character, Luz, has a low vision in both eyes. She uses a cane for nighttime, mostly, but she feels like more of an outcast when she uses it at school, compared to the enthusiasm with which she used it and showed it to her classmates when she was a child. She stopped using a cane before entering high school. She packs it for camp just in case and uses it all the time on The Boiling Isles. There, she feels more comfortable using it every day. She is eventually able to use her cane and other assistive devices, whether magical or non-magical, whenever she needs to. Growing up, she struggled in school due to neurodivergence and not always getting her accommodations or maybe even struggling to ask for accommodations. She is happy to find that Eda and Hexside are able to accommodate her without making her feel othered. Although she has felt rejected in the past, she is able to fully embrace her blindness once more, celebrating a part of her in a way she was able to as a child. Also, she has several copies of The Good Witch Azura books in regular print, large print, and audiobook forms.

Eda, her mentor, had total enucleation in one eye and wears a prosthetic. How did she lose her eye? She doesn’t remember, now stop bugging her. Due to macular degeneration, her vision isn’t so good in the other eye and is decreasing over time. She doesn’t use a cane after struggling against her mother in childhood. She can use her Palisman or King as guides if she needs help. (King appointed himself her unofficial guide demon.) Her visually impaired partner, Raine, has gently and jokingly encouraged her to do what helps, including using assistive devices. After they started dating again, Eda feels comfortable using Raine as a guide, which also gives her an excuse to cozy up to them. Eda eventually comes to terms with her blindness much like her chronic illness. When she and Raine go on walks, she jokingly makes them carry things, stating if they want her to use a guide demon or a cane so bad, they can lend her a hand considering she only has one. She switches between the cane and guide depending on what suits her that day. Raine also supports her in her times of vulnerability. She can also have her phone or use spells to read, but reading is for nerds so she would rather have someone else read to her, such as her sister, Luz, Raine, or King.

Principal Bump is blind with residual vision and uses a guide Paliman to help him navigate and magnify things if he needs it. When he had Eda as a student, he was excited to help a student with similar experiences, but he quickly learned she was a troublemaker.

Willow is totally blind and uses a fluffy guide demon. She also has a cane decorated with flowering vines, which she enjoys using because she can have interesting tactile feedback. She was born blind and doesn’t struggle with her blindness beyond the occasional frustration with ableism or lack of accessibility. Her dads are very supportive and helpful. They sent her to Hexside hoping having a blind principal would assure she would get accommodations. She enjoys using magic with physical and textural elements, which is why she tried the magical school tracks she chose.

Gus is also blind with a bit of remaining vision. He enjoys looking at colors and lights. Gus chose to focus on illusions because they make interesting shapes and colors, providing his brain with a lot of sweet, sweet stimulation. Gus also enjoys that a track that is very visual is something he can excel at. He met Willow when complimenting her on how pretty her plants looked, describing to her what looked like a colorful blossom on a vine. He uses a cane to navigate, finding it more helpful for stairs and general independence even if canes aren’t quite as popular on the Boiling Isles as magically assisted options such as Palismans and guide demons. He also enjoys using something more similar to what humans use, as he is very interested in humans. He feels very comfortable with his blindness, finding a similar outlook in his friend Willow. Together, the two feel more understood. Willow and Gus pass Braille notes to each other in class. Gus prefers to have his spelled books or illusions read to him, though.

Amity deals with internalized ableism stemming from a need to be perfect, as well as many terrible implications from her parents that she doesn’t let on hurt her. She concentrates on not letting her disability stop her, as that’s what a Blight does. She has low vision, similar to Luz, and progressive vision loss. Unlike the other characters, she does not have much positive support. Principal Bump tries to encourage her to use the many aids and accommodations provided by the school, surprised that she knows the Boiling Isles equivalent of Braille, but only because her parents thought it would give their child an edge and because she attended the same early childhood classes as Willow. Amity politely rejects his help and goes on the be the top student just to prove a point to everyone (a.k.a her parents). She grows up being friends with other kids who say ableist things, leading to Amity feeling even more pressured to rely on her remaining vision. Eventually, her relationships with Luz and Willow help her to accept herself. She is able to act more authentically. This includes confronting her former friends, apologizing to the people she bullied, and attempting to use a cane at school. She is surprised to find that nothing really changes and a few people, including her siblings, even comment on her cane use positively. Willow also shows her how to get her phone to read to her, as well as use the spelled books you can buy that read out loud, which helps reduce eye strain. The similarities between her and Luz helps to strengthen their bond, but otherwise their relationship is unchanged from canon. Amity also has another troublesome barrier to asking Luz to Grom, such as how to make the note accessible. She ends up going with large print and high contrast ink. If she can read it, she knows Luz will be able to.

Hunter has an inherited retinal disorder, such as LCA or Stargardt disease. All of his predecessors have had a similar experience and Hunter takes pride in being part of that line. Each Golden Guard has decreased vision compared to the last, it seems. Hunter views his blindness as a part of him. His blindness allows him to adapt in ways others may not have a chance to explore. He becomes aware of advantages he has over the many sighted people he works with. He is known for his talent, adaptability, and resourcefulness. Hunter struggles with photophobia, which his mask helps with. For navigation, he has a cane, as well as his staff, which he prefers to adapt for navigating. It is about chest height and acts similarly to a WeWalk cane. He can use it to teleport and use magic, but it is mostly for identification and navigating if needed. Eventually, he considers switching to a guide demon like Willow’s, which can also offer companionship along with his new Palisman. Hunter can read the Boiling Isles equivalent of Braille, which he uses for labeling, personal note-keeping, and reading when his eyes are tired. He can keep working longer this way, although he does occasionally read or write for fun if he has a spare few minutes. Hunter also makes tactile maps.

There we go. I provided examples of several blind characters in the same place. Many of them know each other and maybe even meet because of their blindness. They all have different types of blindness and different experiences with their blindness, even when compared to characters who are on similar places on the blindness spectrum. I explored how they navigate, how they view their blindness, and ways in which they relate to others. Some struggle with internalized ableism, but not all of them. They have their own arcs related to their blindness, although they have the same arcs and interests as in canon.

Rather than seeing multiple blind characters as an obstacle, view it as an opportunity for characterization. For example, Amity’s experience with ableism is heavily rooted in how she was raised, in how her parents treated her blindness as a defect or something to be ignored. Meanwhile, Luz’s experience with ableism originated in childhood rejection. Compared to them, Willow, Gus, Principle Bump, and Hunter are all thriving. Even Eda is mostly cool with everything, only having a confusing and uncertain relationship with mobility aids. Additionally, Luz is able to let go of and unlearn her internalized ableism as soon as she finds people who accept her. Amity, in comparison, takes much longer to accept herself.

I know that some writers who aren’t blind may feel unequipped to write internalized ableism. It isn’t necessary, but instead something I thought fit Amity’s original character arc. Internalized ableism can be a lot more subtle than this or not feature in your story at all. Luz and Eda might struggle with this as well, but to a lesser degree. It would also be similar to their arcs in canon.

Here are additional character breakdowns because I thought they were fun:

Who uses Braille?

Willow, Hunter, and to some extent, Gus

Braille literacy is declining, so not everyone knows it in this A.U, which is similar to real life. However, I prefer to have at least some of my characters use Braille to push back against that.

Who uses audio to read, primarily or some of the time?

Gus, Amity, Luz, Eda

Who uses regular or large print?

Luz, Amity, Principal Bump

Who uses magnification?

Principal Bump and probably Luz in childhood

Who uses a cane?

Luz, Amity, Hunter, Willow, Eda

However, Luz, Amity, and Eda all struggled to get there to some degree. In real life, few blind people actually use canes despite possibly benefiting from them.

Who uses an animal guide?

Eda, Willow, and, later, Hunter

On the Boiling Isles, creatures participate in training schools and are matched with potential handlers. They are mostly given to adults, although some schools allow kids to apply, such as those in their upper teens. I have a post on guide animals here.

Who has some residual vision?

Luz, Eda, Bump, Gus, Amity, Hunter

Who is totally blind?

Willow

In real life, 85 to 90% of people who are blind have some residual vision, depending on what source you draw from. Most of the cast can still see something, even if only colors, light, and shadow.

