#except eberwolf who just knows

[hollowgirl136]

FnF Coven Head’s Addition

So @stormvanari​ and @devilsrecreation​ and I were talking about what a FnF mod for the coven heads might look like and we came up with two interpretations. 

Either a gauntlet type scenario, called “Day of Funkin’ “ where the player has to fight each coven head in order of their appearance during the DoU and then having to fight a “secret” boss being Belos and The Collector to save the day. Their is a little cut scene animation where the draining spell kicks in and in the background of the Belo’s fight you see all the coven heads passed out on the ground. 

 Alternatively, have each “team” try to apprehend Boyfriend and Girlfriend who ended up in the Boiling Isles and are causing problems so Belos sends the coven heads to apprehend them.  Each of them are separated into groups with Team RED being the first one you face off, followed by Team HAV, then by Team MOT. 

Raine: 

- Starting track

- Doesn’t use a mic but uses their violin instead. Their track is essential violin music. 

- Goes easy on the player since they don’t want to “hurt” them. 

Eberwolf:

- Middle track

- Ridding on a rat worm during their part. 

- Their up arrow pose is basically the Stitch manically laughter pose when they exit the crater. 

- Keeps their mic in their hair. 

Darius: 

- Ending track

- Doesn’t take Boyfriend seriously till they insult their outfit. 

-  “Beep Bop Bap” “Excuse me?!”  *summons abomination goo* 

- They summon their mic from abomination goo and the head of the mic is a literal an abomination head. 

- Up animation has them turning their arm into a scythe. 

Adrian:

- Starting track

- Does not want to be here and their idle animation has them looking at their nails in disinterest. 

- Disgusted that Boyfriend thinks their better then him. 

- Carries their mic with their tail. The bottom of the mic is a mirror like their amplifier earring. 

- Their left arrow animation has them dismissing Boyfriend by doing the *limp wrist* pose while looking to the right. 

- Ending cutscene has them disheveled like how they looked in King’s Tide. 

Vitimir: 

- Middle track

-  Also does not want to be rapping a blue haired 6 year old at 12 am but they’re forced to be there so. *starts spitting sick beats* 

- Downs a potion so that their toxic breath doesn’t poison everyone before the start of their battle. 

- Their mic has a potion bottle attached to it. It’s colors change with the different arrows. 

- Still has the breath fumes but they come out in different colors like the Garcello Mod. 

- Also coughs periodically. 

- Down animation has them pulling their mask down to expose their teeth. 

- Ending cutscene has them out of breath and looks like their about to pass out. 

Hettie: 

- Ending track

- Their cutscene has them towering over Boyfriend with a predatory smile cause they got her attention with their skills. 

- “Well, well, well kid, looks like you have some fire. But let’s see how you do against me. :)” 

- Idle animation has them with their hand on their hip and twirling their mic in the other hand. 

- Their mic is a knife. 

Mason:

- Starting track

- Their mic is a hammer. 

- Basically like Ruv track sound wise with the booming effect. 

Osran:

- Middle track

- Summons a ghost to rap with them. The ghost’s mic is transparent and copies their movements. 

- Their music has an echo to it due to said ghost. 

Terra: 

- Ending track

- Their mic is inside a rose they summon. 

- Raps while standing inside her plant, like one she’s seen riding in the show. 

- Has a predatory look on their face while rapping. 

- Opening cut scene has them surround Boyfriend and Girlfriend in thorns to keep them from escaping now that they caught her interest. 

- “Well sprout, while that was an amusing show I’m afraid I need to put an end to your trouble making. I do hope you put up a good fight.” 

[let-us-cultivate-our-garden]

I’ve seen people state that Dana Terrace has a tendency to emasculate the characters she doesn’t like, especially villains . Like often making them be defeated incredibly easily or making them do things that go against their established characters. From what you’ve seen do you think this is true?

Honestly, I think you can make the case that she does this to characters she DOES like as well; not the emasculation part, but the out-of-character moments. The most recent offender is The Collector who was previously established as enjoying watching Belos abuse and murder grimwalkers and is looking forward to the Day of Unity, but in For the Future, none of these malicious traits are present, and he seemingly does a 180 in his characterization. They're just a Lonely Kid with superpowers instead of the chaotic god child who apparently delights in misery.

It's one thing to present a character one way and gradually reveal the layers underneath but such a drastic change with seemingly no explanation is not character development, it's a retcon.

The show also has a problem with setting up how some characters change: Darius was initially presented as being contemptuous of Hunter but warms up to him once he stands up to him. Considering his history with the previous Golden Guard, shouldn't Darius know what Hunter goes through instead of assuming Hunter is spoiled? Darius' rebellion against Belos is also muddled; he becomes a fully-fledged CATs member because he cares about people and is suspicious of the Day of Unity. Except, I don't believe we're ever shown why this is the case. Darius is a Coven Head and it's his job to get more recruits and was trained by the previous Golden Guard. Logically, he should be a firm believer, but instead he uses his status to climb the ranks to act as a mole. This is a great starting point but we're missing what triggered this in the first place. The only hint is that the death of his mentor is what started his rebellion against Belos. But this isn't really expanded upon and it raises more questions. How did he find out that it was Belos who killed his mentor? How much did the Golden Guard tell him? If the death of the previous GG is what made him turn on Belos, then why does he treat Hunter poorly? If you're going to have a character act as a mole, then at least explain what their motives are and how they were developed.

This shows how fundamentally flawed the world-building in The Owl House is; characters only follow Belos when it's convenient to the plot. So in the end, you have characters who oppose Belos because they're on Team Good Guy (Darius, Raine, Eberwolf), the ones who support him because they've always been Evil (Kiki and Terra) and the rest of the isles who either celebrate him at a parade or denounce Eda's potential execution because two teenagers said so.

Anyway, onto the villains...

Odalia is essentially a war profiteer who doesn't care that her entire species is about to be wiped out by the DOU, even though logically she should. She cares about her company and a company can't profit if the majority of your customers are dead. She is tyrannical, cruel, and greedy and it's fun to watch her be reduced to a mere servant. I don't mind this development for Odalia, however, it does point to the trend of taking powerful enemies and reducing them to a shadow of themselves for comedic purposes.

Kikimora was presented as a terrifying enforcer of the Emperor's laws but she got progressively more pathetic to the point where she had to impersonate a teenager and serve as the right hand to Boscha, a character we haven't seen properly since Season 1. She is presented as power-hungry, pathologically ambitious, and has an intense desire to earn Belos' favor, but when he turns against her, she helps King find the Collector, effectively helping defeat Belos. But recently, she is back to her Season 2 shenanigans by taking over Hexside and the question is why exactly? We saw her world crumble before her and she reverts back to her previous traits instead of actual characterization. A common interpretation is that she is just THAT obsessed with power that nothing can break it, which isn't...realistic. FtF doesn't show why Kiki does this, she just does. Perhaps because of the psychological damage of Belos betraying her she decides to continue with what she's always done, except that this isn't telegraphed clearly. Instead, she just comes off as a mini-boss before the final showdown.

That leaves Belos as the only real credible threat and while he is terrifying on a personal level, we never see him at his full power; for apparently being the most powerful "witch" in the isles, his magic doesn't really stand out from what was seen before. And in King's Tide, he was just playing with Luz. He is ultimately brought down by his own hubris and misplaced trust, and an over-powered god child. Belos' defeat is thematically appropriate so it's not as egregious as Kiki's but it does fall into the category of "Easily Defeated." Obviously, we'll have to wait for the finale to see if that trend continues.

Belos' defeat by the Collector seemed to set them up as the new threat in town, that Belos, for all of his power, was ultimately nothing and the mysterious Collector is a force to contend with. But no, the Collector is largely kept in check by King. So Belos' defeat doesn't do anything for either character; we don't get any reaction from Belos about his centuries-long plan blowing up in his face and the Collector isn't even bad, just misguided. As for the misunderstanding between King and the Collector and their "new game"? I don't think the Collector will actually do anything that will have lasting damage, not while Belos still breathes.

And that's a common problem the villains in this show have, any attempt at interiority or psychological depth is explicitly rejected by the show (remember Kiki and her family, how she was worried about being disowned? Psyche! She'll drop everything for even a smidge of more power!) and the lesson seems to be "these characters have always been Evil and nothing will change that."

It can be fun watching villains go from intimidating to pathetic, but if that's all you do with them then it becomes boring fast, at least for me. Ultimately, I think the biggest problem with the villains is that you're supposed to take them at face value: Belos, Kiki, Odalia, are Evil for petty reasons and will do anything for power. Not all villains need to be nuanced with complex characterization but if all of your villains are just Evil all the time and the text explicitly does not want you sympathizing with them or even showing a different side to them, then that's just a wasted opportunity to flesh out your world with interesting characters.

[sparklyballoonballoon]

Owl House Roleplay Request

Let’s use both OCs and CCs for the roleplay 

Ships, yeah, I’m okay with having romance

In the roleplay as well since I have some

Ideas of ships in mind. 

Luz x Amity 

King x OC

Cat x Pufferfish bipedal demon in the abominations track with the sloth Palisman 

Boscha x OC 

Amelia x Lucas (the blond guy with the black beanie in the oracle track uniform who is a part of Boscha’s group in the episode Once Upon a Swap)

Eda x Raine

Jerbo x Edric 

Viney x Emira 

Bo x Skara 

Gus x Matt

(Au, Hunter attends Hexside 

Lumity is not together yet. That will happen in the rp 

Flapjack is already dead and Waffles will eventually be introduced in the rp 

Vee and Camila on the isles 

King starting Hexside eventually 

One of Boschas posse members, the healing girl, Cat having a character arc. I wanna give her a tragic backstory since he’s a background character and I can be able to have freedom 

I wanna rp Luz, Hooty, King, Principal Bump, Edric, Gus, Viney, Bo, Gavin, Angmar, Amelia, Cat, Vee

Perhaps neutral, maybe a mix of angst and some fluff

And plenty of comedy and funny dialogue 

I also wanna try to make this as literate as possible 

Also I want to have Luz finish her high school stuff  at Hexside and not go back to her old school 

I had this idea for a plot. I wanted to have Del perhaps organize a big project to lower the age limit on Palisman at Hexside to maybe a minimum grade of 4th with some exceptions depending and perhaps have another Palisman receiving day. King and rest of his classmates and other students without palismen yet can get theirs 

Like Del can host one with the collaboration of Eda, Gwen, the Bat Queen and Principal Bump. And maybe have Hunter and possibly anyone else once we get to that will be volunteers or something

And the adoption is is open to grades 4-12.

The 4 and 5th graders and all the middle schoolers can get theirs. And to be high schoolers who didn’t get theirs yet can finally get one

Maybe that’s when Hunter finally gets Waffles or something. Though does Waffle already exist or will you introduce her later in the RP?

Also does Matt have a palismen already or will his palisman be introduced in the rp? Also have you heard of Matt’s headcanoned palisman Garth?

(I wanna do a plot or some sort of Darius plot with him, Eberwolf, Steve, and Raine and potentially others working on a murder mystery in the RP as well and perhaps have some sort of trial

I want Cat (the healing girl with the glasses who’s in Boscha’s friend group) to have younger twin siblings who’s around Kings age. Their mother is framed and accused for a crime that she didn’t commit and the three are framed and accused as accomplices

This is related to something called the Dynasty Wars

The wealthy families of the boiling isles compete against each other of who makes the most contributions to the Day of Unity and who gets the biggest rewards from Belos. This causes them to get drastic measures to get on top

It’s a tactic that Belos created and used in order to make his job easier and have less witches to eliminate because witches will be eliminating each other through their feuds

I also wanna have boss fights at Hexside. Like similar to Labyrinth runners but with Luz and other characters included

I want to have all of Hexaide and their parents to fight off against each covenhead and their army of covenscouts to fight them off to keep them from getting branded 

One day they’ll take on Adrian, another day Terra, then Mason, Hettie, Vitimir, Osran…and keep taking them on until all the covenheads are defeated and then there’s this final one with Kikimora and all the covenheads along with the biggest covenscout army yet

if you wanna roleplay with me, lemme know in the comments below or just PM me

[oryoucouldhavemine]

TOH Headcanon Dump Post

(Mostly the De-lights because i write them the most lmao)

Hunter:

Autistic

surprisingly tall but like in a lanky "towers over everyone" way except he has terrible posture

gets overwhelmed with sound, light, people, basically everything if it was unexpected he's probably overwhelmed

Darius is his dad but Raine and Eberwolf are like, honorary parents at this time. Eda and Camila are more like the really close aunts he always visits to me, idk i dont see Eda being a parental figure that works for him (Luz however that is her daughter fr fr)

has lots of scars from Belos trying to "teach him a lesson" about bravery and such and Hunter doesnt think anything about it until hes like changing and Darius does a drama queen dramamgic gasp, hand over chest while leaning against a wall for support

HATES tight clothing, its too restricting he enjoys oversized and loose clothes. in the human world, luz introduces him to skirts and hunter is like "WHY WOULD ANYONE NOT WEAR A SKIRT THEYRE AMAZING"

he also likes purses he thinks theyve gotta be magical or something

touch-starved but has loving friends and family who are here to help him through it

discovers fire trucks and engines in the human world and despises the boiling isles for NOT HAVING THEN WHY DONT THEY HAVE THEM THEYRE SO COOL????