I hope this helps. This is my first time sharing something like this. Readers, feel free to use this however you like, for stories or fan art.

-BlindBeta

[ordinaryschmuck]

Full Family AU Part 44

Camila paced nervously in the kitchen while Eda got to work on the dining table. She had inks, pens, different stamps, and even a quill, just in case, laid out in front of her as she got to work on forging a birth certificate. With Luz's birth certificate as a resource, Eda got to work forging an official document on a blank sheet of paper. So far, Eda seemed to perfectly match the design of a certificate, adding in the blue squiggles that surround its border and adding the lines and text that match the official standard.

"What last name do you want the kid to have?" Eda eventually asked, shaking Camila out of her panicked pacing for a bit.

"H-Huh?"

"Well, she can't be called 'Vee Noceda,'" Eda explained. "What would Vee stand for? Better yet, how could she have your last name?"

"I...didn't think of that...Should I have?"

"Only if you want this forgery to be perfect."

Camila whined, continuing her pacing some more. "I don't know, I don't know! What's a good fake name?"

"One that's believable?"

"Come on, help me out here, bruja! I'm not good at this type of thing! With the lying and the forgery and the--Oh, no, I'm going to be sick..."

"Okay, fine, I'll think of one myself. Hm..." Eda tapped the end of her pen against her chin in thought. "How about...Velma Valina?"

"...What?"

"I mean, Vee's clearly gonna be a nickname, right? What would you call someone who's initials are basically V and V?"

"...Vee?"

"Bingo." Eda got to writing 'Velma Valina" on the document, matching the cursive that spelled Luz's name on her certificate. "Now, how old is the kid?"

"I think...no older than Luz is?"

"That's not giving me a lot to work with."

"Well, I don't...really know. I don't think she does either." Camila rubbed the back of her head. "How do you ask a child how old they were forced into existence?"

Eda blinked at that response and then put her pen aside for the moment to give Camila a confused stare. "Come again."

"Well, it's what she said," Camila explained. "She was...created by these weird men who forced her to grow up in a cage, do these...things that they wanted, and eat rats or something. It was horrific to hear and...And the poor baby probably doesn't even know how long she's been doing this for."

"...Where did you say this kid came from?"

"Your world, apparently."

"Wow..." Eda looked down at the document, running a hand through her hair. "And I thought I had issues..."

"Being a criminal isn't all it's cracked up to be?"

"Eh, it's more than that. Still, poor kid...How about I say she's two months younger than that Luz girl? That should be fine, right?"

"I guess? I don't know..." Camila finally sits in a chair across from Eda, leaning forward and pressing her palms against her temples out of stress. "I just want to give her a good home. Why can't that be easy? Why can't I just say, 'This is my daughter now,' and be done with it? Just skip this legal nonsense altogether and get right to the happy ending..."

"Well, doing the right thing always seems hard," Eda told her, going back to her forgery. "You want to do right by others you care about, but also know that doing it means making sacrifices. Whether it's not getting in their way or...staying away from them so they don't get hurt..."

"...Sounds like you do have issues."

Eda huffs out a laugh. "A few..."

"...Thank you," Camila said. "For...all of this."

"Thank me for giving me a couch to sleep on. And not killing me for doing something annoying."

"Don't know if I can promise that last part."

Eda let out a louder chortle, getting herself under control to finish up the rest of the certificate."

[that-ari-blogger]

Hypocrisy (Launch)

In my opinion, there are two broad sides of literary analysis. “I think this is a bout… because…” and “I like/dislike this because…”

I am also of the opinion that it is not fun to discuss things I am not fond of. Partially, this is because there is a difference between something not working and something not working for me. As in, am I not the target audience, or does this miss the mark it was aiming for?

However, I genuinely dislike Launch. I think it has some redeeming qualities, and I am going to make the case for them in this post. But I think this episode falls short, or rather, is held back by one detail that I think is important.

Let me explain.

SPOILERS AHEAD: (She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, The Owl House)

I’m going to start with the positive. I really like how Horde Prime is portrayed in this episode.

This is technically his third appearance, although it’s his second majour episode, and as such, we are still learning about him. So far, we have seen his cruelty and tactics. This man operates through restriction of free will, forcing others into actions he wishes of them. He is a con artist, a cult leader, an abuser.

Here, we see his hypocrisy. In my last post, I talked about how his antagonism reflects the themes, and I think that continues into this character trait of his.

The main question of this season is “what do you want?” Where do you want to go? What are you going to do? The characters are exercising their free will for the first time and struggling, falling on bad habits or doing nothing instead. The escape from abuse is framed as more than just physical, but psychological.

This is a season centred around motive.

As such, Horde Prime is a character who lies about his motivations at every turn.

In my series on The Owl House, I discuss Belos as an obsessive, too held by his own ideas and self-importance to see his error. I think Horde Prime is similar, but with one main difference. Both have egos the size of a solar system, and both have a worldview based on self supremacy. But I don’t think Horde Prime has a motivation.

Bellos had a 42 step plan of genocide and heroism because he wanted to be the next Witch Hunter General. Horde Prime seems to want conquest only because it is fun at the time. He is a shallow person.

This stems from the difference in story. The Owl House is about Luz learning she is not the main character and so a villain who shares that flaw but can’t progress beyond it is a good way of getting that across thematically. She-Ra is about shaking off the psychological chains left by abuse. It is a more introspective and psychological story, so the villain doesn’t need to be complex. This story isn’t about him, its about the struggle to defeat something he happens to symbolize.

So, let’s take a look at some of the statements he makes during this episode.

“Worlds that I brought into my eternal light.”

This one gets called out as bollocks pretty immediately by Glimmer.

Light is a fascinating way of describing death, and the idea that it can somehow be his is an insult to the many hard working Grim Reapers across the world. Horde Prime is reveling in power, showing off how well he kills people, as if destroying something is the same as owning it.

In his mind, it would seem, the two concepts are interchangeable, destruction and control. We can link this back to the idea of abuse and suggest that Horde Prime is abusive because that’s how he expresses ownership.

Catra had a similar mantra earlier on in the series. She wanted to be safe, and she associated control with safety and physical abuse with control.

The issue with this is that possessing something and destroying it are opposites. Not even on a moral sense, in practicality. If you have a thing and destroy that thing, you no longer have that thing. It’s gone.

Horde Prime has collected “trinkets” from places he has destroyed, so that he can have them when nobody else can. But again, there is an issue.

Artifacts are worth things to people. If the culture or the original owner give them value. If all traces of that person or culture are destroyed, historians will value the item.

But if the vast history is reduced to a “behold, my shiny thing” on your wall with nobody to see but yourself, then it loses that power.

It’s demeaning.

This is part of a recurring thing with Glimmer's response to Horde Prime. She did it with the Black Garnet in the season four finale. Glimmer lashes out at Horde Prime in an attempt to gain back her freedom, but he has put up so many shields that she can only destroy things that he has put between them. Often, those things did nothing to deserve it except be in the way. It's the cycle of abuse in action.

We see this in the real world with museums (one in particular but it is far from the only offender) keeping items it describes as loot in its accounting hidden away from their original owners. Those owners have their connection to their original culture deliberately weakened as a method of control. Or they find it insulting specifically because the items and the culture by extension are not given the respect and value they deserve. It is a psychological mode of colonialism.

Horde Prime has done this, but to himself as well as everyone else. He has taken the items from their home, denigrating their possible importance and making it to that they only signify his victory, his triumph, his possession. But he has so many that they lose that significance even to him.

Case and point, we don’t ever learn any of the names of places Horde Prime has destroyed. He doesn’t care about them, just taking their stuff. We don’t know the history of anything in this room, Horde Prime has forcibly taken that from them.

Eternal light? Bollocks.

“I take no joy in destruction. But the weeds must be burned away so that new life must flourish.”

Ok smart guy. If that’s true, why are you so cruel? If you take no joy in this, why do you do it?

Draw your mind back to when Horde Prime summoned Glimmer to meet with him. His takeover of this clone seems rather painful.

If he took no joy in destruction, why would this exist? Why would he have ostensibly invented a way of control that was this painful? Clearly he only wants to target the mind, why does he have to twist the subject to get to that?