Luz

ADHD + genderqueer (p sure both are canon)

SHE WOULD LOVE NEO/XENO PRONOUNS theyd have sm fun with chosing ones

Loves to dress masc and fem and soemtimes combine them in asburd ways but she always surprisingly makes the outfit work

wants a guinea pig farm. no, NEEDS a guinea pig farm. She wants to name them all after her favourite book characters and sew them tiny outfits to match she would KILL a man for a guinea pig farm

considera hunter her older brother and looks up to him a lot

LOVES her gf would also kill a man for her she is the light of her life. luz tries to do grand romantic cheesy gestures like writing amity poems or getting her a massive bouquet of flowers but something ALWAYS goes wrong (amity loves all the gestures regardless)

luz's favourite colour is purple (because of amity ofc)

she HAS to sleep either sprawled out taking up every inch of the bed possible or curled up and swadled like a little baby there is no inbetween

very tactile if luz isnt hugging someone there might me something wrong

im cutting this short i could make fifty posts about luz hcs alone

Amity

autistic + sapphic

npw that shes free from her mom, she LOVES to be imperfect, she gets happy whenever she fails a test or a spell because shes ALOWED to be imperfect now

she and hunter did NOT get along at first like even post-s3 they didnt mesh well but they both care for Luz they had to get over it (and now theyre practically ever apart)

admired lillith even more now, she thinks lillith is like, THE COOLEST person in the world but feels akward telling her

has poor circulation so she gets cold really easily

whenever shes stressed or worried, shell pull at two strands of her hair next to her face and like twirl or pull on them to ground herself

Gus

unlabelled he/they

brags about having gone to the human realm to anyone who will listen

considers himself an expert on human things despite barely actually knowing anything human

loves playing pranks but is literally terrible at them but everyone humors him and acts surprised (he knows theyre acting)

once took a human SAT just to see if he could and got a higher score than Camila got on hers and she calls him Boy Genius for it

like in Flyer Derby, hes really good at a lot of sports but he plays untraditionally. hes always underestimated by the other team but then ends up scoring all the winning points

hes a silly little guy love him

Willow

her comfort person is hunter, she feels strong all the time but it weighs on her and hunter makes her feel strong even at her weakest moments

she likes to knot and crochet! she picked it up in the human world and she finds it so calming and fun except it took her a bit before she actually got the hang of it (she made like five sweaters that had three arms but in her defense!!! she knows a lot of creatures and beings with three arms!!!)

works out! not necessarily to get strong but because working out makes her feel accomplished

amity has been trying out new hairstyles and Willow loves being Amity's pracitce head. You can barely ever find willow without some sort of fancy braid or bun hairstyle nowadays

she wants a horse. shes not actually sure what a horse IS but she wants one

super sweet to every new person she meets until they mess with her friends then she is the scariest person alive

Darius

OCD + gay

he discovers what drag queens are and becomes obsessed

"a place for everything and everything in its place" hehas harsh rules about what does where and gets easily upset if his system is ruined

he DESPISES "if you hate messes so much whyd you pick the messiest magic to learn" comments because how DARE you insinuate that abomination matter (PART OF WHAT HE IS!) is ANYTHING like mud its actually very disrespectful of you to think so he says

he and alador had a falling out in their later years of school and to cover up the hurt, darius will argue and tease him but deep down he really just misses him

at the start of him trying to care for hunter, he refuses to admit that he is like a father to him. anytime eda or raine call him a dad, he'll go out of his way to try and prove hes NOT (cut to five months layer when hes legally adopted hunter and they meecilessly tesse him)

acts like eberwolf is the biggest inconvience hes ever met but would kill anyone who tries to harm them (and hed rather die than tell them that)

does things in threes, he doesnt even notice he does it at this point but he'll like rub his hands together three times, tie his hair up with three twists, eat three waffles for breakfast, and when smth isnt in threes it feels verry OFF to him

Alador

queer + autistic

very fixated on his work, he needs to be constantly creating and if he isnt creating then hes falling behind and if hes falling behind its the end of the world

doesnt know how to properly show affection, his parents had been pretty strict and neglectful so he doesnt know how to properly show his kids that he loves and cares for them

NOT a tactile person at all. don't touch him and DEFINTELY dont touch him without permission. he has very few people who are exceptions (his kids and Darius) and even then there are limits

hates the feeling of showering so hes a bigger bath person despite darius telling him thats not an effective way to get clean

he has like eighty pairs of the exact same outfit because its the only texture he can stand

darius and his falling out was due to his parents telling him darius was dragging him down and he itched him in an attempt to make his parents proud. he deeply regrets his choice everyday (they fix their shit eventually)

he DOES have a favourite kid but he refuses to tell them such

Edric

bisexual + autistic + transmasc

this man gets NO BITCHES none zero trying to find a partner is borderline IMPOSSIBLE for some unknown reason

he runs on a schedule and if something breaks the schedule no matter how small it can ruin his whole day

vrry open with his emotions. he will tell you right away if youre bothering him or did something to upset him

WHY THE HELL IS SCHOOL SO HARD he despises english because why are all answers right and wrong he loves math because there is only one right answer but its still a tricky subject for him

dinosaurs

his biggest fear is dying alone he hates being alone its the worst thing ever

WHY IS MAGIC TRICKY AS WELL WHY IS EVERYTHING SO HARD? hes getting better though and hes really good at beastkeeping

clingy emotionally and physically he needs the constant reassurance that people are there and care for him and hes close to his sister and tends to stick to her like glue

Emira

bisexual + AuDHD + transfem

when she and edric were younger and realised they were both trans they just switched names and clothes and it took ten years for their parents to notice the switch

RSD [Rejection Senstive Dysphoria] she hates that she has it because someone can say smth as simple as "sorry i cant make it my grandma died" and she'll start thinking of a million different reasons why that person actually just hates her (shes communicated this with her siblings though and they do their best to commincate clearly back with her that no they dont hate her at all)

SO MANY BITCHES people fall at her feet they swoon when she walks by but NONE of them are her type its terrible!!!!

loves her little sister but doesnt know how to show her love through any other way outside merciless teasing

she loves her brother, she does, she just wants to be her own person outside him, to be able to turn around and not see him two feet behind her

loves english and the fact you can make any wrong answer right with enough arguing and debate. math is her least favourite subject WHY THE HELL IS IT SO HARD

has years of detention stacked up but has not attended a single day (she got suspended for a week because of it and was just like YAYYY FREE VACATION!)

will sometimes just sit in her dads workshop while he works and watch in silence because she likes hanging out with people but knows alador cant focus with sound. its both of their favourite times

Raine

lesbian + nonbinary

post-s3 runs a music therapy group where they teach people how to play instruments or how listening to music can greatly help their mental health

has been in love with eda since their breakup, they never stopped loving her and would watch from the sidelines with terror as wanted signs got hung up around the BI for years

doesnt mind dressing fem or masc but prefers the more androgynous outfits

has watched hunter from the sidelines and tried to protect them from a distance but could only do so much. post-HM raine goes out of their way to make sure hunter is safe

sees luz as a sort of step daughter and then promptly panics over that realisation for a whole day

gets flustered really easily like why is everything so embarrassing what the hell

very agile, can do backflips and stuff

Eberwolf

Unlabelled + he/they

COULD JOT STAND DARIUS AT FIRST darius and eber did NOT get along in their early years of being covenheads but then eventually learned they were both rebels and got closer now theyre kind of like begruding brothers

could kill a man in their sleep and has

loves being dirty, mud is so much fun why doesnt everyone roll around in the mud more?

has also watched hunter from afar for years, hunter used to be sent out on overnight missions into the woods and stuff and eber would follow along and protect hunter so he could focus on his mission and not random forest creatures trying to kill him

Most of these are based on my dadrius series and stuff so if you enjoyed these hcs uou should go read my fics (KaztielCS118 on ao3!!! used to be Im_Basically_Shakespeare but i changed it recently)

[polyhexian]

Raine's entire experience in the eventually AU cracks me up.

Like, on the one hand, the rebellion seems to have a bit more steam earlier on here? (is that a result of Jasper being alive? or just headcanon?) In canon there didn't seem to be much organized rebellion until, like, a month before the Day of Unity. So they've got that going for them.

And they've got the Martlet! Who is a very strong ally, even if they can't figure out what the guy's whole DEAL is. Who is he? Where'd he come from? What's with the lack of magic? What's with the broken hawk palisman? How does he seem to have better castle intel than Raine does despite Raine WORKING IN THE CASTLE? Why is he so standoffish about getting more involved when he OBVIOUSLY hates Belos? He is weirdly obsessed with fighting the Golden Guard but also insanely protective of the Golden Guard? His motivations are inscrutable and make no sense. But beggars can't be choosers and the Martlet is really good at what he does, so Raine doesn't question him much.

But the guy isn't all that great at cashing in favors? He just keeps racking them up. What does he WANT??

When he DOES cash in a favor or name his price in a trade, it makes no SENSE.

"I want more information on the Golden Guard."

"You probably know more about the Golden Guard's fighting skills and tactics than anyone else at this point."

"Not that kind of information. I want to know ABOUT him. His likes, dislikes, personal history…"

Raine squints at the Martlet. "Okay, I'm aware you two are rivals, but this is a bit much." They can't afford to worry too much about the Golden Guard, aside from worrying that he doesn't get in the CATTs' way. The child soldier thing is messed up, but the kid is severely brainwashed and there's not much Raine can do when they need to focus on saving all of the Isles. Still… "Are you aware that the Golden Guard is a teenage boy?"

The Martlet straightens up. "Aha, so you are aware that the Golden Guard is a teenage boy."

"That…doesn't answer my question."

"Nope, but it's answered several of mine."

Raine groans, but the Martlet's price is relatively inexpensive and while the guy is weird he's never been a creep, so they say, "I know of a few people who were involved in his upbringing, I'll see what I can do."

Things progress generally along the same lines as canon for a while. Raine's got the CATTs, and they reunite with Eda for a bit, and then Darius and Eberwolf "protect" them in the stupidest way possible but at least it ends with them joining the CATTs, and they've got to fake being brainwashed by Terra's STUPID tea, but everything proceeds as usual.

And then Any Sport in a Storm happens.

"Darius," Raine says, staring blearily at the other man, "it is four in the morning. WHAT is so important that YOU are skipping out on your beauty sleep to knock on my door at four in the morning?"

"I need the Martlet's contact information," Darius says, wild-eyed.

"…Why?"

Darius draws a blank. "Um…classified?"

Raine decides they don't want to know and gives him the Martlet's scroll number.

And then things get weird. Darius doesn't leave his room for like two days and when he does he's oddly jumpy now? Eberwolf seems to think he's depressed by WHY is anyone's guess. And then Darius starts trying to befriend the Golden Guard?? Why?? Darius we're running a rebellion we need to stay UNDER the kid's radar - You're going on a camping trip? What? YOU? What's this about eating bugs??

If they try to contact the Martlet during this time period they are. taken aback. by what a bad mood the guy's in.

And there's a million ways Hollow Mind could go down, but if it goes down in such a way that Raine remains oblivious to the whole Jasper situation, they are just. So confused. Like, okay, we didn't get into the Emperor's mind, but we got the intel we needed. Time to stop the Day of Unity!

The Golden Guard ran away for some reason and Raine is like, okay, one threat eliminiated, yay? Except now Darius is freaking out over the missing kid and it's like, Darius. Darius can you please focus? Darius we are all going to die.

They try calling the Martlet like 50 times before he finally picks up and they're like, look, we figured out what the Day of Unity is, and it's bad, we need all hands on deck! Are you in or what? What do you mean no? So just because you're a wild witch you're gonna leave everyone with a sigil to die?

"I'M A LITTLE BUSY, WHISPERS."

"Busy doing WHAT? What could possibly be more important than - did he just hang up on me?!"

Eda's house gets raided but Eda herself isn't captured, so that's a relief, but Darius is really cagey all of a sudden, and - what's this about the Martlet single-handedly holding off an Emperor's Coven attack squad at Hexside? What is he DOING?

Darius finds the Golden Guard. Yay? The kid isn't on Belos's side anymore so that's good and Darius wants to give him a mission and you know what, knock yourself out Darius, Raine is just going to ignore whatever's going on there and focus on the ACTUAL plan. The Martlet STILL isn't answering their calls. Why does Raine feel like they're the only one who cares about this rebellion?

And then, y'know, Day of United, puppetization, possession, final battle, stomping Belos into an unrecognizable puddle of goo before seeing the spirit of their god ascend into the aether. Raine has had. A long day. Week. Month. Whatever. But they've won! Everyone's alive! And there are reunions!

Darius is with the Golden Guard kid, because of course he is. There is a strange man glaring very intently at Darius. Darius looks terrified of the guy but that is not stopping him from listening to Hunter's ramblings.

The strange man is the Martlet. The Martlet is the previous Golden Guard. And also Hunter's father. WHAT? WHAT??

And Raine looks at this enigma of an ally whom they have never been able to figure out, who is apparently the Emperor's old lackey and infamous bogeyman, and who the CATTs owe approximately five million favors to.

Shit.