The answer is as I mentioned earlier. He can’t separate control from destruction.

But, to take apart the metaphor, ecosystems are balanced for the most part. You don’t have to burn away the weeds in a forest for it to be beautiful. There’s nobody going around in outback Australia with a set of gardening gloves.

Invasive species are a problem, sure. But again, that’s Horde Prime. He is the outlier, the issue, the intruder. He is the colonist.

Additionally, most plants are flammable, and fire is notoriously difficult to control. If you burn away the weeds, you will burn away everything.

I live in Australia. The cycle of life here is based in a large way on fire. Certain plants have seeds that only grow after a fire, but that’s devastating to everything else, including the plants that have already sprouted. The term “trial by fire” isn’t a positive one.

Also, fun fact, we have a word in Australia for people like Horde Prime. People who take from others for the sake of it. It starts with a c.

I find that people with heads on their walls tend to at least enjoy the act of obtaining them.

However, weeds aren’t necessarily invasive species. In reality, and in the way Prime meant it, weeds are wild plants that interrupt the growing of a garden. In other words, they aren’t bad, they just happen to be where you want them to be.

If you apply this to people and places, this is how things like planetary genocide happen, and it leads back to a point I have been making for five seasons. The abuse isn’t about the victim, it’s about the abuser.

Horde Prime doesn’t care about the planets he destroys, they may have angered him, but we don’t know that. All that matters is his high of control, his glory and treasure, and the fact they were there.

Hot.

“Your planet belongs to me.”

No, it doesn’t. If it did, Prime wouldn’t need Glimmer’s help.

Just a picture of the planet not belonging to Prime. Nothing to see here beside the villain being wrong.

“I am still merciful”

Prime is in a room filled with icons of planets you destroyed. How many of them surrendered? How many of them asked for his mercy?

“Those who cling to the darkness have made their choice.”

Ok. Let’s talk about light and dark symbolism.

Worth pointing out that the first thing Prime does after complaining about people choosing darkness is snap his fingers, and turn off the light. Glimmer can't do that, she can only create things shat glow, Horde prime can cut things off.

Light and dark are usually synonymous with good and bad. This leads to issues of coding and problems of stereotypes that I am not entirely equipped to discuss. But broadly, this is the norm.

Horde Prime subverts this. He is identified with light and clearly the villain of the story. But he is simple in his application.

Light is only special in comparison to shadow. It reveals things and shines the brightest when there is none else around. When everything is lit up, the world seems flat.

We see this in the animation of She-Ra itself. I highlight moments that look stunning, but those that don’t usually fall short in my opinion because everything within has that same lighting. Everything feels monotonous.

Horde Prime is all light. There is no choice for anyone. You will be revealed, you cannot hide. Every wall in his ship is white or light grey, every surface bathed in that light.

Too much light is blinding.

The man forces everything to be without nuance, which is especially noticeable in a show that excels so much on writing humanity.

Or rather, it would be noticeable, if it were in any other episode.

Buckle up, I have thoughts.

I want to preface this with something important. It is possible to dislike part of something and still like that thing overall. Not all criticism should or can be crippling.

I love She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, it is one of my favorite stories out there, and I would not have devoted this much time to discussing it if I didn’t enjoy the series or find it worthwhile.

However, I dislike this episode more than can simply be left in the Final Thoughts section. I think that it’s handling of Entrapta doesn’t work.

Entrapta is a nuanced character in this series, just like everyone else (even Frosta). She breaks the moral spectrum of the series by refusing to care about it, and rather than that leaving her as neutral, it means she is villainous in some situations and heroic in others without breaking character. She has a moral compass, it’s just different to everyone else’s.

She is also neurodivergent, and this episode tries to talk about motivation and those who hide that by leaning into the neurodivergent stereotype and pulling her really far out of character.

First, impulsiveness and lack of regard for orders and plans. We focus on how much it upsets the others, but wait a step. This is She-Ra. Everyone breaks orders, everyone does their own thing all the time. Why is it so annoying when Entrapta does it but not anyone else?

Second, the alignment issue. The complaint from the others that she built weapons to hurt them and their kingdoms. This is a good point, only slightly undercut by the fact that Scorpia is standing less than a metre from all of these people. Does she not count? Again, why is it so frustrating when Entrapta does it but not anyone else?

Third, the emotional disconnect. Entrapta is bad at listening and reading emotions. She is also obsessive, and doesn’t seem to care about anyone other than herself and her tech until she tells you.

On the one hand, speaking as someone who is neurodivergent, obsession is something I struggle with, and reading emotional cues is difficult.

But we have seen Entrapta misread emotions before. We have seen her responses to Catra and Scorpia before. She isn’t good with the emotional stuff, so she learns context clues. If the characters around her react in the same way to different stimuli, Entrapta will register and assume there is a similar emotion there, even when the minute details reveal otherwise. She’s not incapable, she just goes about it a different way.

She also shows her affection in a manner unique to her. It’s not that she doesn’t care, its that she expresses that care dissimilarly. For example, she gives a lot of compliments and gifts, and it takes Catra and Scorpia a while to warm up to this because that kind of thing can get unnerving if you aren’t expecting it and in a way that can be hard to grapple if you are neurodiverse.

Put a pin in that phrasing. “It can be hard.”

There is a difference between that and being unwilling to help Glimmer unless she can go to space. That kind of bargaining obsession isn’t a trait we have seen in Entrapta at all. She is clever and knows how to get what she wants, yes, but she very clearly does care.

Later on in the episode, we actually see this in action. During and after the confrontation, Entrapta hyper fixates on the signal in a way that is more than just the obsession with tech. She demonstrates her dimensionality by using what she knows she is good at to help her friend, and she does it in a way that fits her character. She finds a tangible thing that can help and she damn well gets that thing.

I actually like the moment where she audibly tells herself to focus. It's a character beat played for humour that doesn't demean her at all. It's a real thing that I and a few other neurodivergent people that I know do, and it is objectively quite funny.

Can you see the difference between that and “I love space”, “I would give anything to go to space” and *waits blankly because the only thing that can motivate her to do anything is the thought of going to space.*

Hey look, it's the trope of "neurodivergent person talks so much jargon that nobody can understand them". Hooray. I find this trope annoying because usually the writer doesn't know that much technical Jargon, so they make the character either make up words, or say something normal and have everyone else look like an eejit. This scene does the second, Entrapta isn't saying anything other characters in this scene have already said. But also, they know her and have spent a not insignificant amount of time with her, they should be able to understand her.

The key thing here is the phrasing from earlier. “It can be hard.” Can is the operative word.

There are neurodiverse people who match the stereotype. But there are also a vast number of people who don’t.

The word is neurodiverse, it’s an out group not an in group. It isn’t a collection of people who fit a specific box that is separate from the majority of people who fit a different box. It is a plethora of different ways of operating. Diversity, not conformity.

Entrapta was that and is that for the majority of the series. She wasn’t the stereotype, she was just a person who worked differently from others. But here, she acts out of character so that a flaw she didn’t have could be used as a plot device.

This is especially frustrating because the main two who criticize Entrapta's behaviour in this way are Mermista and Perfuma, who, as I have discussed, are ALSO NEURODIVERGENT!

Perfuma shows signs of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and it is part of her greatest strength and greatest weakness. In other words, a pretty core part of her character. Perfuma doesn’t yield on things, she is remarkably stubborn but freaks out when people get too loud or too emotional around her in a way that I liken to an overstimulation response. She struggles with that out of the box thinking.

Mermista, on the other hand, had a whole episode about how she was tricked into giving time for a rebellion because an opportunity arose to cosplay one of her favorite book series and she couldn’t let it go. Mermista who learned to time lightning in a storm because she practiced at home.

And the pièce de résistance?

“You’re still a weirdo, but you did good today.”

Excuse me?

The compliment is a caveat to an insult, which undermines Mermista’s argument a little bit. Still odd, but welcome because she is useful?

This was not an issue Mermista had. She was already the person who would do anything for people. She was willing to work with Shadow Weaver and Entrapta and Scorpia because they were already useful and/or were part of the fold. She didn’t need this character arc.

In short, I think multiple characters act out of character and it results in the neurodivergent individual seeming like a caricature and the plot feeling contrived.

I don't have much on this scene that relates to my whole point, but don't think I missed it.

Final Thoughts

I once again feel the need to stress that I still love the series as a whole, but also that I don’t make a habit of explaining why I think things are bad. This episode needed this discussion, and needs to be treated as an outlier.

And again, it is an outlier. The characters don’t act like themselves. Entraptra is written better in the rest of the series. This episode feels out of place in a good show, which is why it stands out so much.

Next week, however, we get back to the positive, with Corridors. Stick around if that interests you.

Previous - Next

[adorawasright]

Hello! I just saw ur post saying g hintlow is badly written in your opinion. Could you please tell me why you think so? I'm kinda curious?

I also didn't really like huntlow since it kinda came outta no where all of a sudden but what do you think??

*cracks knuckles* (just kidding lol)

Honestly, I just think H/untlow has several writing problems. I'll be pointing out the main reasons I think so under the cut. If anyone who follows me or comes across this post ships H/untlow, it's totally fine, just please don't send me hate for what I'll say here:

Hunter and Willow have nothing in common. The show forces the "half a witch" thing onto Hunter despite the fact he was never called that anywhere in the show, he's usually just called annoying or a brat. Besides, Hunter could be a metaphor for disability considering he doesn't have natural magic powers (until the show decided to kill off Flapjack, but I'll get into that later). However, Willow is not the case. She may not be good at abomination magic, but she's incredibly powerful with plant magic. But for some reason, the show treats these experiences as equals, even though that's a thing Hunter has more in common with Luz than Willow (and in this case I'm not talking through a romantic lens).

Hunter and Willow are out of character. Hunter, the prodigy and the emperor's right hand, becomes utterly pathetic and wimpy just so Willow can look like a badass girlboss. And Willow then just comes off as cruel sometimes. I appreciate Willow for being nice but also being a badass, but even then, Willow was never cruel prior to her meeting Hunter. She apologized to Luz when she realized she could've hurt her, and when Willow met Gus she was patient and understanding, teaching him a breathing technique to calm him down. I'm not saying Willow has to be overly nice, but she just randomly captures Hunter to make him join her flyer derby team. And at this point she doesn't even know that Hunter is the Golden Guard, so she just... attacks a random kid and scares him for no reason. Worse yet the fact that she drags him into the ground THE SAME WAY BELOS DOES in Hollow Mind. Even after Hunter tells her he's "half a witch", Willow isn't patient with him, she's just a brute again. Which is my next point:

Unhealthy power dynamic. Hunter refers to Willow as "captain", and it's honestly a red flag to me. I am NOT saying Willow is abusive. However, we have to remember that Hunter's abuser uses his position of power to mistreat him. Hunter looks up to someone who's not an equal to him and in turn, he does not value himself. And Willow never seems to realize it and explicitly say that she's not his leader, she's his friend. This pairing is basically the girlboss/malewife model, but not only does it not make sense, it's not healthy for Hunter to fall in love with someone who has power over him, and who might be paralleled to his abuser as I pointed out before.

Ruined character arcs. I think most of us agree that Hunter's character arc was unsatisfactory as he became another Caleb without ever processing it, but Willow was definitely done dirty as well. Willow never had her own episode, not even Understanding Willow was about her, it was more about Amity. Any Sport in a Storm also focuses more on Hunter. Even Gus had more character development than Willow, despite the fact he was also done dirty in the end. Willow's breakdown wasn't carefully developed, it was never hinted in Thanks to Them or anywhere before that. It came out of nowhere in For the Future, and in turn it just pushed Hunter's character (and Gus, literally) aside so he could save Willow. And this is yet ANOTHER point I hate:

Willow only reciprocates Hunter's crush when he gains powers. Seriously, for the longest time I didn't even think H/untlow was going to be mutual. Only Hunter seemed to be attracted to Willow, by blushing and being shy around her. Willow never seems to see Hunter in another light in the following episodes, not even in Thanks to Them despite them living with each other for months. That only happens in For the Future, which left a bad taste in my mouth. Like I said before, Hunter might be considered disabled, but his disability is "cured" with magic, and ONLY THEN does Willow fall for him. That contradicts the entire message of the show, which welcomes and celebrates disabilities.

And overall, Hunter and Willow never have a genuine emotional connection. Hunter has more connection and things in common with Luz, Gus, and even Amity (and sadly, his parallels with Amity were never really explored after Eclipse Lake). Hunter and Luz don't have magical powers. Hunter and Gus are both taken advantage of by others, and they have an identity crisis, not knowing how to trust themselves anymore. Hunter and Amity then, they were both raised in an abusive household and they're expected to be someone they're not, and they have to push everyone else down so they can be better. But Hunter and Willow don't share this kind of connection. They might touch on the "half a witch" thing but that never deepens. And in For the Future, it comes off as rushed, and Hunter has to push down his grief for Flapjack to save Willow. Not to mention Gus and Hunter never get to talk about Caleb - Gus always knew about Hunter's secret, and not even THAT gets a satisfying payoff because the show is more concerned in making H/untlow canon. But that would have to be its own post.

Sorry this got long, lmao. I have very strong feelings about how H/untlow was handled. I actually used to ship it at first, I think it COULD'VE worked. But they don't even seem to be close friends at the very least. It sucks because even R/aeda was written better despite the fact it had less screentime than L/umity. Sure, Eda and Raine were ex-lovers, but I thought their relationship was written very well for the most part. I don't know how the writers dropped the ball with H/untlow this way.

[theprinceandthewitch]

This fandoms weird disdain for Hunter is honestly kind of fascinating to me. People put him down in to elevate Amity - often saying that he, Gus, and Willow could be written out of the story and nothing would change. Which I think is kind of crazy, especially in Hunter's case.

Okay so, I crossed out paragraph #2 because I didn't explain it well, like at all LOL. The point I was trying to make was that Hunter is used as a scapegoat for people who did not like the "change in tone" in Season 2. The "change in tone" was actually just the introduction of the main plot in Separate Tides.

I also wanted to add the side effect to TOH fans deluding themselves into thinking TOH is a "teehee lesbian fantasy show" for an entire season: This is the reason they try to gaslight people into thinking Luz and Hunter are siblings. Not only is Luz not allowed to be bisexual - she's not even allowed to be friends with the type of boy she likes. Even after everything is said and done, they want to maintain the "Luz is actually a lesbian" illusion.

But yeah... What I think is really interesting about Luz's and Hunter's relationship is that regardless of whether or not the writers intended for this to happen, Luz's relationship with Hunter became more important to the main plot than Luz's relationship with Amity. This is because Hunter has significant ties to the villain while Amity does not. Even though Luz and Hunter don't have alot of one on one interactions every single on of their interactions is significant because it moves the plot forward.

I'd also argue there's envy mixed in there, because of Luz's and Hunter's parallels to Caleb and Evelyn. They've tried to argue Luz and Amity are mirrors to Caleb and Evelyn, even though they know their argument has no basis in reality.

Plus, the writers created some interesting implications with Luz's and Hunter's relationship by making Luz upfront with how she feels with Hunter in TTT. Even though Luz has never actually done that with any character in the show - not even her girlfriend. Luz doesnt tell anyone how she really feels unless she is forced to, but for some reason she is honest with Hunter. Hunter is a character Luz hasn't known for long, but she feels like she can be honest with him over her friends, mentor, and girlfriend. That has got to sting.

But I do think most of this disdain comes from Hunter "ruining" their little "lesbian" cartoon by simply existing.

For some reason, they had it in their heads that a male character wasn't going to play a significant role in Luz's story. Even though Hunter has been foreshadowed since Witches Before Wizards and appears in Luz's self insert story in SAI. They legitimately believed Luz's being interested in boys was just a phase even though THEY KNEW this cartoon had a bisexual lead. They can easily google for official sources that have made posts saying Luz is bisexual. But they didn't care and just continued to delude themselves into thinking a cartoon written by a bisexual wasn't going to represent bisexuality in any shape or form.