And Raine is like, okay, what do you want. Are you after money? Power? What is your GAME?? I'll have you know we aren't going to replace one tyrant with another BUT I admit your leadership experience COULD come in handy so if you want a seat in the new government we've got to build up I could probably arrange SOMETHING.

And this man just looks at them and says, "I'm going on paternity leave. Don't call me."

And Raine is just like. What is HAPPENING.

DONT CALL ME FIRUABNDJFOWKRF

god raines perception of this man is so funny. He's a weirdo who won't listen to them unless they bring him a plain boiled egg for lunch. The only favours he ever cashes in are "can you find out what the golden guards favourite animal is" and "if anyone but me touches a hair on the golden guards head I'll blow up the boiling isles myself." He's so fucking DRAMATIC. And after the day of unity they don't see him again! It's three months and until Raine is captured they keep an eye out, but he appears to be gone. Either he ran away like he seemed to want to, or he got killed. Either way he's out of the picture and he's probably never coming back. Then. Who the fuck is that guy over there with Darius and Hunter.

Actually I imagined in hollow mind jasper shows up to the party late because obviously this was NOT on hunters mission schedule, and it is also not the weekend or his day off!! By the time he gets to the owl house eber and Raine and Darius are panicking in the bushes frantically arguing about what to do when the Martlet fucking emerges from the brush panting for air like what the FUCK did you DO. And they explain what happened as quickly as they can and he's like SO GO TELL THEM HOW THE FUCKING SPELL WORKS???? SO THEY CAN GET THEM OUT??? and they're like but our secret identities and-- at which point jasper just grabs Darius and drags him across the yard, kicks open the door and throws him on the floor. Everyone inside like HELLO and the Martlet like HE IS GOING TO TELL YOU HOW TO FIX THIS NOW.

And here, for DRAMA, it's like when Luz went in that portal she made for the vee episode, where they had her tied with a rope so they could pull her back? They have to send someone in to grab them so they can pull them back, and obviously jasper insists. Because how fucking cool would it be for the kids to be finally cornered by Belos like they were just before they got teleported back only for jasper to show up out of nowhere with a flapjack staff to block a big dramatic blow and Belos to freeze like YOU-! and a moment of absolute terror on jaspers face before he grabs the kids and yells he's got them and gets pulled back. And then they all drop on the floor, hunter panics and bolts, and jasper frantically goes after him but oh god, jasper just got hit hard, maybe he hurt a leg or something and he can't CATCH him and Hunter goes off on his exciting homeless era while jasper is left to collapse in the woods and wail angrily at god because he was so fucking close!

And of course he doesn't go back to Eda's or explain shit lmfao he's just gone again like fucking always

Can you imagine Raine seeing THAT. He drags Darius away. Enters the owl house all dramatically. Long silence. Flash of light, lots of yelling. Door slams open, hunter sprints into the woods. Martlet runs after him, bleeding, also vanishes into the woods. Darius stumbles out with a thousand yard stare. Raine is like what the FUCK happened??? And Darius is like I need a nap goodbye

[whotfelsewantedtobelynnyx]

So I’m a firm believer in “The BATTs are Raine’s kids” but one thing that always bugged me a little was the fact that Raine- who was willing to throw away the whole plan to kill Darius and Eber because Eda had kids, and who purposefully did everything they could to keep the people they loved out of harm’s way, like lying to Eda and leaving Amber on the airship during the DOU- was willing to let themself die in the forest with Eda when their kids were still in prison. And then I read this post by @icedmochasi

And suddenly it made sense.

Raine didn’t go after their kids because they thought their kids were dead.

Remember this line? Raine’s no fool. They know what happens to traitors. And to make things worse, Darius made it clear that the younger BATTs weren’t the ones he was looking for- meaning they’re disposable. For all Raine knew, Darius destroyed them right then and there- and if he didn’t, he was probably sending them off to be killed. Hell, if it were any of the other Coven Heads, they probably would have sent them off to die. Luckily, it was Darius, and he just plopped them in an unlocked cell.

But Raine didn’t know that.

And this just breaks my heart. Look at their expression when Darius teleports the BATTs away.

Honestly, I’d argue that this is almost the most outwardly distressed we see them in the entire show (with the exception of right after their capture in King’s Tide, when they cry out for Eda). They just look so shocked, so absolutely horrified. Eda looks alarmed too, but more in a “holy shit, did that just happen?” sort of way. Raine, on the other hand, looks totally devastated. That’s the face of a mentor/parent who just lost their kids.

Of course they were willing to kill Darius afterwards. Of course they were willing to die. They’re in shock, they’re heartbroken, and they’re probably absolutely furious. And they’re probably not thinking straight, hence why they didn’t fight Eda on it when she decided to die with them.

But then they learn that she has kids, and they throw everything out the window, because now more than ever they understand just how much her kids need her and how much she needs them. They understand because they’d do anything to be with their kids again right now, to have been able to save them or at least hold them one last time. They won’t let Eda make the same mistake they did.

Just…ouch.

Bonus because I can’t take anything seriously:

Darius: …and so after my mentor’s death, I started to become suspicious. I dug deeper and discovered some sketchy things about the Day of Unity. From there, I approached Eberwolf and started to plan. When we found out that you were causing trouble, we volunteered to try and “capture” you in hopes of intercepting you before the likes of Kikimora got to you. Any questions?

Raine: Yeah, just one. WHERE THE FUCK ARE MY CHILDREN, DARIUS?!

[thousand-winters]

I think dadrius fans are sleeping on the comedic potential of post-canon Hunter getting jealous over Darius giving nicknames to other kids.

Not Hunter's close friends of course, he would think that's funny and cool, but for example someone like Jerbo. Hunter gets back from a school break vacation in the Human Realm, and Jerbo had started helping with the sigil removal project and already got a nickname. And Hunter is super mad because Jerbo has anti-authoritarian tendencies + knows abomination magic = is Hunter being replaced by a better white boy? (that happens at the point post canon where Hunter wouldn't actually for real believe it, but he is still very much a passive-agressive teenager about it)

I think we're sleeping on the comedic potential because we're all too used to thinking about angst when it comes to literally any scenario lmao 😭 I'm blaming Hunter for this one, he just makes it too easy.

Honestly it's so funny because the way I picture Darius and Hunter's relationship post-canon is that Darius is such a whipped dad that while there's definitely a lot of teasing, as evidenced by that intense hair ruffle in the epilogue, and playfully snarky comments, he probably is far softer on Hunter than he is with literally anybody else, Eberwolf very much included because Darius is very much like Eda when it comes to expressing his affection. Raine can attest to that.

So he probably was like that during their sewing lessons at the castle as well, it's only once the adoption becomes official that he starts being more openly soft because he can afford to without blowing his rebel cover like before, and he has a very traumatized teenage boy in his hands who certainly could use the sincerity when it comes to him expressing his mushy parental feelings.

That's all well and good. Hunter loves being the exception to Darius' rule about how to show he cares. Being Darius' little prince who's absolutely getting a big, obnoxious cheek kiss with a loud "mwah" at least once a week because Darius likes teasing him in the corniest of ways but also does mean the affection.

It's good. It really is.

But then people like Jerbo come along and Hunter sees Darius teasing him with that playful snark that was so characteristic of him at the beginning of their bond and he's immediately grumpy and suspicious about it.

It's not like he has lost that, it's just that Darius is softer with him and it was never a problem until it is.

"Wow, Darius, how come you don't call me a little shit while smiling at me and payfully patting my back before we go our separate ways? Isn't it so interesting how that happens? 🙃". He's raging, he's seething, he's glaring at Jerbo whenever he sees him over Darius' shoulder because he's being hugged at this exact moment and poor Jerbo doesn't understand if Hunter thinks he did something to Darius or what's wrong with him. It's always problems with the Emerald Entrails, who's next? Gus???

Darius ends up finding out about it, of course, because Hunter is tragically bad at hiding his emotions, especially now that he doesn't have to keep up an act and it's been a while since he has to, and he finds it terribly amusing but of course he has to clarify that he doesn't plan on replacing Hunter. He's not too sure about calling Hunter a little shit though, but increasing the amount of playful teasing is something that can be arranged.

Hunter is probably a little ridiculous about it, he still wants to cuddle with Darius on the couch while shooting snippy remarks back and forth and that's a very valuable form of bonding to him. Darius is equally as ridiculous so it works out fine.

[theaceofarrows]

How do you see Luz's family? Like who's in it and playing what part? And be as detailed as you want - need - I'm very curious

Alright, here we go!

Camila, the amazing mama she's had all her life who's relationship has only grown between them and it's stronger than ever. Number 1# support system in the HR and group mom to all the kids

Eda, her loving, crazy mama she gained in the DR. There will always be a special bond between them for Eda being the first person (other than Camila) to except all her qurks and interests embrace her for it. Mom/crazy aunt to all the kids

Raine, her DR parent. Gives great advice especially for anxiety related issues. Absolutely a teen rebellion role model (THE Raine Whispers?!). Teaches her all the best bard spells and is always super patient

Lilith, cool aunt always down for bad girl™ shenanigans and adventures, ready to help with any and all school related questions 24/7

King, little brother. Would do anything for each other and both super protective. Number 1# cuddle buddy. Will always make groan inducing puns together

Amity, her awesome girlfriend/future wife. Her biggest fan and another huge support. Helps each other with self worth issues. Always hanging out and holding hands. Possible Bi awakening. Always ready to pull each other from danger. Enemies to friends to girlfriends

Willow, first and forever best friend. They are sisters hands down. Have been and always will be together through thick and thin. Have helped each other grow SO much since the beginning. Support each other's crazy stunts

Gus, also best friend and her's/Hunter's little brother. Always cheering each other on and lift each other up. Speak in memes. Getting into trouble and shenanigans all the time and giving they're parents grey hairs

Hunter, he's/Gus's older brother and Camila's son. Former enemies to reluctant allies to friends to siblings. Have helped each other through trauma especially Belos related. Have such oldest and youngest syndrome. Endlessly annoy each but would but would also kill for each other

Vee, her's/Hunter's little sister and Camila's daughter. Had a bit of a bumpy start at first but after some hard truths and life or situations are now 100% sisters. Vee seems like the voice of reason but in actuality is incredibly fierce and ready to kill to protect her family. They give each other wildly different dating advice

Emira & Edric, Amity's siblings/Luz's future siblings in-law/Hunter's step siblings??. Chaos twins. Probably founded the Lumity fan club. They are the friends you go to when you "know a guy". Always down to commit illegal acts and have the bail money ready. Constantly teasing

Alador, Amity and Em & Ed's dad/Luz's future father in-law/probably Darius husband/Hunter's step dad??. Very supportive of his kids relationships and always doing his best to make time and listen to them. Thought Luz was a member of the family 5 minutes ago. Probably already has the wedding planned

Darius, rich wine uncle/Hunter's dad/Amity, Em & Ed's step dad??/Alador's husband??. Acts like he doesn't care but will fight anyone who hurts his kid('s). Not so silently judging everyone's outfits. Goes to every sports match. Teaches Amity and Hunter crazy abomination spells because he claims Alador is to much of a hack to be trusted

Eberwolf, fun/crazy uncle/Darius' little brother. Has shown everyone what would probably be considered illegal beast keeping magic. Rides on people's shoulders whenever someone is having a bad day. Gives the kids tips on the best way to annoy Darius

Steve, the guy who just kind of showed up and is now everyone's honorary big brother. Gives rides on motorcycle. Like Em & Ed is also the guy you go to when you "know a guy". Hooks everyone up with a therapist

I hope this is okay! Thank you so much for this ask

[crimeronan]

imagining Raine, Darius and Eberwolf doing there whole Hollow Mind scheme to figure out what the new empress’ plan for the isles are, and upon entering her mindspace finding a very stressed teenager who wants to burn down the empire as much as they do.

GOD.

this concept is so juicy i might HAVE to fic it at some point. GOD!!! it would be HARD to engineer a situation where the three of them felt like invading luz's mindscape was their best bet -- they'd have to 1) feel like she's keeping dangerous enough secrets to warrant taking such an Enormous and invasive risk to find out more, and 2) feel like she's dangerous enough Just By Herself to warrant needing to know Now, as opposed to taking extra time for subtle spy work

but there are honestly. a Lot of ways to meet those conditions. especially given the circumstances in the AU. luz says herself that it doesn't make any sense for her to assassinate the emperor just a few weeks before she would have taken power anyway -- so IF raine and darius and eber suspect her (like any reasonable person might), then that Alone raises the stakes. because then their question is yeah, actually!! why DID she do it!! and what DOES she want with this power!! and why IS she being so obviously secretive about her plans and politics and alliances!! who Theeee Fuck is she working with and what did THEY get out of the assassination?? even if luz herself doesn't set off genocide-adjacent alarm bells, the potential for political instability would have the rebels on heightened alert

and then there's a potential additional layer here that would make me Fucking Crazy, in that. darius and hunter have had a pretty friendly rapport in this AU for much longer than they have in canon. and darius has also always been intensely mistrustful of luz's whole Bright-Eyed Curiosity thing. so if darius happens to be observant enough to notice just how strangely tense and stressed out and upset hunter is during the time leading up to n immediately following the assassination...... i can only IMAGINE what kind of theories he might have about what went down between hunter and luz. and how that might shape his own actions.