[sepublic]

Thinking back to criticisms of Luz going through the same arc of opening up and letting people in throughout S2B onwards (a point following Yesterday's Lie, where Luz's guilt increased tenfold after seeing Camila's reaction), and I think it's important to remember that this is the frustrating reality behind living when you have self-loathing, suicidal ideation, etc., AKA things Luz absolutely had. The healing process IS unpleasant, that's the point. Especially in later cases when the Day of Unity is impending, or the need to get back to the Demon Realm; Sometimes the situation is inherently stressful, it feels helpless and it’s not just a matter of mental health and handling. And that just makes it easier to self-sabotage.

To apply my own quote from another fandom to this situation: Luz is grappling with continuing to apply this lesson of self-worth because that's the exhausting truth; You will relapse and you will have to constantly remind yourself and relearn that same lesson over and over again. That's life, that's the banal truth behind living, but there's also a deep wonder behind it too.

Plus there’s other ideas this contributes towards; Like how you need to live with mistakes and how that plays into Camila’s arc with her daughter; Luz having her You are Not Immune to Propaganda moment, then forgiving herself to avoid the fallacy in Leftist circles that it’s better to have done nothing wrong than to do something right.

In particular, we see how Luz’s relapse can affect Amity, and how it gradually wears down on her, how it's genuinely stressful on her end as well; Obviously, Amity is giving Luz extra grace because Luz did the same for her first, despite nothing really prompting on her own end besides unyielding compassion. So it would hypocritical to not extend that same patience in return, and Amity does!!! But it ties back into why Raine and Eda broke up, why Raine isn't blamed for it, why Eda has to take responsibility and not just wallow in self-pity about how she's driven people away because Eda has others she cares about, and needs to look after as well, especially when they're kids dependent on her!!!

So Luz’s own relationship with Amity is at stake here if she doesn’t internalize her lesson, and sure that may seem insignificant compared to saving the isles; But it’s not just about saving the isles, but also Luz letting herself want things by continuing to stay afterwards, rather than live a self-imposed exile out of the mistaken belief that she’s inherently harmful to the demon realm for being an outsider. That can be a xenophobic take! And in the end, that relationship with Amity (who very much benefitted from Luz the Outsider) is one of the things Luz looks forward to even in her depression, and even if she planned to cut ties she wouldn’t want Amity to leave it on a bad note either; In fact Luz shouldn’t cut ties, period.

And I find it a bold take; That you need to open up not just because it's good for you, but because if you really care about your loved ones, you will see it hurts them too. That you're not just hurting yourself, this is not your ideal, noble self-sacrifice. You are still deciding things for other people in a way by hurting them, that you're not just caring about yourself but the loved ones you claim are better off from this anyhow.

You are putting people under a lot of stress because they can't reach out, and to save themselves because they can't save you without your own input, sometimes they just gotta cut ties. They feel like you're not being honest with them, and you can't blame them for making it about themselves because they've spent all this time up until now trying to make it about you and why you deserve to live. And since your own wellbeing as motive isn't good enough, at least consider theirs???

If you think about it, this could even apply to Luz’s own relationship with the Demon Realm; By insisting it doesn’t need her, that she’s more a harmful force than anything, she’s just harming it in the long run by not helping stop Belos. The isles needs Luz too, it’s not just the other way around! And then you have to remember the isles is an actual person, the Titan; So it’s another relationship of hers to maintain. The Titan is like a father figure, like Manny, so it all ties back together in Luz continuing to live and love to honor her dead father.

It's easy and even comforting to portray this type of self-loathing and self-destruction as only happening in a vacuum; But it doesn't. Despair can be comforting, and it's gonna keep hitting you over and over, unless you keep fighting it over and over. By god is it tedious, but over time it might fade away entirely. But even then you might have to stay on alert regardless. They really weren't kidding when they said To Live is To Suffer. But it's also To Thrive, and you need to work for that too.

Plus, Luz not being just done after hearing it the first time connects to how the Boiling Isles wasn't magically fixed following Belos' death and the Collector releasing everyone; They still had other people to worry about, like the other coven heads, and so much work in rebuilding the isles. We check back four years later and only then do they finally figure out how to undo coven bindings. The work continues, life continues, there is no definitive ending but you just gotta keep going. This was Dana's actual intent behind her displeasure with "Happily ever after" as a phrase, rather than hating happy endings inherently.

And I think the fact that there's still so much more to do works with the meta fact that there were still so many other stories and conflicts left untold, unresolved; Things like the Archivists, the Bat Queen's past, coven heads like Hettie Cutburn or Vitimir, etc. But in a way, the epilogue, the four year gap, and life continuing after the Quincenera because of course it will, because people and things will live on no matter how much destruction there is, is good space to explore that.

And it's a gift to fans who love stories and have the opportunity to make more themselves, because Dana herself explained in an interview how she loved to make connections in shows she had growing up, so it pleased her to inspire the same in fans from this generation. At the very least, if the show was given a spin-off or continuation, something like that, there'd definitely be more stories, and more work, to do with The Owl House. Again, those unlived stories are both the frustration, but also the wonder, behind keeping going.

[autisticlilith]

Something that always struck me about this 'fight' is that it felt really one-sided. Not because the Raven Beast is bigger, but because she's also way more aggressive. We see throughout the show that Eda in her Owl Beast form acts mostly on instinct (and her inner beast, once she starts talking to it, seems to just be hungry or cranky most of the time). We don't get much insight into how Lilith copes with the curse (like none at all after this), so this is going to be a lot of inference.

Off the top, I would like to reiterate that Hayley Wong has repeatedly asked that nobody repost or edit her art without permission. I'm going to be referring to stuff from the boards in this post, so here's the link if you want to look for yourself.

So, in this episode, Eda and Lilith are both angry—specifically at Gwendolyn, and with good reason. They both end up turning into beasts due to a combination of that anger, stress, and the fact their mom thought she was "helping" by taking away their medication.

But here is where they differ. Eda was angry about the current situation: her mom refusing to respect her choices, and causing unnecessary harm to her all day. And Luz even joined in. As Eda says, she has a right to be upset, though I don't think she meant to lose control over the beast.

That's just what happens when she reaches her limit. And she knows her limits, she's been dealing with this curse for 30 years!

Meanwhile, Lilith has been dealing with the curse for... a few weeks, at most? Unless you count dealing with the guilt of cursing Eda as part of that. We see that she's quite unaware of the effects of the curse, as she experienced some symptoms for the first time this very day. She essentially gets told to take an elixir if she starts feeling stressed, and then is left in the house to stew in her guilt and insecurity all day.

Gwen's lukewarm greeting, and the realization that she's paid consistent visits to Eda over the years, is enough to send Lilith into a downward spiral. She starts stress-eating ice cream, and makes cruel comments about King's dad abandoning him (a clear case of projection, and I don't think he really internalizes it after this episode, but seriously that's no way to talk to your 8-year-old nephew), and unfortunately the only voice of reason around is Hooty. Well, he tried.

I want to note here that she doesn't cry. She mopes, she complains, she gets rude and cynical; these are all things we've seen her do before. But she doesn't allow herself to honestly express her feelings, her wants and needs. What's she gonna say? "Hey Mom, can you please pay attention to me?" You can't just ask for things like that. And she's a grown adult, she's more mature than this. She was the head of the Emperor's Coven, for Titan's sake. Didn't she get enough attention there to last a lifetime? And didn't she learn how to repress all her useless emotions and craft a perfect persona to hide behind until she could no longer tell the mask from her face?

She realizes she's indulged her worst thoughts a little too hard when the feathers start popping up, and goes to take an elixir and calm down...

And there are no elixirs.

And she panics. She has no coping strategies for this. She doesn't even know what's going to happen to her, only that it's going to be really, really bad.

It has to be terrifying, and painful... and maybe, just a little bit deserved? This is the fate she forced upon Eda, after all.

We don't see any signs that she damaged the house after she turned, unlike the havoc Eda caused back in The Intruder. King runs to get help, because Eda or Luz would know what to do better than he does, and Raven Beast Lilith seems to pursue him, but she's not after him. She goes after Eda directly. There is no distraction (King also notes that light glyphs had no effect on her), there is no behaviour that can be explained as animal instinct. There is a violent, visceral anger, and instead of addressing its source, she flies out there to take it out on Eda.