(the funniest irony would be if darius is worried that luz forced hunter to help her with assassinating belos and/or that she's blackmailing him. meanwhile in actuality hunter is like "god i would LOVE for luz to blackmail me. at least that would mean she's talking to me again")

i'm certain that luz and raine would have a positive rapport in this AU, given that they're both sweet people who hate playing political word games and have similar senses of humor. they likely wouldn't be Close due to all of the politics at play, but like. raine at least is like. i don't think she wants the same things that belos did. i don't know what she DOES want but. it can't really be any worse, can it.

& darius being insistent that raine shouldn't trust the very calculated doe-eyed innocent persona that luz projects, because No One around the castle is Actually as kind or helpful or earnest or weird as luz pretends to be. she's manipulating you whispers!! you're giving her exactly what she wants!!

so they enter her mindscape warily prepared for anything, not sure what they'll find, basically braced for anything Except the straightforward teen girl that luz seems to be. & then within like Minutes, raine is like. alright. darius. you overthought this one. this is a baby.

& darius is just like. jesus FUCKING hell. this is a BABY.

[devilsrecreation]

Stuff I think would happen if TOH characters were in the House of Mouse

Mickey, while trying to make the more recent Disney shows/movies feel more welcome in the club, seats Belos with Frollo. Little does he know, the seating arrangement works out TOO well

“Mickey, I’m starting to think those arrangements worked out a little too well…”

“What makes you say that?”

“Well, Claude Frollo and Emperor Belos are planning to destroy all magic-kind.”

“O h.”

I think I said this before, but it’s just too damn funny so I’ll do it again: Eda, being Eda, somehow pissing off the Queen of Hearts and when the Queen orders “OFF WITH HER HEAD”, Eda says “Bet” and detaches her head cuz of her curse. Cue a very confused Queen looking at her like “What”

Like how do you respond to that? Someone just detaching their head WHILE THEY’RE STILL ALIVE. I don’t think even she would know what to do

Mortimer tries to flirt with all the adult female characters and the following happens:

- He hits on Eda, but turns over to Lilith when she says she’s taken. When Mortimer fails to take the hint, Lilith sics Hooty on him….and then he eats him

- He tries his luck with Terra and he legit almost dies. I don’t think I need to explain that one

- Camila tries to be as polite as possible but the second he puts an arm around her, she beats him with her chancla

- He’d probably stoop as low as flirting with Odalia and Kikimora and when he does, I’ll be on their side for once

Eberwolf hanging out with all the animal sidekicks

I wanna see the characters in Hercules reacting to King being a titan, since titans are basically enemies to the Greek Gods. I feel like they all would be alarmed and ready to fight (except Hades, Pain, and Panic who are excited) until they actually see him and they’re like “That’s your Titan?….The dog-thing is your Titan…..what-”

Mickey and the gang unwillingly getting help from the Collector and he takes it too far

Terra hanging out with all the Disney Villainesses

Hunter and Gepetto bonding over the fact that their wooden creations come to life

Hunter fawning over the Big Bad Wolf cuz you know…it’s a wolf

Magic duel? Magic duel

[ocil91]

Last round of Head Witches! Those present for the Incident at Hexside!

Adrian Graye Vernworth - The charming Head of the Illusions Coven! Adrian fancies himself a superstar and definitely feels entitled to everything that entails. He loves to talk about his (completely untrue) rags-to-riches story and generally talk about himself. He's the one with the starring role, after all.

He demonstrates a remarkable mastery of illusion magic to dazzle and confuse the senses. He's able to control an absolutely astonishing number of illusions at one time, a feat that he's quick to utilize.

His completely self-absorbed nature causes him to butt heads with pretty much all of the other Head Witches. He views himself as their superior in pretty much every way. He has a bitter rivalry with Vitimir and the two are always looking to one-up each other. Also, he'd never admit it but he is absolutely terrified of Hettie.

------------------------

Darius Deamonne - The haughty Head of the Abominations Coven. He's an incredibly fastidious witch who is known far and wide for his trendsetting looks and awe-inspiring power. For Darius, everything has its place and he very much prefers to keep things neat an orderly. Many have attempted to comment on how little since it makes for someone obsessed with tidiness to be an Abomination Witch but, like, they just don't get it.

He has an unparalleled degree of control over Abomination magic, even able to steal control from someone else's Abomination. Most impressive however is his ability to transform his body into an Abomination. He's not merely hiding inside the goop, he actually becomes it. In this form he's incredibly strong, fast and durable. Being made of the squishy material means that most attacks pass harmlessly through him. However the form does have a few weaknesses...

Among his peers Darius doesn't seem to get along with anyone, aside from an utterly inexplicable bond he has with Eberwolf. And he rather prefers for things to appear that way. As a member of the Rebellion, he is fast friends with Raine Whispers. He has nothing but unwavering faith in the Bard and fully believes that they are the key to moving things forwards.

Outside of his peers, Darius comes across as incredibly unapproachable and, as a result, he has very few connections. Having trained under a previous Golden Guard, he definitely has his eyes on the new one. Though he's totally unsure of how to proceed on that front. Also he's recently found some respect for the Blight kids and their friends.

------------------------

Hettie Cutburn - The implacable Head of the Healing Coven. I already made a post talking about Hettie's origin in more detail. She was born blind and with high expectations on her. She's always loved gore and viscera and anything that she can get her hands on which led her to a fervent passion for Healing Magic! (Particularly odd or gruesome surgeries are what truly make her happy.)

In spite of her interests she's become a very powerful and respected Healer who many view as saintly for the many life-saving procedures she's performed, even hailed as a miracle worker by some.

Her peers all know her better than that though. Those who don't fear her outright are wary of her and that's exactly how she likes it. The only exception is Terra who doesn't fear her, she simply looks down on the Healer for her disability. That makes her the only one Hettie truly hates instead of merely dislikes.

Her mastery of Healing Magic and the precision with which she wields it are absolutely unmatched. She can speed up her own healing processes to the point that her wounds close nearly instantly and her knowledge of anatomy enables her to very swiftly and efficiently remove threats.

She's trained herself to sense magic to compensate for her lack of sight and it makes it quite difficult to escape her. However, her dependence on it means that those with very weak or no magic are able to sneak up on her.

Sitting at the top of her craft for so long has left her bored. She's looking for a new thrill and in the halls of Hexside she found some very interesting witches...

[candyskiez]

Feel free to chat about whatever fic you want :)

Reblog this if you want readers to come into your ask box and ask for the “director’s commentary” on a particular story, section of a story, or set of lines. Or, send in a ⭐star⭐ to have the author select a section they’ve been dying to talk about!

oooo okay let's go!!! I'm picking this section of my fic stubborn

"Raine was quiet for a moment, pensive. 

 

"Alright,  you're guilty. So what are you going to do about it?"

 

"What?"

 

"You treated him badly. You were wrong. So how are you going to make up for it?" 

 

"It's not that simple, Songbird."

 

"Let me ask you this: do you care about him?"

 

"...Yes. Yes I do." He was fond of him, once he actually got to know him. Once he saw what the kid was like, really like, well…how could he not be? He was kind, and earnest, and passionate and a bit of a dork, albeit with a dark sense of humor. He was a good kid, a damn good one in fact. Those sewing lessons were some of the first Non-Eberwolf related good memories he'd made in…decades, really. "But that doesn't change how I treated him."

 

"You're right. It doesn't. So what do you want to do to fix it?"

 

Darius wanted to reply with something witty, like he always did. It was how he worked. Uncomfortable situation? Sass your way out of it. Works every time. Except for when he can't think of one. 

 

"There are plenty of people far more qualified to help him than I am."

 

"So what are you gonna do when he comes back? Ignore his existence? Do you really think that'd help? How do you think that'll come across?"

 

"It doesn't matter , Raine. He's dead. There's no point speculating. He's gone." 

 

"And what if he isn't? What are you going to say to him?"

 

He goes quiet. Raine sighs.

 

"Look, I get you're guilty. How you treated Hunter was wrong. But avoiding him isnt going to fix it. All you'll do is hurt him and make him think he did something wrong. You wanna make it up to him? Then apologize. If he doesn't want you in his life? Live with it. If he does? Then do better. And don't do it just for Jasper, or because you promised him. Do it because, at the very least, Hunter deserves an apology.""

a thing that always bugs me about a lot of stories about guilt is that it's often treated like the guilt matters more than the one who's hurts comfort. and also how much apologies are treated less as giving the one who was hurt and yourself closure, and more like "now you have to forgive me." which...isn't good. at all. sometimes, forgiving someone is good for you. other times, it isn't. whether or not reconciliation is the healthiest option solely depends on the one who's hurt comfort. if being around them makes them miserable, they shouldn't be expected to reconcile just because the person who hurt them is so so so so guilty. what I really wanted to focus on in this fic was yeah, darius is guilty. but is he going to be sorry, or is he going to be better. (the answer is the latter, dw he's being Responsible.) I didn't want this fic to feel like "ohhh no Darius made a mistake so it's all about HIM feel bad for HIM." it's about darius getting his shit together. and ultimately darius ignoring hunter or distancing from him on the assumption that he won't want him around would hurt the fuck out of him, because it'll only be perceived as rejection, as him hating him. leaving someone for their own good with no warning? that fucks a person up. bad. and is a fucking awful thing to put someone through. this scene is basically raine just saying it how it is. give hunter the choice. stop running from your guilt by pretending there's no chance he's still alive. admit that you're scared he's hurt, and let him make his own decisions. if he wants to avoid you, leave him alone. if he wants you in his life, do better. it is NOT your choice on if he forgives you. it's his. this is probably incoherent and badly worded but here hold this.

[thishazeleyeddemon]

Something about Darius and Eberwolf, two people whos jobs by design had them be isolated and pitted against each other ending up "i'd let the world die to save you" is making me feral. That's not even getting to their basic opposing traits!!! They are so *mwah*!

The Coven Heads apparently backstab each other all the time except for these fucking guys who went and fell in love.

which is the one canonical thing we have about their relationship. That they love each other. Wildin

In my head Darius thinks about the incident with Hettie and Osran a lot. He doesn't know what he would do if he had the chance to make a plan, to do more than act on terrified instinct. He doesn't want to think he would deliberately decide to let the Isles be destroyed... but if he tries to imagine himself letting Eber die, there's just. A blank black wall.

[mdhwrites]

I’m surprised Belos wasn’t destroyed at the end of the first special, since he seemed to be presented as the first obstacle the group would need to deal with before going back to the BI. I guess they’re saving his death for the final special, and I don’t know what else they could do other than kill him- he’s visually non-human enough at this point that it would be acceptable on screen, they’ve explicitly shown he’s not redeemable, and him being imprisoned would be seen as just lame.

So this got me to talk about why S3 as a concept was doomed as a whole because it reveals that the second half was just kind of doomed. A return to the Isles was always going to be more adventure focused just like the second half of S3 for Amphibia was always going to be adventure focused. Amphibia had a truly monstrous world and a capricious, malevolent ruler with vast resources that could all challenge the protagonists. Half a season of that is easy to see how that's exciting.

Belos is ALL that TOH had. Honestly, I still hate that they struggle as much as they do with Kikimora because while it's a BIG Abomaton, it's still an abomaton effectively but with you just needing to knock out the driver. With the fact that Willow can just send one of those who knows how deep into the ground without effort, it's hard to feel intimidated by anything Kikimora does.

Now in theory, there's the coven heads, especially since after you remove Raine, Darius and Eberwolf, you have six of them. With Camila, the Hexide Squad is 6 members strong. That sets up for a very good possibility for each of them to fight a form of counterpart amongst the coven heads, either in personality or in magic.

…Except this literally can't happen because half the squad don't use only one magic, figuratively can't happen because Gus' fight can't have any tension without bullshit as he proved WITHOUT the coven head's artifact that he was already stronger IN A PANIC ATTACK and also narratively wouldn't make sense. Why would they be fighting? Sure, you can make literally all of the coven heads pure evil so they're fighting out of spite. That'd work for Terra and the illusion head but otherwise, they have no reason to go against the Hexide Squad or really anyone. In theory, they're just as screwed by the Collector's regime as anyone else is and the Collector has no interest in generals or armies. He wouldn't send them out to kill Luz and co.

The Isles themselves also aren't categorically dangerous enough to pose a threat. There is literally only ONE time where what Luz fights is a creature of the Isles and that's after she blew a hole in its fur in Adventure in the Elements. Otherwise, as Eda said, it would have left them alone most likely. This is the opposite of Amphibia where just sitting on a bench is liable to have a form of Roc or giant insect come and take you away.

As a note, the last Amphibia episode I watched was "After the Rain" and that episode is fascinating to me because of the push and pull of fantasy genre tropes, the world of Amphibia and the fact that some stakes and pains can never be trivialized for a good person. The fact that I've never heard it discussed blows my mind.

Anyways, getting back on track, this all presents a fundamental problem for the show. We're an adventure show that wants a big fantasy ending but we have no villains to fight. No monsters to beat. Not anything other than Belos. And having only one villain for three specials is a very rough place to be. After all, he has to be able to challenge the characters without killing them but if he's ever beat, the narrative tension is destroyed. This is part of why him being smashed by the Collector like he was actually made it hard to be interested in Belos because… Okay, once this kid is reformed, that's the win button. The Collector could literally just do "Rocks fall and everyone dies" after all because he feels like his powers are effectively unlimited.

And… I'm not getting into the finale because it's a whole other mess of structural and narrative problems and I'm trying to be respectful to those who care about spoilers, at least for a couple days.

What's hilarious to me though is that the second special didn't even try. They still brought back Kikimora despite Kikimora being even less of a threat and having less tension around her than Belos. It's part of why I'm baffled by the second special because while I haven't watched it, it sounds like it's mostly filler. Bare minimum, anything with Kikimora is where you just have to be sitting there going "WHY ARE WE FIGHTING THIS PERSON RIGHT NOW!? Don't we have more important shit to do?"

It's a mess and it's entirely TOH's own fault. What if instead of using Them's the Breaks Kid to make sure EVERYONE knew Raeda were a pair of soulmates, two clones of each other, we had spent literally any time with a right hand of Belos that wasn't Hunter. Or any of the Coven Heads to try and establish their villainous cred and why they may decide to fight the Hexide Squad once they get back? Or if Belos was already going "This bitch is a fuckup and a liar", have a coven head there for Eclipse Lake that Amity pisses off in the process of things instead of Kikimora who loses her credibility that very episode by how unhinged she is with minimal intervention by the heroes?

Just… Anything. But the show very rarely actually cares about its adventure elements, it's much more of a fantasy drama just like Amphibia is mostly a fantasy slice of life. Having life or death stakes in a fantasy setting, or the odd fight, frankly doesn't make it an adventure show… But I don't think TOH was ever willing to commit to that. To commit to climactic talk that resonated with the themes of the show instead of a high octane, big threat climax. If you have magic, you gotta do something with it, right?

Well… I mean, how much have you done with the magic? Anne's powers, introduced so late, are more connected to her character, the plot and has more interesting limitations/risks than Luz's magic literally ever did. Literally. It never played into her arc, her character, the plot… It was just there so she could be a witch and have magic so that the writers didn't have to think about what to have her do in a given fight scene that limitations would have forced upon them.

It's a part of the split identity problem. If you've not spent any time on your adventure elements and magic, when those elements need to come to the forefront, they're going to come up short. You're not going to have villains to call back to. You're not going to have interesting mechanics to your fight scenes. You're not going to have built up properly any last minute power ups.

And the fact that everyone was just ready for Belos to die is indicative of that. Some because he's a bastard, yes. Others like me? I was just done with him being around because I'd stopped feeling tension about him or thinking he was some master manipulator so him dying is more a frustrated "Finally" instead of a cry of triumph.

And while there is a place for that in shows, usually you still want villains people are enjoying on screen at the same time. And TOH just didn't have those.

[roxannarambles]

title: second chances (chapter six)

ship: goldenlight (luz x hunter)

chapter notes: chapter 6, wherein hunter freaks out over emoji and then makes some technology-related mistakes  😏

other notes: takes place sometime after ‘reaching out’ but before ‘hollow mind.’ (set in my standard canon-divergent AU where everything’s the same except no L*mity)

other chapters: chapter one chapter two  chapter three  chapter four  chapter five

The next morning, when Hunter awoke, it was with a clearer mind, but unfortunately it was also with a much more anxious mind. Looking at the last few texts Luz had sent him, he found himself wondering what they meant, if anything, and he burned with the need to figure it out.

He hesitated for a little while, but then pulled open DMs for somebody on Penstagram.

Rulerzreachf4n:

darius, what’s it mean when a girl sends you this emoji 😘

After a fair bit of delay, he received a cranky response.

AbomadadDarius:

For the love of the Titan

AbomadadDarius:

Why are you messaging me? Don’t you have things to do today?

Rulerzreachf4n:

c’mon darius I don’t know who else to ask

AbomadadDarius:

Good god

AbomadadDarius:

Tell me your uncle has told you about the birds and the bug demons

AbomadadDarius:

if it falls to me to explain it, I don’t know if I have the mental fortitude

Rulerzreachf4n:

what. I just wanted to know what the emoji meant

AbomadadDarius:

maybe I could somehow convince raine to do it . . .

AbomadadDarius:

they seem better equipped to deal with things like this

Rulerzreachf4n:

darius you’re not listening

AbomadadDarius:

you’re using protection at least, I hope?

AbomadadDarius:

does raine need to bring you some

Rulerzreachf4n:

NO

Rulerzreachf4n:

I just wanted to know about the emoji don’t send raine here!! 

Rulerzreachf4n:

darius

Rulerzreachf4n:

please don’t send them over

The texts from Darius had fallen silent, presumably because he was busy. At least Hunter hoped that was the reason. He went to take a shower and start his day.

During lunch, Hunter was still staring at his scroll and worrying over his uncertainty. One table over, he spied Eberwolf finishing up with their lunch, lapping at the bowl’s last little bits. Flicking his gaze around, Hunter checked to make sure it was relatively quiet around them, then switched tables to sit next to Eberwolf.

As he sat down, the Beast Keeping coven head glanced up curiously at him.

“Hey, Eberwolf, um. Do you know anything about Penstagram and texting and stuff?”

The catlike demon pulled something from their pocket, unrolling it and revealing it to be a magic scroll. It was on a Penstagram page decorated with a photo of them riding atop a Slitherbeast, with the screen-name RaisedByDireWolves.

“Ah. Ok. Cool. I just was wondering if you knew what this emoji usually means when people use it. Uh, hold on . . .”

He awkwardly flicked through his scroll and pulled up the last few texts Luz had sent him, then turned the scroll around to show Eberwolf.

“This?”

The demon gazed intently at his scroll with their beady little pink eyes. Then they reached and batted at the scroll with one of their paws.

“W-wait, uh, what are you–”

They quickly pulled up the emoji menu and typed out a number of emoji.

Rulerzreachf4n:

😸😽😽😻😻🐾🐟💛

Hunter stared, confused.

“What exactly is this supposed to mean, though? Should–”

Eberwolf hit another button, and to Hunter’s dismay, it was the ‘send’ button.

“Wait, did you just send that?!”

He scrambled to see if he could undo it, but no, he still didn’t know how to delete texts. If that was even a thing. He didn’t think that was a thing. Eberwolf was purring.

“Ok, I get that you’re trying to help but I don’t think this is going to make things better!”

Eberwolf had already gone back to licking their bowl, ignoring him. Hunter sighed, hoping Luz wouldn’t find the bunch of emoji to be too weird.

Later in the day, during training with the scouts, Hunter was still engaged with his mission of information collection. As the other scouts went through their drills, and a few were taking a water break, Hunter furtively lurked closer to Steve.

“Pssst, Steve.”

The scout glanced up at him. Quietly, Hunter said,

“Um, look, I know this is kind of random but. I need to know if I’m interpreting this correctly or if I’m reading too much into it, you know? What does it mean when somebody sends you this emoji?”

He showed Steve the emoji (and not Luz’s full text, he’d learned by now that was a mistake). The scout squinted at the scroll for a moment and then chuckled.

“I guess it would depend on the situation. Why, sir, are you being flooded with romantic proposals?”

Hunter shook his head adamantly, keeping his voice low;

“No, this is just one person– couldn’t you just give me, like, a general idea? Please?”

The scout tapped his mask a moment as he thought.

“Hmmm, well. It really is hard to say without more context. But if I were you, I wouldn’t read too much into it. I know some people just really like to use emoji a lot, you know? So it could mean nothing at all.”

Hunter nodded, gazing at his scroll.

“Yeah . . . yeah. You’re probably right. She uses emoji a lot.”

He relaxed a little. Steve chuckled and crossed his arms.

“On the other hand, some people have really specific ideas on what all these emoji mean, so it might mean something huge! Who knows, right? Haha.”

Hunter’s eyes widened, the anxious knot in his chest expanding again. 

“Wh-what should I do then?”

The scout shrugged.

“I dunno. I guess you could always Ooze it.”

Hunter gave him a confused look.

“Ooze . . .it?”

The scout seemed amused at his lack of knowledge.

“Uh, yeah? The search engine?”

Hunter nodded quickly.

“Oh, right, of course. Yeah. I knew that.”

He did not know that, but that wasn’t important. He would figure it out later.

However, it wasn’t until the evening when he got the chance to work out what exactly this Ooze Search was. Apparently all you needed to do was type your question into the address bar and it would give you search results based on what people had already written.

What does 😘 mean from a girl

He hit enter, but nothing popped up; it just showed his question. Frowning, he tried again.

What does it mean when a girl uses 😘

Ehh, he must be doing something wrong. He tried a few more times, but wasn’t having any luck. Sighing, he decided he’d mess with it later– he had to get dinner from the cafeteria before it closed down.

After a short dinner, he returned to his room and noticed his scroll was buzzing. Picking it up, he found it was a message from Willow.

Hello_Willow:

Hey ummm Caleb, I think maybe you did something you didn’t mean to?

He blinked, confused.

Rulerzreachf4n:

What do you mean?

Hello_Willow:

Well, I saw some kinda weird posts on your Penstagram just now.

Hello_Willow:

Looked like maybe you were trying to use Ooze and posted on Penstagram instead?

He took a moment to process her message, but when he did, he felt a hot rush of panic.

Rulerzreachf4n:

what waitholdon

Quickly, he switched out of his DMs and navigated to his Penstagram page. Oh, shit.

He frantically messed with buttons but had to quickly switch back over to DMs.

Rulerzreachf4n:

How do you erase posts?!?!

Willow coached him through the process of deleting posts, which was a terrifying several minutes, but eventually resulted in him erasing the messages. Once he had, Willow had to reassure him they were indeed gone.

Hello_Willow:

yeah, it’s okay, they’re all gone now. I checked.

Rulerzreachf4n:

you’re positive?

Hello_Willow:

yep, it doesn’t show up anymore, I promise!

He breathed a small sigh of relief.

Rulerzreachf4n:

okay. thank you. 

Hello_Willow:

next time you wanna ooze search something, just let me know. I can help.

Rulerzreachf4n:

yeah…I’ll do that. thanks.

Hello_Willow:

so. 

Hello_Willow:

were you . . . just wanting to do those searches for academic reasons or . . . 

Hello_Willow:

personal reasons?

Hunter winced. He should have figured she’d be curious. Reluctantly, he answered her.

Rulerzreachf4n:

personal reasons. 

Hello_Willow:

I see!

Hello_Willow:

mind if I ask who’s the lucky girl? 😊

Rulerzreachf4n:

I’d . . . rather not say

Hello_Willow:

oh, that’s fine! 

Hello_Willow:

I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.

Rulerzreachf4n:

do you think you could tell me about that emoji? I’ve been asking people all day and nobody gives me a straight answer.

Hello_Willow:

you mean the kissy emoji?

Hello_Willow:

this? 😘

Rulerzreachf4n:

yeah.

Hello_Willow:

hmmm. well, to be honest, it could mean a lot of things.

Hello_Willow:

it could be completely innocent and platonic. 

Hello_Willow:

or it could be flirty. I guess it just depends on how it’s used.

Rulerzreachf4n:

yeah, that’s what steve said . . .

Rulerzreachf4n:

ugh

Hello_Willow:

you seem really worried about it?

Rulerzreachf4n:

no

Rulerzreachf4n:

I’m just trying to figure it out, that’s all.

Hello_Willow:

hmmm

Hello_Willow:

if you don’t mind the question, do you like this girl?

Rulerzreachf4n:

uh 

Hello_Willow:

nevermind. whatever your feelings are, in my opinion the best way to go about these things is to just be honest!

Hello_Willow:

that’s how my dads got together! papa just marched right up to dad and said, ‘hey, I like you, wanna date?’ 

Hello_Willow:

and that was it! 

Rulerzreachf4n:

I see.

Hello_Willow:

honesty is always the best policy. and it can save people from a lot of hurt or confusion later on.

Rulerzreachf4n:

I guess so.

Hello_Willow:

yeah! and, if she’s your friend, she’ll respect you no matter your feelings, right? 

Rulerzreachf4n:

uh huh.

Rulerzreachf4n:

have you confessed to someone before?

Hello_Willow:

well uh

Hello_Willow:

I guess not exactly, no, but . . .

Hello_Willow:

the point still stands!

Rulerzreachf4n:

right. well. thank you for the help.

Hello_Willow:

of course! I’m always happy to help.

Hello_Willow:

let me know how things turn out!

Rulerzreachf4n:

okay.

It was a relief when they finished texting. Hunter was tired of people trying to speculate about him based on some questions he’d asked. All he wanted to know was that that stupid emoji meant. Sheesh. It’s not like it meant anything, he just was curious. About how Luz felt. That’s all. 

It’s not like he was into her.

Hunter hadn’t even realized he’d muttered that outloud until Flapjack spoke up.

I’ve seen that look before, young master. 

Hunter turned and scowled.

“What look?”

Love, the bird chirped. Hunter huffed.

“You’re as bad as the rest of them.”

He knew they were wrong. He wasn’t in love, for Titan’s sake. It’s just that Luz was his first friend. The first person he’d really felt close to. That’s all it was, really. Just some excitement from that new experience. It wasn’t a big deal.