This is why I don't buy the interpretation that Gwen started favouring Eda only after the curse. By that point, Lilith was an older teenager almost out of the house, and it's completely reasonable for the parents to be focusing more on the younger kid with a new mysterious illness. I think Eda was always the favourite, or at least got more attention in ways that made Lilith feel overlooked. Part of it was that Eda got in trouble more, whereas Lilith was usually quiet and well-behaved, so everyone just decided that Eda needed more help (which she didn't necessarily want) and Lilith needed none. Lilith got very good at needing nothing. So good that instead of talking to her sister about their impending duel, she decided to curse her in the dead of night instead. And then to keep it a secret until she found a way to undo it, because she never wants to upset anyone or cause a scene. And then to give 30 years of her life to an evil man's crooked system for nothing—less than nothing, she's only going to realize later.

Lilith's breakdown isn't about the fact Gwen is paying attention to Eda again. That's just the trigger for a lifetime of repressed emotions bursting to the surface all at once, and it's been coming for a while.

The Owl Beast seems to be mostly defending herself. At a few points she tries to flee, but the Raven Beast catches her. The Raven Beast is malicious, with exaggerated expressions of rage and what can only be described as cruel glee when she inflicts pain. This seems to come out of nowhere... but only if you haven't been paying attention to Lilith.

We know what Lilith is like at her worst. It wasn't even that long ago she threatened Luz's life in order to capture Eda. All while convinced that she was doing the right thing. She doesn't even have that shield now. She doesn't have much of anything, really, except her sister who refused to leave her out in the cold even after everything she's done. And this is how she repays that trust...?

We also know that Lilith wasn't in control of her actions as the Raven Beast. But that doesn't mean the beast was just doing beast things. I believe it was acting directly on Lilith's intrusive thoughts. Hurting Eda was her greatest shame, and the idea that she could do it again is a constant fear that she has. Unlike Eda, who has long been seen by others as a monster and had to fight her internalized shame about it, Lilith considers herself a monster while everyone around her is unaware of her inner turmoil. She's afraid of herself; she thinks her feelings are ugly and violent and unmanageable. And so that's what they became.

There was a sequence in the storyboards that was cut from the episode, presumably for time, where Gwendolyn tries to use a beastkeeping spell in order to communicate with her beast-daughters. It proves completely ineffective, so she goes to plan B, which is just trying to talk to them like a normal person (also in the boards, Gwen summons firebees to lift roof tiles for her to walk on, which I'm glad got changed to the tiles themselves being flying creatures. it's less distracting). There was something really affecting about watching her try to do things her own way one last time before finally admitting that she's failed the both of them. It painted the picture of this whole family who never talk about anything that's difficult or painful.

Then the scene plays out the way it does: Gwen's words get through to Eda, and allow her to finally face the beast and have an important revelation about herself.

And Lilith? Well, for all the violence she just showed, she breaks down in tears the second she is shown loving care.

When they've changed back, her anger is gone. There is no sign of the monster; there is only a sad, lonely woman who hasn't allowed herself to cry in so long that she almost forgot how. But she's safe now, and she's seen, and she's allowed this healthy expression of emotion. She collapses in the arms of her mother and sister.

After this, Lilith and Gwen had an off-screen conversation, where Lilith admitted she was the one to curse Eda, and decided that she was going to move back home. I could write a whole other post on that first point, but we've reached the end of the episode. I think a major reason why Lilith wanted to stay with mom and dad instead of with Eda is because she's afraid of hurting Eda again. Any time the curse acts up, she becomes a danger to the people around her, but especially to Eda, because of how much of her energy and guilt and shame has been focused around Eda over the years. She needs some time away while she figures out how to deal with the curse, to recover and build up her own identity. And of course, to build the relationship with her parents that she needed as a kid. Better late than never.

[mdhwrites]

If you're gonna claim Luz left Boiling Isles to die, how come you also aren't claiming Anne and the Plantars wanted to leave Amphibia to die too. In Escape to Amphibia, we get scenes where they consider wanting to stay on Earth longer and only went ahead with going to Amphibia quickly purely because of FBI interference, as if implying they would've just procrastinated longer if the FBI didn't force them to hurry up.

gestures above If you do not know what bad faith criticism is, this is it. I wouldn't respond but like... Escape to Amphibia and its light confrontation on this topic is emblematic of what makes Amphibia S3A fucking amazing so let's talk about it. Let's start with the scenes in question because they're short and there's only two of them.

Oh, and a link to the blog the person is responding to that's about how Luz left a world to die. Because she did.

So we see a couple things. Face value, the two scenes can be described as "Someone scared about a big life choice is comforted by her best friend and offered time before they have to make the choice." The latter is "The scared person has an overwhelming responsibility before them that finally comes crashing down on them and they have a breakdown." In the first case, it is framed and presented as something the character hasn't thought about before now while the latter reinforces that by making it clear there's a lot she has been trying not to think about in order to reach this goal.

Which is all actually built up and in character for how Anne has acted this entire half season. She has CONSTANTLY been had to be pulled back from destroying herself in order to get a way back to Amphibia. To find a way to take care of the Plantars while they're trapped over in the human realm. To make progress on these giant questions on her mind. We see this with her exhaustion at the museum hunt, her having to be reminded of the importance of her community during Temple Frogs, and we see it with how she can be persuaded by The Plantars in the episode where we meet Terry, just to name a few. It's even one of the first things S3 touches on by showing how she very bluntly compartmentalizes parts of what has happened to her. That's why we get the repeated gag in the first episode of Anne trying to say they don't have much to deal with before beginning to ramble about ALL they have to deal with before swiping it away because she quite literally can't handle the full breadth of what is currently her reality. Only now has she finally succeeded in her goal, has it staring it in her face, that she even can step back and go, "Wait, wasn't my whole goal to get home to the world and family I love?"

And I don't mean Amphibia. For two seasons, even as she grew closer and closer to The Plantars, Anne never intended to stay. She ADORES the human world. She loves her parents. This is her home and yet she has spent months on a forced march towards this goal of leaving this place. Leaving this place for a world far more dangerous than her own with no solid plan to get back besides hopefully beating a tyrant and his robot army. That's terrifying.

And yet she doesn't even ask for time. She doesn't try to get out of it. She is offered it and is willing to take a few days so she can say bye to her parents properly, they've been gone for months, what's a couple more days? But to not go? Not help? Never even suggested and it's never indicated that she would have taken the option because that is not who the show has built Anne up to be. That's why her parents are so willing to let her go because they understand this is not only what she must do for herself but that she can do it because she's amazing.

It's a moment of self doubt that is GREAT character drama and circles back a fuckton of elements from not only S3 but also previous seasons to give this mid season finale some real character weight behind it despite getting such little time dedicated to it in this episode specifically. The WHOLE SERIES has prepared you for this moment so it lands with the right punch that also is just a humanistic touch that reminds you that Anne is a thirteen year old girl from Earth and so this is kind of scary and terrifying for her.

Comparing that to someone who spends supposed MONTHS thinking about how she's really bad at making choices, how her brash choices made on her own have led to an entire world's ruin, doubles down on that problem by making a terrible choice on her own that abandons countless lives, including her friends, and absolves her of the need to even attempt to actually put right what she claims is her fault for getting broken... To compare the two is laughable. To say they are the same only makes you look like a fool. 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.

[anthurak]

Shout-out to the ships and character dynamics that AREN’T big, dramatic One-True-Pairings that have to be a ‘Big Deal’ and this huge defining aspects of the characters, yet are interesting in their own way. The fake-relationships that really are fake, the casual flings and one-night-stands that don’t become something more, the friendships that aren’t pre-romance or even some intensely close, emotionally intimate, platonic-life-partners or found-family thing.

Just as an example I’ve been thinking about lately; take your standard casanova/manwhore character who’s always having flings/sleeping around with lots of women and/or men who then has this incredible one-night-stand with someone that they just can’t stop thinking about afterwards. After so many casual hook-ups they have finally caught feelings for someone else. Basically your standard ‘Ladykiller in Love’ plot.