When Luz texted him later that night, answering the weird mix of emoji Eberwolf had sent with a bunch of her own emoji, he ignored how excited he was just to get a message from her. The next day, when she was still caught up with schoolwork and projects and they didn’t talk much, he ignored how much he missed her.

It didn’t mean anything. It didn’t. All day long, he told himself it didn’t.

In the evening when she uploaded a new video on glyphs on her Penstagram page, he told himself he wouldn’t watch it. He didn’t want to. It was fine.

He focused on his reading that night. Then he went to bed. However, like many nights, he didn’t fall asleep easily.

After laying there for about an hour, he cursed quietly to himself. 

“Screw it.”

He caved, admitting to himself of course he wanted to watch it, he was dying to watch it, the last one was amazing, he was so curious what this one was about–

He turned his nightstand light on and grabbed his scroll to navigate to the video. There was Luz, bubbly and bright as ever, with her corny jokes and her easy laugh. And her warm eyes, and her delightful smile, with the silly way it curved a bit crookedly. 

Uhh. Hunter rewound the video, realizing he hadn’t been paying close enough attention to what she’d been saying. He focused this time. Luz spent the video discussing the four base glyphs, her ideas on why they were the elements that all magic was built upon, and giving some practical pointers on drawing glyphs, keeping them on hand, etc. She finished the video with a teaser for her next episode, which would introduce her first glyph combos. 

When the video ended, Hunter realized he’d spent the entire time smiling as he watched. And not just a small little smile, he’d been grinning like a dumb huge idiot the whole time.

Groaning, he flung the scroll aside, which bounced and landed on the bed beside him. He pressed his palms into his warm face and rubbed, grumbling.

“Okay, maybe I . . . like her a little.”

The palisman perched on his bed’s headboard gave a little chirp.

That’s putting it mildly. You seem entirely smitten, young master.

Hunter scowled.

“What does that even mean? You talk like an old man sometimes, I swear.”

It means you have an enormous crush.

“Hey! I do not have a crush on her. There’s no reason to blow it out of proportion–”

You’ve been watching her videos in secret in the middle of the night?

“They’re informative! Who knows when that information could come in handy and save somebody’s life? I might even be able to use it in my research–”

A voice, clear and loud, suddenly piped up from right beside him;

“Hello? Heeeey, yooo-hoo, Hunter! Can you hear me?”

Hunter’s eyes bugged out and he screeched in surprise, leaping in shock so hard he practically fell out of the bed. Looking around wildly, he realized the voice was eminating from the scroll sitting on his bed. There was Luz’s face, pictured there; she seemed to be sitting in a dimmed room.

Hunter stared, wide-eyed.

“Oh, god, I’m sorry– sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Slowly, he picked the scroll up, stammering,

“What . . . how . . . what?”

The little Luz on his scroll was quick to explain.

“I, I didn’t call you or anything– I just came into my room and noticed my scroll was running? I think you might of accidentally turned on video. I heard you talking, and uh, I wanted to make sure you knew it was on.”

Hunter took a moment to digest that, and then a wave of dawning horror descended upon him.

“H-how– how long was I– w-what exactly did you hear?”

She made a reassuring gesture.

“Don’t worry, I uh, I didn’t really hear much, I was too busy being confused. Before I realized you probably turned it on by mistake, and um . . . yeah! You’re good, I didn’t hear any super classified Coven secrets or anything.”

She chuckled, and Hunter felt just the smallest bit of relief; thank the Titan he’d been spared that pain. This was the second time he’d nearly been embarassed due to messing something up with this damned scroll, though– he needed to get a better grasp of how the stupid thing worked so it wouldn’t happen again.

The Luz pictured on his scroll got a bit of an awkward smile and giggled nervously, asking,

“Haha, so anyway, I guess you just got back from a shower or. Something?”

He gave her a confused look.

“No?”

“Oh,” Luz said, her voice going a little higher. She made a wide, vague gesture.

“I just mean . . . with the, the no shirt and everything?”

Hunter looked down at himself, finally realizing what she had been referring to.

“Oh! Nah, I just usually sleep naked on hot nights.”

As he glanced back to her, he saw a wide-eyed Luz blush faster and harder then he’d ever seen anyone turn red. Her voice raised another full octive as she squeaked,

“Oh!”

His eyed widened as he realized belatedly what he’d just said, and he fumbled,

“I mean UH– I didn’t– UM, shit– g-give me a minute! I’ll uh, I’ll be right back!”

He slapped the scroll face-down on the bed, unable to believe he’d just overshared like that, freaking hell, why was his brain absolute putty lately?! Hunter scrambled out of bed to go throw some PJs on, and then decided to splash some cold water on his face and fuss with his gross bedhead for a minute. Nobody told him his scroll did video calls, and getting jump-scared like that was honestly stressful as hell.

He then quickly headed back to bed, gingerly picking the scroll back up. Luz was still there, although it looked like she’d moved and was sitting on her sleeping bag now, back propped against her wall. Hunter announced awkwardly,

“Okay, I’m back . . . with clothes this time.”

Luz’s eyes widened again and she emitted a noise that was a cross between a laugh and a squeak, which under other circumstances would have been hilarious.

“Titan, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable, I’m just an idiot sometimes.”

Luz giggled and quickly tried to reassure him.

“N-no, no, no, it’s fine, it– it just took me off guard! Which, I mean, is fair, I clearly scared the crap out of you when I suddenly popped up.”

“Ugh, yeah, I guess,” Hunter grumbled, rubbing his face and still feeling bad. Luz seemed to be taking in stride fairly well, at least. She was still giggling.

“To be honest it was pretty funny, you almost fell out of bed.”

He gave her a mildly annoyed look.

“In my defense I didn’t even know scrolls did video calls.”

Luz grinned. She continued to tease him,

“It’s a good thing you accidentally called me and not somebody else, huh? You could have ended up buttdialing Kikimora or something, that woulda been awkward.”

Hunter scowled as she laughed. She was still pretty flushed but she had recovered from the awkwardness enough to tease him, it seemed. 

“Wait, what . . . what is buttdialing?”

“Oh, you know, when you have the phone in your pants pocket and you sit down and it dials somebody . . . although I guess in this case you didn’t have pants so you literally just buttdialed. . .”

She broke off into giggles, apparently finding this hilarious. He protested,

“I-I didn’t! I just put my scroll down a little forcefully!”

As she laughed, Hunter thought about what she’d said, though. He admitted,

“I am really glad it connected to you and not somebody else though, you’re right.”

Euuughh. He didn’t even want to contemplate how horrifying that could have been. 

“Yeah, you’ll probably wanna roll the scroll back up from now on when you’re done with it. But I’m also kinda happy it happened? I mean, it’s nice to actually talk to you face-to-face! You been up to anything interesting tonight?”

Hunter leaned back against his headboard a little and thought.

“Not really? Just the usual stuff. I’m almost done with my book.”

He gave her a tentative look.

“. . . how about you?”

She looked enthusiastic as she answered.

“Yeah, I just uploaded my latest glyph video, and it’s been getting lots of likes and comments! So I’ve been trying to plan out the next one. I’m thinking a good theme is the visibile and the invisible. You think it’s catchy enough?”

Hunter slipped into an automatic smile at the subject, unable to help it. He speculated,

“So, does that mean you’ll be discussing combinations with the light glyph?”

She confirmed,

“Exactly, yeah!”

Intrigued, he started to ask her questions, but he ended up babbling a little.

“How many combinations have you found so far? Oh, and that reminds me, I was wondering if you planned on talking more about how to visualize what you want the glyph to do? The practical tips for the glyphs seemed useful but they didn’t go over the actual spellcasting aspects. I’m wondering if it works differently from how I use my staff or how traditional witch magic works.”

Luz nodded.

“Yeah, definitely! I was planning on including some of that next time, actually! But . . . I’m a little confused. Didn’t you say you, uh, weren’t watching my videos?”

Hunter’s expression shifted into something embarassed. 

Damn. Caught out. Once again because he couldn’t keep his mouth shut. He glanced away, fidgeting.

“I, uh . . . I might have taken a . . . quick glance at some of them?”

When he looked back, Luz seemed incredibly pleased. With a grin, she asked,

“Couldn’t resist, huh?”

He ignored how his face warmed and muttered,

“I was just curious.”

Luz didn’t seem intent on teasing him further though. She just continued on eargerly.

“This is actually awesome, because I needed somebody to bounce ideas off of. I was planning on diving into glyph combos next, but I’m worried it might be a little too soon. Do you think I should work more on establishing the basics first? I was thinking maybe one episode per glyph, you know? But I also like the idea of discussing spellcasting and all that with the combo glyphs. I dunno, I wasn’t sure.”

She smiled sheepishly and admitted,

“There’s a ton of stuff I’m excited to talk about but organization has never been one of my strengths. So I’m kinda struggling a little.”

Hunter considered her ideas for a moment.

“Well, from the sound of it, having one episode per glyph seems like a pretty good idea to me. You gave a really nice overview last time, so that’s set up the groundwork to go more in depth on each of them.”

Luz nodded.

“Yeah . . . that does make sense.”

He continued,

“I think your intuition about people getting a little confused is right. Glyph combos might feel a little overwhelming to dive into right away.”

She brightened.

“Okay, awesome. See, this is what I needed, the perspective of a viewer.”

He added thoughtfully,

“It also might help you to write out some outlines for the episodes you have planned. That’ll help you decide what you want in each of them and see how they fit together as a whole. And it should help with the whole organization thing.”

Looking eager, she said,

“Yes! Outlines! Perfect. Uh. I don’t usually do those. Would it be okay if . . . maybe I sent you some outlines and you tell me what you think of them?”

He nodded.

“Yeah, of course, I’d be happy to.”

She gave a happy litte squeal and cheered,

“Yeah!! Oh man, this is going to turn out amazing. Thank you so much, Hunter.”

Hunter fell quiet a moment, trying to cope with how adorable Luz was and realizing how much he’d been missing from just texting her.

“O-of course.”

The camera on Luz jostled a little as she shifted on her sleeping bag to slide further down comfortably and lean against the wall of her room, wearing a dreamy little smile.

“Man, I wish my old teachers could see me now. They were always like, blah blah blah, if you don’t follow the rules and learn how to fall in line your life will be a mess, blah-dee-dah. Look at things now! Doing great in magic school, lots of friends, making videos to help spur a societal revolution . . . not too shabby, if I say so myself.”

Hunter studied the human witch, feeling deeply curious. It was so strange, how different they were in some ways. He asked in a wry tone,

“So you were always this rebellious?”

She seemed tickled with the question. Grinning, looking a little self-conscious, she answered,

“I guess so, yeah. I had . . . uh, a reputation, you could say.”

Hunter gave a little snort and lifted his fluffy brows.

“I see. I’m gonna need to hear some examples.”

Luz rubbed her chin and hummed,

“Well, let’s seeeeee . . . I’ll need to pick a good one. Hmm . . .”

She suddenly gestured as if seizing an idea.

“Ah! Ok, this is from a pretty long time ago. Like the third grade, I think. They used to have our class do art projects on Fridays. It was supposed to be a fun thing, give us a creative outlet, right? But the thing is, our teacher was the biggest BORE on the planet.”

She looked incredibly annoyed as she recalled the memory, clearly still holding a grudge.

“Get this: this guy gave us all detailed directions on how to do our projects, like real specific things down to every single step, and he expected us to follow them exactly. He wanted our group to basically have perfectly identical art projects so that when we displayed them in the front of the classroom, everything matched. So every Friday that’s what everybody did. I hated it so much. I always tried to do something different, but he scolded me for doing it ‘wrong.’”

She heaved a sigh and continued,

“Anyway, that was a battle I went through every week. Then one week they wanted us to do the art projects while we were at home and we’d bring them in the next day for class. They were supposed to be these caterpillars made out of cardboard, like, the cardboard containers they have for eggs. Each little egg thingy was a segment of their body. And we also were gonna crush up eggshells and use food coloring and then glue the shells on the outside of the cardboard to decorate it. Glue googly eyes to it and little pipe-cleaner antenna. All that stuff.”

Hunter nodded, indicating he was following her. She carried on,

“Right. So. Of course I’m not gonna do that. It was ridiculous. The teacher even had directions for what color each of the body segments were supposed to be. This guy was messed up, I dunno man, who does that? Anyway, I made a huge cardboard snake with wings, and– oh, huh, I guess technically that would make it an amphiptere, huh? Hah, that Beast Keeping class comes in handy! Anyway, it had these wings that could flap and this huge articulated jaw with fangs, and it was curled around a nest of eggs, it was pretty great! I put a lot of work into it.”

Luz grinned and rubbed her hands together.

“But the finishing touch, the pièce de résistance, was the elephant toothpaste.”

Hunter lifted a brow.

“Uh. The what now?”

Luz seemed to realize she had to back up a little.

“Oh, uh, human realm stuff, right. So, there’s this little science experiment you can do with hydrogen peroxide, dish soap, and yeast. I don’t really remember the exact chemistry behind it, but you combine the peroxide and soap and then add the yeast as a catalyst? And when you do, it suddenly gets super foamy and hot and makes this big ol’ overflowing mess of bubbles. Like it expands and keeps expanding and just goops everywhere. Really neat. Anyway, I set it up so inside the snake’s– the amphiptere’s mouth, there’s this plastic watter bottle full of the peroxide and soap, hidden down in there. As a special little treat once I got to class.”