But, when this character starts spending time with this person they’re falling hard for and try to make their feelings known, it becomes clear that she/he/they simply doesn’t feel the same way. Sure, they like this character, perhaps think they’re fun to have around and even might enjoy having more occasional hook-ups with them. But they simply aren’t interested in some serious, committed, monogamous relationship with them, and it’s clear they never will be. More than that, this character also quickly learns that there are a fair few other people this person is MUCH closer with and perhaps even sleeps around with too in a full-on polyamorous sense.

Basically, this isn’t just ‘Ladykiller falls in love’. This is ‘Ladykiller falls in love with a Harem Protagonist and also realizes they aren’t even going to be that high-ranked in the harem’.

And I just think that’s rather interesting as a character dynamic. A relationship that isn’t just casual, but is outright predicated on BEING casual and is simply not capable of being more than that. One party might like it to be more than that, but the other pointedly DOESN’T. And it’s clear that any serious attempt by the former to make the relationship more than that would simply END the relationship.

Is this simply too much of an ask for the former party and they have to end things? Do they actually TRY to force it and destroy the relationship in the process? Or do they find that they’re actually alright with this arrangement?

For another, more specific example from a fandom, in this case The Owl House, of the ‘not EVERYONE has to be part of the adopted/found-family’ point; I’ve found more and more that I am simply not a fan of the whole ‘Hunter-is-a-Noceda/Luz-and-Hunter-are-adopted-siblings’ idea that much of the fandom gravitated towards.

Luz and Hunter are certainly close friends to be sure, I just feel that treating them as full-blown adopted siblings is a bit much. I feel like Luz’s friendship with Hunter is really more comparable to her friendships with Willow and Gus. Like they’re all super close ‘ride-or-die’ best friends, but we don’t exactly treat Willow and Gus as being Luz’s adopted siblings either. 

And I think one big advantage of treating Luz and Hunter as a simple ‘close friendship’ is that it serves to better highlight the closer and more consequential relationships they have with OTHERS. In Hunter’s case, his own friendships with Willow and Gus.

I’ve already discussed this in other posts, but I feel that the fandom fixating so hard to Hunter’s friendship with Luz has kind of detracted from the fact that his friendship with Willow and Gus is both closer and more consequential to his character. Namely in that Hunter became friends with Willow and Gus BEFORE really becoming friends with Luz, and that is was his friendship with them which really served to break Hunter’s indoctrination to Belos. Note that despite the multiple encounters Hunter has with Luz over the course of Season 2, it’s pointedly not until Any Sport in a Storm where he befriends Willow and Gus, plus the rest of the Emerald Entrails, that Hunter really starts to seriously doubt Belos.

Likewise, it’s equally notable that after Hunter has his big breakdown following Hollow Mind, it’s NOT Luz but again Willow and especially Gus who end up helping him through his trauma in Labyrinth Runners. Speaking personally, this episode solidified Gus as an ‘adopted younger sibling’ to Hunter more than Luz ever would be.

Not to mention I feel like that’s a pretty cool twist that the show did here. Instead of the main heroine facilitating the resident edgy, traumatized bad boy’s redemption arc and become super-close besties in the process, it’s actually the heroine’s two best friends who get that role.

Plus, I’d argue not treating Luz and Hunter as siblings also better highlight’s Hunter’s relationship with his ACTUAL adopted father-figure, Darius.

And on the flipside, I’d argue this also likewise serves to better highlight Luz’s bond with her actual adopted siblings, King and Vee.

This is where I think the real value comes in recognizing and valuing more casual relationships/friendships between characters: It helps to vary and diversify the various dynamics between a group and show more unique connections rather than just lumping people into a ‘found family’ and calling it a day.

I mean, consider this: Luz’s and Hunter’s bonding during Thanks To Them over their respective doubts and trauma is specifically BECAUSE they aren’t as close with each other as they are with Amity and Willow/Gus respectively. Ie; both felt like they couldn’t talk about their problems to the people they were really close to, so they talked about them to someone they weren’t as close to. That’s a character dynamic that isn’t just between two characters who aren’t as close as they are with others, but one PREDICATED on these two not being as close as they are with others.

All in all, I think it’s really worth recognizing when certain character relationships and dynamics AREN’T these super close, intimate, ‘big-deal’ bonds, but are simply more low-key and casual than others. And that this doesn’t devalue what this relationship may represent but rather makes it interesting in its own way.

[alice-jem]

Personally I find the chemistry between Luz and Hunter obvious and if the show was created even 5-10 years ago no one would have much of a problem with Hunter and Luz shippers. It would’ve been what everyone expected to be endgame. Sure, I love lumity, it’s a cute sapphic high school romance. But narratively, there’s a case to be made for lunter while lumity is more just to be cute. Plus Luz is bisexual so any argument about erasing her sexuality doesn’t make sense. Plus it’s not like fandom is on the same level as the actual tv show like if a group of people want to imagine Luz and Hunter dating that does absolutely nothing to take away from the canon sapphic romance! I don’t have anywhere I feel like I can express this without getting literalky DOGPILED by Twitter teenagers who think the end all be all of queer liberation is making cartoon teenagers kiss.

I somewhat heard that type of rant that I've been interested to discuss before.. But I think it's better if Hunter has been introduced first than Amity tho. To make Hunter as a Male Lead. Yet the romance plot of TOH didn't go on that route. Because (ugh, another straight couple in Disney)

Unfortunately, everything has been already set by arranging Willow and Hunter as a pair instead Hunter is compatible to be paired with Luz because, Luz is with Amity now and both had feelings for each other before Hunter came. So I can understand what they're trying to defend the sapphic canon ship because THEY NEED LGBTQA+ REP, so if there is a straight couple in their favorite cartoon/show, the fans will gone RIOT and they will forced to make the straight couple to stay friends or platonic then shove it to everyone's throats. But their annoyance of not wanting Luz (who is a CANON BI) had a chance to NON CANONICALLY be together with a GUY who has 10x potential chemistry than Lumity. (I also love Lumity too from enemies to friends to lovers). The thing is, Willow shows to become the heroine for Hunter yet still GoldenLuz/Lunter scenes has more sparks even tho they're jumping to make a side couple (Huntlow) alongside with Raine and Eda (Raeda).

And the biggest and shittiest agenda they've got in the TOH fandom is to make these two characters (Luz and Hunter) as sibling-coded into their dynamic which is a HEADCANON. But FOR THEM IT'S A FACT because of the quarrel, all that banter and starting to helping and protecting each other away from danger/harm. And yet they theorize that when we look at Lunter, it's like there are both young Philip and Caleb.

So the issue of Lunter is because the TOH fandom can easily took it down or banish the ideas and options about Luz and Hunter to become a non-canon ship especially boy x girl ships in general media where the main protagonist is a BISEXUAL/GAY/LESBIAN or part of the LGBT rep. Some of them are a bit oversensitive by the "non-canon" ships might be ruined their canon gay/sapphic ship. Like only you can ship this MC with their same gender and NOTHING ELSE. I tried to keep away from the shipping discourse because the majority wants Lunter to see as siblings, and then they will despise somebody in every fiber of their being who ships Luz and Hunter where they are both BI for each other. Like who are they to have a right to demand a person who just wanna ship without their validation? Toxic TOH fans ain't had a right to accuse somebody because they LIKE a ship that they DON'T like. Yet also the Lunter shippers didn't wish for Lunter to be canon as well. Because they can ship them without a problem canon or not-canon as long as they don't attack nor cause such any harm to others. Yet these antis has so many claims to prove that their ship Lunter is wrong and there's nothing to support of shipping them romantically. So they will non-stop accusing Lunter shippers based on their ship which i migt turned out to become 'problematic' by many.

Luz and her bisexuality is the purest rep where she likes and attracted to guys and girls. Yet when they keep telling to such people that it will erase her sapphic love between her and Amity if Luz is going to be with Hunter in the long run.. That doesn't mean Luz isn't Bisexual anymore. How can these people pushing the hatred towards Lunter where they haven't heard the word "multishipping?" So every shipper has options which good ships to be shipped with this character. They never acknowledged poly ships too so, it's too late to speak up to toxic anti Lunters out there. Stubborn as hell lol. As a Bisexual, people must understand that they cannot ruined their Bisexuality by liking or dating a guy!