Hunter could see where this was going.

“I’m guessing this didn’t go over well with the teacher.”

Luz laughed.

“Not really. When I lugged the sculpture to class and put it up with the others, he had a fit. I thought that maybe the science experiment part might help convince him that it was good . . . it’s educational, y’know? But, uh, I kind of underestimated how vigorous of a chemical reaction I was going to get.”

She gestured the path of the elephant toothpaste.

“It went fooooommmm and just kept going and quickly enfulged everyone elses’ projects. And then kept going further and leaked all over the table, onto the floor . . . it even reached the first row of student’s desks. Boy, the teacher was mad. I got into so much trouble.”

Hunter couldn’t help but chuckle a little at the thought.

“Somehow this story doesn’t surprise me in the least. What did the teacher do?”

She gave a casual wave.

“Oh, y’know, the usual. Send me to the principal’s office, call my mom. Made me clean up the entire classroom. Took me like three days. Then the teacher carried a bitter grudge against me that lasted the rest of the school year. Constantly called on me in classroom to scold and belittle me. Then my classmates started avoiding me as the weird troublemaker girl. Nobody would play with me during recess anymore . . .”

She blinked, as if startled by her own train of thought. 

“Uh, so, um, y’know, stuff like that!”

She shrugged and gave an uncomfortable laugh. Hunter frowned. Quietly, he said,

“That’s . . . that’s actually kind of awful?”

Luz tried to dismiss his comment, saying breezily,

“Aaaw, nah, it wasn’t so bad! I mean, it was worth it, you know? I wasn’t gonna let that teacher tell me how to make my own art.”

He remained silent and just looked at her sadly. Her artificial smile faltered a little. 

She sighed and admitted softly,

“Okay, I guess parts of it sucked.”

Hunter wished he knew what to say, but he really hadn’t a clue. However, before he could ponder it further, Luz seemed to brighten up again and pivot to a new topic.

“Well, hey, what about you? I’d love to hear one of your stories!”

He balked a moment, taken off guard. Talking about himself . . . that wasn’t very appealing. 

She looked so excited, though, and he couldn’t bear to say no to her. He chewed his lower lip and pondered it for a few moments. 

“W-well, uh . . . I guess . . . I guess there was that one time on the mountain. I could tell you about that? It was pretty classic.”

Luz beamed.

“Yeah! Tell me all about it, I wanna hear what a classic Hunter story’s like.”

He smiled hesitantly.

“Okay, well . . . this was back during my basic training with the other scouts. One of the things they did was fly us out to the top of the Knee in their airships. They dropped us all off and then told us to fend for ourselves. No equipment, no food or water, no weapons, just our cold weather clothes. They said they would return for us in 24 hours, and we had to survive until then.”

Luz’s eyes widened.

“Wow. That’s pretty hardcore.”

A bit of a boastful smile reached Hunter as he recalled the events.

“Well, the Coven’s training doesn’t mess around. Also, this was the dead of winter, so temperatures dipped dangerously low after dark. We were dropped off late afternoon and only had a few hours before nightfall, so it was pretty important for us to get our act together quickly. Especially considering a blizzard was likely going to arrive later that night. Plus, if the snow didn’t get us killed, then the Slitherbeasts certainly would.”

Luz seemed to be having a hard time accepting the premise of his tale.

“Did they really just . . . not give you anything, though? What if there was an emergency, was there any way to contact them?”

Hunter chuckled.

“No, of course not. That would have invalidated the purpose of the test. We weren’t 100% defenseless, though. We had our magic, remember.”

Luz gave her face a little smack and said,

“Oh, right, magic! Jeez, of course.”

Hunter nodded.

“The group I was with were pretty inexperienced, but they did know their basic spells. Meanwhile, I had the artificial staff that Belos had recently given me . . . I was still learning how to use it, though. It put my magic pretty much on par with everyone elses’ at the time.”

He frowned a little.

“They, uh, didn’t quite see it that way, though.”

Luz gave him a curious look.

“What do you mean?”

He paused. Reluctantly, he answered,

“They thought it was unfair I was the only one with a magic staff. They saw it as proof of Belos’ favortism.”

Luz scoffed.

“That’s ridiculous, you would have been literally magicless without it!”

Hunter shrugged. 

“I know, but they didn’t understand that, I guess. I was also a lot younger then the other scouts, so they kind of didn’t take me very seriously . . .”

Luz’s expression pinched into something sympathetic and Hunter quickly carried on.

“I-it doesn’t matter, though! That’s beside the point. The point is, we were dropped off there, and we needed to plan fast. Everyone started talking about what they thought we should do, and most people seemed to be in favor of scavanging for food before it got dark.”

Hunter puffed his chest out a bit and spoke in authorative tone,

“That was a terrible idea, though. We could survive just fine without food for 24 hours. What we needed to prioritize was finding shelter and building a fire to prepare for the night. If we didn’t, we’d quickly die to hypothermia. I explained this to everyone, but they didn’t heed my warnings. They were making short-sighted decisions based on on their stomachs instead of using their heads. So most of them went off to follow their foolheardy plans. Only one other scout decided to go with my plans, so the two of us went off in search of shelter. We all agreed to meet up again in one hour.”

Luz seemed very absorbed in his story. Eagerly, she asked,

“So what happened?”

He sighed.

“It was a complete mess. When we met back up, the sun was starting to set and the windchill was picking up fast. Nobody had found anything to eat, one of the scouts had gone missing, people were freezing and everyone was starting to panic. Somebody needed to step up and take charge, otherwise the Coven would be bringing back a whole lot of its scouts in body bags when they returned.”

Luz looked sufficiently horrified, which Hunter appreciated, as she seemed to understand the gravity of the situation he’d been stuck in. He carried on explaining,

“That’s what I told everyone. It took some arguing, but I finally convinced them to listen to me. Me and the other scout had found a few potential locations, but they hadn’t been large enough for our whole group. So I issued orders, creating a search party for the missing scout, directions on how to mark their paths and not get lost in the snow, while creating two other groups to search the most promising locations for shelter. I knew the Knee had several extensive cave systems and there had to be some openings we could find.”

With a proud little smile, he said,

“And we did it! They followed my orders and pulled themselves together. They located the MIA scout and we finally found a cave opening, right in the nick of time. We set up shelter there and gathered enough fuel for a fire that could last all night but also had enough ventilation so we wouldn’t asphyxiate. Some of the scouts had early signs of hypothermia or frostbite but with our shelter, they were back to normal in no time. Heck, before long everyone was talking and joking around the fire like it was just a fun night out.”

Luz grinned, looking pleased with his story. She said,

“Awesome! It must have felt wonderful when they finally respected you as a leader, huh?”

Hunter’s proud smile began to fade.

“Yeah . . .”

He grew pensive for a few moments. Quietly, he said,

“It felt great.”

Luz seemed confused and a little concerned. Hunter glanced away.

He wasn’t going to tell her this part, he hadn’t planned to– but something about Luz always seemed to compel him to blurt things out. Sighing, he said,

“I think I realized that night that respect really isn’t the same thing as . . . liking. The scouts were relieved and they trusted my judgment, but . . . when I tried joining in with their storytelling and joking around the fire, they didn’t . . . really . . .”

He abandoned his sentence and grunted,

“I don’t know, I thought maybe I was just being awkward, so it made them uncomfortable. I gave up and left to make one last quick scrounge for fuel before we turned in for the night. When I returned, I sort of . . . overheard them talking. About me.”

“Oh,” Luz said, in a tone that made it clear she knew it would not be pleasant.

Hunter fiddled with the scroll in his hands as he thought back to it, not looking at her.

“They said I was great at being a walking encyclopedia of knowledge, and I was great at giving orders, but they . . . were still mocking me. And resenting me.”

Gently, he heard Luz say,

“That’s horrible. I’m sorry, Hunter.”

He gave a bitter chuckle.

“No need to feel sorry. That’s just how things work, you know? You work together with people, but you never trust them all the way. Only as far as you need to get something done. People only help each other so long as it benefits themselves.”

Luz answered quickly and indignantly.

“Wh-what? Hunter, no. That’s not how it works! Friends don’t just use each other like they’re disposable tools. Even colleagues don’t do that! Or, that’s not how it’s supposed to be, anyway . . .”

Hunter gazed at her, surprised at how upset she seemed to be about this. He thought about things before admitting quietly,

“Well, maybe the Coven just works differently, I guess.”

She looked sad, incredibly sad, actually; Hunter was about to tell her there was no reason to feel sorry for him, he was fine, but then Luz spoke again, asking softly,

“So what happened after all that? Did you all make it out okay at least?”

He nodded.

“Yeah. Well, there was a little mishap with a Slitherbeast, but that wasn’t so bad.”

Luz arched a brow and protested,

“Wait, hold on, you can’t just say there was a ‘mishap with a Slitherbeast,’ this is stuff you can’t just skip over in a story!”

Hunter chuckled.

“Sorry. Well, there isn’t much to tell, really. I volunteered for first watch that night while everyone else slept. I knew the Slitherbeats tended to use these caves for shelter for the same reasons we did, so we had to keep watch. Unfortunately we were visited by one. I thought about waking the others, but there was a good chance they would panic and that was the opposite of what we needed. So I decided to lure it away from the cave and get it to follow me out into the open snow.”

Luz looked impressed.

“Pretty gutsy.”

He smiled and told her,

“It was pretty touch and go for a while. The blizzard was in full force out there and it was the middle of the night, so it was freezing, dark, and almost impossible to see. I lit my way with my staff as best I could, but . . . the beast was in its element, unlike me. It could track my smell for miles with ease, and it was quick.”

Luz made a noise of disbelief and shook her head.

“Jeez. How did you manage to not die? I was up against one of those once, and lemme say, it’s not something I’d like to repeat. And I had help!”

Hunter answered thoughtfully.

“Well, there were a few moments I was pretty sure I was going to die. I wondered if they’d even find parts of my body or if the Slitherbeast would digest everything and there’d just be no remains. Nobody would have even known what happened to me. My spells weren’t enough to stop the beast; the best they could do was just annoy it. I was just running and running. Nowhere to hide. Any tree I climbed, the beast could just pull down.”

Her eyes wide, she squealed,

“Aaaa, what did you do?! Enough buildup already, just tell me!”

He laughed at her impatience.

“All right, all right. Well, I knew these things couldn’t see well, they operate mostly by smell. So I realized I could try and use that to my advantage. I took off my jacket and used my magic to float it right in front of the beast, so he’d get a good whiff, and then I floated it away, leading it away from me. To a very convientent location, just under a ridge.”

“Oh?”

He pointed a finger and went,

“Zap! I triggered a landslide with my magic and it knocked the damned thing down the mountainside. Gave me the chance to finally escape. I scrambled through the storm and managed to drag myself back into the cave before I froze to death. Everyone else was still sleeping soundly, none the wiser.”

Finished with his tale, he sat back and gave her an amused smile.

“Pretty funny, huh? We still laugh about that night.”

Luz was staring at him in disbelief. He asked,

“What?”

“You . . . Hunter, I feel like there are plenty of words to describe that story, but ‘funny’ is not high on the list.”

He frowned.

“What? . . . did I tell it badly?”

She shook her head.

“No, you told it fine, it’s just– dude, didn’t you just say you thought you were gonna die and you didn’t know if your friends and family would even find a body?”

“Yeah?”

“Well how is that a funny anecdote?!”

Hesitantly, he answered,

“Well, I mean . . . you gotta laugh at it, right? It’s pretty crazy.”

She asked,

“So you consider it a good memory?”

He laughed,

“Oh, hell no. Of course not.”

She blinked. He continued,

“But it’s funny, you know? All the hijinks we got up to during training. It’s funny . . .”

He paused, trying to understand why Luz still looked so horrified, the same way she’d looked throughout much of his tale. Suddenly starting to question himself, he asked faintly,

“Is it . . . is it . . . not?”

Something about the sadness in Luz’s eyes finally made something click into place for him. Quietly, he said,

“It isn’t. Is it?”

Luz sighed gently. After a long pause, she said,

“It’s nice that you’re finding the good in it, and what you did was really admirable . . . but also, I think it’s kinda really messed up they made you go through that to begin with.”

A few moments passed, and she added,

“Although. I guess . . . my story wasn’t super funny either in some ways.”

They were both quiet for a bit. Hunter contemplated things. She had a point. Maybe they both kind of had warped ideas of what was funny. 

Or maybe laughing about it had felt like the only option.

“Well,” Luz said suddenly, with a defiant smile,

“I guess that just means we’ll have to make some even better memories, right?”

She looked to him with a glint of hope in her eyes. He smiled faintly at her, then agreed in a mellow voice,

“Yeah. I’d be down for that.”

With a rush of inspiration, she said,

“Oh, I know! When we finally meet up, we can go camping!”

He tilted his head slightly. He asked,

“What’s camping?”

Her eyes sparkling with excitement, she answered,

“It’s kind of like what you did at the Knee, except without the horrible blizzards or Slitherbeats or constant fear of death looming over you!”

Hunter frowned.

“That doesn’t really explain much.”

She tried again.