[cherrymoonvol6]

ok nvm i'll elaborate right now

i think one of the many weird choices in the finale was to make belos possess raine out of all people. one, because it really comes out of the blue. when has belos ever shown any interest of raine? like, i'm sure he must be aware of raine's record of plotting against the establishment, but he never deals with them himself. instead he sends a plethora of other people to do it for him (darius, eberwolf, kikimora, terra). if anything, it is terra that has a bone to pick with them. and in a parallel work where raine got more to do, i believe terra and raine's dynamic would've been something really interesting to explore. kinda like the relationship between atreus and odin in GOW ragnarok, like this "okay i know you hate me and all that i stand for, but i see potential in you so i'll take you under my wing and prove to you that i am worth of your time and loyalty" kinda thing, which is a banger dynamic btw.

but the second part is that there are two way more attractive options. the first one, immediately on demand, is darius. ofc it would take some canon time of developing that dynamic between belos and darius (it pains me that it doesn't exist), but it would make sense that belos would keep a close eye on darius. after all, he was mentored and was a good friend of the previous golden guard, and it's implied in various scenes (mostly ASIAS) that he knows enough about hunter's "ancestors" to praise him when he doesn't follow orders, and ultimately play the long-con to betray belos. he may even be aware in some sense of belos killing the previous golden guard, or even the existence of the grimwalkers. in that case, it would make sense that belos would have built some resentment towards him that ultimately shows in the choice to possess, corrupt and kill his puppeteer-ed body. but then, there's an even better option here, and a character that belos has hide a long-time resentment against: lilith.

look, if belos remembers luz from all those years ago, then he abso-fucking-lutely remembers lilith as well. and in a sense you can interpret the actions in canon as him trying to exert his personal vendetta against her: keep her close in the emperor's coven, trying to get her sister to join and get branded with a sigil with the promise that he'll cure her from her curse, all this while knowing that she would eventually betray him and join luz's side. we know belos kept her close for a reason and he knows the extent of her abilities, her history and relationship with eda, and her weaknesses as well. belos possessing lilith, then, would not only be the definitive "fuck you" to her, but could've also been an effective way to provoke eda emotionally and lead her to abandon her hideout to confront him. and honestly, from the way belos acts in that scene in FTF, his reaction to finding the best candidate to possess would make so much more sense if it was lilith and not raine.

but like, aren't lilith and raine just... insanely similar characters in the show's narrative? both are figures of eda's past, who loved each other sincerely back in simpler times, and through plot-related actions (raine's reason is much better narratively though, IMO) abandoned eda and joined the opposing side, climbing the ranks through their powerful abilities until becoming important figures in the coven circle. trying to think about the things i'd change in canon to make raeda a better couple involve making them go through similar plot beats that eda and lilith have gone through: an emotional, powerful moment where raine has to choose between their position of power and eda's wellbeing, actual tension between them (resentment and guilt from eda's side, frustration and confusion from raine's side), situations where they are forced to colaborate and their chemistry can still come through but still their dynamic is permeated by those lingering wounds... like, all of those things are stuff that already happened in canon, between eda and lilith. there's even that moment in king's tide where eda has the same somber moment with raine and lilith before executing their sabotage:

to me, it event seems like lilith got a lot of attention and development with eda in S1 and early S2 and then her character got sidelined when raine started to appear, and simultaneously: how raine's backstory and conflict of interest with eda are pretty much an afterthought but they still get to be a key player in the plot through late S2 and S3. i'm really sorry that economic character construction has to work this way, but that's how it is: you don't get to give eda a sister and a significant other and then make those two characters the same one. you have to commit to just one and integrate all aspects onto them.

[rose-courts03]

Working on my owl house au fic, and I I can’t tell if I did something cute and wholesome or lowkey weird.

As we have all decided, exchange jewelry is a sign of dating/marrive, and for this fic I’m making it canon that an exchange of jewelry is basically the legal documents for marriage (but it’s easy to just break up from a marriage bc there’s no legal stuff ab it). Last names are meant to be your tie specifically to your family, and you don’t take on the last name of your spouse unless you feel more of a familial connection to them. After the show I have a bunch of characters go through last name changes.

Luz becomes Luz Noceda-Clawthorne (not bc Camilla and Eda and Raine are together, just because Luz is 100% also Eda’s child. They do get together, but the initial name change is just Luz recognizing Eda as Mom #2)

Alador and Damien get together, and Blight (which I have assumed as Odalias last name because she is a blight to that world, and seems like the type who would force her whole family to dawn her name) is replaced by D’amone. Amity, Edric, and Emira also change their last names to D’amone in support.

Hunter gets like group adopted basically, so he becomes Hunter Noceda-D’amone. This is where it’s kinda weird bc technically that makes him both Amity and Luz’s brother. I’ve decided the connection doesn’t matter much, because at this point everyone sees Hunter as a brother (or in case of the adults a son, grandchild, or nephew).

Willow keeps her last name, so does Gus, Eda, Lilith, and King. I want to give Raine parental issues bc that would be fun, and I want them to change their name but I’m not sure if I want them to change it to clawthorne (bc that would kinda go against the worldbuilding I just did) or if they find a new family. I also think it would be cool for them to just drop the last name entirely, and just become Raine. Bc they are strong and they don’t whisper they scream.

Anyways rant tehe

[lampmanliveblogs]

Oh

Oooooohhh, that’s clever! And I didn’t even notice, the light literally gone from their eyes. Then again, maintaining eye contact is not something I great at… ahem. The point is, the light returning to their eyes to show they’ve broken the control over them? Genius.

But dang it! Something I thought of before but didn’t bring up was the idea that the ”Fakes” in the nightmare were actually real and forced to play a role in this scenario. The idea was that for Luz, her friends turning on her was her worst nightmare, while her friends’ worst nightmares was them hurting her. This is not quite that, this looks more like The Collector was just puppeteering them, but it’s kinda close.

(so I’m assuming that Lilith over in Eda’s dream is also the real deal… Gwendolyn and Dell might be real too. if The Collector had them turned into puppets after the Day of Unity, they’d be somewhere in the Archive House)

((and come to think of it, we didn’t see Bill’s eyes in King’s nightmare. a hint that while some other people forced to participate in these twisted games are real, he’s not?))

(((I went back and paid a bit more attention to everyone’s eyes, and indeed, no light. The house is full, but the lights are out)))

((((the one exception was Dell… but he’s a bit of an exception, since… you know…))))

Hunter: ”Think about it; what’s the first thing you do when you wake up from a bad dream?”

…scream? I dunno, usually when I wake up from a nightmare I’m so disoriented that I can’t tell what’s real and not and I spend a few minutes trying to calm down and figure out who I am and where I am.

(Tangent that will contribute nothing: This one time, I had a fever dream where I was at some chemical plant where something had sprung a leak and there was toxic chemicals threatening to kill people. I had been watching some USCSB videos before bed, so that’s where that came from. But fortunately, Peridot and Jasper from the hit animated TV series Steven Universe were there to help all the humans at the chemical plant, because the toxic chemicals didn’t hurt them. But uh-oh, it was too dark, so they couldn’t see anything. But that’s okay, because Peridot had made a potion for Jasper that would turn her into a vampire. Because vampires can see in the dark. But it was only temporary, so Jasper wouldn’t be a vampire forever. Then I woke up fearing for my life because it was dark and I couldn’t see where the toxic chemicals were.)

Anyways…

Nah, the answer was to turn on the light, as Amity hands Luz a paper with the light glyph on. Fitting, seeing as it’s not only the first glyph Luz learned, but it’s also LITERALLY her name.

I watched a few seconds further before going back to grab this screenshot, so I saw the other kids disappear into the sky as the adolescent god tugged on their strings because his dolls started saying they didn’t like playing this game and now they have to go back in the toy box.

After permanently damaging her eyes, Luz wakes up and finds herself standing on what looks like a giant chessboard, surrounded by giant toys. I’m gonna go ahead and guess this is in the same space place where The Collector and King had their bedroom… bedplanet? Their sleeping area in the last episode. Or maybe it’s some other pocket dimension The Collector sneezed out. Whatever the case is, Stringbean, I have a feeling we’re not in Connecticut anymore…