“Okay, so. Basically, you go out into nature, and you bring tents and sleeping bags, and you build a cozy little campfire, and you go on hikes and go fishing or swimming or just skip stones on the water and just kinda vibe, you know? It’s great.”

Still confused, he asked,

“But . . . what’s the point?”

Exasperated, she said,

“To be in nature! To relax and breathe some fresh air! It’s super peaceful!”

He hummed skeptically,

“I see . . .”

Undaunted, Luz continued to try and convince him.

“C’mon, you can’t tell me you wouldn’t enjoy it. Imagine: we go out into the wilds of the Boiling Isles, maybe somewhere in the Chest Valley? Eda says it’s pretty nice out there, I’d love to see it sometime. And then we just hike in the forest and listen to the birds, maybe climb a tree . . . make a fire later on and roast some weenies or something. And then watch as the stars come out. No stress, no worries. Just chilling and doing whatever we’d like.”

It had been difficult for Hunter to understand what Luz was on about, but he felt like he was finally starting to grasp it. It was just that the concept of relaxing was still so foreign to him.

He admitted quietly,

“Okay . . .  I guess that does sound kind of nice.”

She looked so happy at his response and cheered,

“Yeah! Exactly! We gotta be sure to actually do that sometime when all this Coven crapola is out of the way.”

Slouching down even further on her sleeping bag, she mused,

“Mmm, man, we’ll need to see if we can get ahold of some marshmallows, though. That would be perfect. Can’t have a good camp out without marshmallows.”

Slouching in his own bed himself, he asked in an amused tone,

“And what are marshmallows?”

“A human delicacy,” she told him,

“You stick them on a skewer and roast them over the fire. They taste best when they’re a little bit burnt, though.”

“That . . . doesn’t sound good.”

“It is, I swear! Crunchy on the outside and gooey on the inside.”

“That’s just describing most of the bug demons around here.”

She laughed,

“No! I swear, they’re good, they’re . . .”

A yawn intterupted her, and she made a little squeak as she stretched. It was not adorable. It was not.

“They’re amazing. Especially with graham crackers and chocolate.”

“And what are those?”

“Chocolate is another human delicacy. And graham crackers . . . well, actually okay, they’re not that great on their own, they’re kind of like sweetened cardboard, but for some reason when they’re combined with chocolate and marshmallow they’re really great.”

“This isn’t a very convincing argument.”

“Hey, when have I steered you wrong before? Trust me, they’re perfect. The chocolate sort of half-melts when you put ‘em together and it’s so good and everything smells like wood smoke and there’s just the popping of the fire and the sound of frogs and crickets, and it feels so special. The way it does when you’re up late with somebody, y’know?”

Hunter was only half-listening to Luz by now, but he found that he wanted to continue listening to her babble about camping for as long as she wanted. Smiling lazily, he said,

“Yeah.”

And despite how late it was, he continued to chat with the strange human on the other end of the line, his darkened room lit only by the gentle glow of his scroll.

[lollytea]

i just read your latest fic and it had me so emotional, like it felt very true to them, in darius’s inner thoughts about how hunter ‘snuck into’ his heart, to his dorky ‘HAH’ at hunter, to hunter’s ears basically burning off. then the hug at the end was so funny but also so sweet! do you have any darius and hunter headcanons that weren’t mentioned? no pressure to answer, mainly came here to say i loved ur writing! hope u have a nice day

(This ask is several weeks old. Sorry I forgot about it for so long but I finally feel like talking about Darius again.)

To be honest while I do enjoy this idea of Darius and Hunter forming their own little family, I was definitely drawing a few blanks on how it would realistically get to that point, given what we know from canon interactions. But when sitting down to write the fic, I tried figuring that out. I don't really have any cutesy domestic family hcs about them but I can ramble a little about my hcs about how their dynamic formed? From like. Pre-ASIAS to post King's Tide. Idk if that's what you're asking for but I'll go for that.

-- I see Darius as somebody who is very flawed but ultimately good. He's not very nice but he’s a hero. He risked his life for his cause because he wanted to save the lives of everyone on the Boiling Isles. He cares about people as a whole but he doesn’t really like most of them individually. He believes children should mix with other children and have healthy friendships with each other but he also can’t stand children anywhere near him. 

He’s very much “Yeah I believe in the inherent goodness of witch-kind. I just think witch-kind is very annoying and everyone should stay the fuck away from me.” 

Like he's so self-involved and wrapped up with his own agendas that he really doesn't spare the lives and feelings and motivations of other people a second thought. Unless it's somebody he actually cares about (like Eberwolf.) they just don't matter to him personally. 

-- This was originally his view on Hunter. Darius never really thought about this kid unless he was standing directly in front of him and even then, his only feeling about him was annoyance. Due to that self-involved nature, it never occurred to Darius to maybe analyse for a minute why Hunter might be the way he is. He just believed him to be an uptight, arrogant spoiled brat. 

Based on Lilith’s opinion of Hunter, I personally believe that Belos’s abuse over him was a secret and nobody in the coven had any idea what was going on behind closed doors.(Except for Kikimora cuz shes nosy.)  They all just assumed he was a pampered little prince who got special treatment just for being a prodigy and having a familial connection to Belos, Darius included. 

Plus he was very obviously a snitch and they couldn’t risk having him around. Darius found that when he ignored Hunter, he usually got all pissy and stormed off so this was his go-to method of keeping Hunter’s nose out of their rebellion business. 

There’s also, of course, Darius’s extremely complicated and somewhat stifled feelings of having a kid with his mentor’s eyes running around. I figure Darius largely repressed how deeply this hurt to look at him when Hunter was very young and manages not to think about it most of the time. But it still hits him sometimes when he least expects it.

Like Hunter is his mentor’s replacement. Just looking at him was a reminder that the man Darius knew was dead. In the past Hunter’s existence filled Darius with sadness and anger. This probably had an effect on how icy Darius became when Hunter was around, though it had mostly numbed into indifference by the time he was a teenager. 

-- Hunter’s original feelings towards Darius are interesting. I think he secretly looked up to him even before the events of ASIAS. But of course Darius is nothing but distant and dismissive which infuriates him. (I still think about his palismen recording where he’s like “Darius just IGNORED me. ALSO as per usual.” He sounds so petty. So full of contempt. Its hilarious. It sounds like Darius is in the room across the hall and Hunter is speaking loud enough to make sure he hears.) This causes Hunter to act out to a pathetic extent. Whenever they interact he plucks up all of his Golden Guard-ness to make himself seem more impressive so Darius will stop looking at him like that.

In their first scene together in ASIAS, Hunter is struggling to grip on to his authority over Darius but he just comes across as a petulant child. But the moment Darius starts making those disapproving comments, Hunter folds completely. One conversation with Darius and he’s become a desperate puppy who wants to be told he’s doing a good job. I wonder if he would have reacted like this if it were just anybody or if he specifically wants Darius’s approval so badly because he’s someone who’s never given him any. Obviously Hunter’s self-worth in general is mostly at play, but I think the person who makes him feel shitty being Darius definitely has some influence over it. 

Like Hunter is Darius’s superior and we know that in any other circumstance he would probably be offended that someone who ranks below him has the audacity to order him around. But Hunter spends the whole episode carrying out Darius’s “orders” like a good little child soldier and excitedly blowing up his phone like “I did good! I did so good!! When you see how good I did you’re gonna be like “Hunter you did good!” You’ll see!!”  

(Also “How did you get this number?!”

*shifty eyes* “doesn’t matter.”

HUNTER???) 

So its like. The two of them start off with a very clashing dynamic that is kinda unhealthy for the both of them. But there is hope. There is always hope. 

-- Their final scene in ASIAS is a turning point for this relationship because it’s when they really begin to see each other in an entirely new light. It turns their former dynamic on its head. Hunter wanted Darius’s approval because he was a well respected and intelligent Coven Head, someone who was deeply involved in “Belos’s World”, something that Hunter was so passionate about being a part of. 

But in that moment where Darius expressed how proud he was of Hunter rebelling and making connections outside of the castle and assuring him that he won’t tell Belos about this incident or about Flapjack, this perception Hunter has of him changes.

With this, he has dipped into Hunter’s world, his private messy conflicted little world and he doesn’t judge him for it. Basically Darius encourages Hunter’s identity outside of being the Golden Guard and Belos’s loyal nephew. 

And Hunter doesn’t really know how to wrap his head around this at first. Like he doesn’t smile in the scene. He’s confused. Completely fucking bewildered. He does not have a single clue what is happening or why Darius is suddenly being nice to him for no reason. Like for the whole episode he wanted to hear Darius say he was impressed but now that it’s happened he’s like “huh???” 

But Darius showed Hunter kindness and if there’s one thing Hunter is always grateful for, it’s kindness. So his respect towards Darius doesn’t disappear but it definitely shifts into another direction because it now comes from a different place entirely. He now has a little affection for him too, which did not exist before. So it’s like. Originally antagonistic co-workers but now maybe friends?? Maybe?? Acquaintances at the least. And that’s a start. 

Darius keeps his word and never breathes a word of this to Belos which makes Hunter feel like maybe he can actually trust somebody in this castle. Like maybe he can like. Tell Darius things? And he won’t have to worry about it getting around. There’s definitely a tentative trust building. 

-- On Darius’s end, the ASIAS scene was the first time his brain really saw the whole picture. It made him stop and re-evaluate the boy he had previously written off. It humanized Hunter in Darius’s eyes. Enough so that once the night is over, he might even feel a little guilty that it had taken him so long to realize that he really was just a lonely kid this whole time. But at that moment, he’s so pleasantly surprised and amused that he’s just overtaken by a bout of genuine warmth. His brain is just going “Good kid!! You’re a good kid!!” 

I feel like Darius’s comment about sewing lessons was supposed to imply that the two of them do end up spending some time together after that episode. Which presents this set up. Darius has known Hunter for years but it has always been as the Golden Guard. But what kind of person is he when he’s off duty and he’s just a kid clumsily learning to cross-stich? Well Darius gradually finds out and it’s like meeting someone new. He becomes quite attached, in spite of himself. 

As mentioned above, Darius being his secret-keeper coaxes Hunter into being a little more open during their conversations, which further strengthens then budding bond. And it’s like. He doesn’t say it outright. It’s all about the implications. But Darius soon comes to realize that Hunter’s relationship with Belos is not what everyone thought it was. 

-- Darius does not fully realize just how attached he is getting to Hunter. He sorta figures he just finds him somewhat endearing. Like a friendly neighbour giving a kid life advice but still keeping him at arm’s length. Like he’s bored. Might as well teach some dorky kid to sew idk. 

I love his extreme reaction to Hunter being mentioned during Hollow Mind. The instinctive movement, followed by the sheepish body language. I like to interpret it as Darius being like “Okay yeah sorry I don’t really know what that was either.” It’s him realizing for the first time that the love he has for Hunter has snuck up on him.

But as the night goes on, he comes to fully accept that he really really cannot deal with the thought of that kid getting hurt. Which is kinda huge for Darius “Some of you may die. But that is a sacrifice I am willing to make.” Deamonne. Really the only person alive whose wellbeing worries him to that extent is Eberwolf. 

-- However everything Darius has been working towards is finally building up to a climax so he doesn't have time to focus on his conflicted sense of attachment towards the boy. He doesn't see himself as a very paternal person so its a little too much to unpack right now.

All he knows is that his goal has extended to something more specific. He's always understood the reality that some people might die in the process of saving the Boiling Isles and he has accepted it. But now he's decided that it cannot be Hunter. This Golden Guard needs to survive. If he doesn't, Darius doesn't know if he'll sleep right ever again.

-- Once they come into contact again after the events of Labyrinth Runners, Darius tries to keeps a distance between himself and Hunter, both physically and emotionally. He doesn't freeze him out entirely like the way he acted pre-ASIAS and he keeps up their amicable relationship but he doesn't meet with him in person, only speaking with him sparsely over crystal ball. This is partly because of paranoia over spies possibly picking up on the rebellion leader's fondness for the former golden guard, and partly because he doesn’t want to encourage Hunter into getting involved in all of this and Darius fears that showing too much approval or affection would only egg him on.

However, during their first conversation, it is obvious that Hunter fully intends to be involved. This is obvious from the way he carries himself in Darius's presence, the brusque and businesslike way he speaks, as though this is a government strategy meeting, oblivious to the fact that Darius only called to make sure he was safe. He's also filthy and exhausted looking and as he's rambling away about the EC invasion of Hexside, so obviously having practised it in the mirror beforehand, Darius feels his throat tighten.

This is so obviously a kid, his immaturity is transparent and even after everything he's been through, Hunter still feels an obligation to play the role of a self sacrificial hero. This is the moment when Darius's vow of downplaying his fondness crumbles and he can only sigh, overwhelmed with relief that this child is still alive in spite of everything. Darius tells Hunter that he's proud of him. He didn't plan on it but he just had to.

Darius had to reign himself in after that, swearing not to be so often until the Day of Unity was over. He was rather aloof with Hunter from that point on. Hunter notices the shift in his Darius’s behavior and assumes it's just because their situation is grave. He mirrors it when they converse, just to further prove that he is taking this seriously.

-- Hunter is terrified at the very idea of being involved in this final stand against Belos. It keeps him up at night just thinking about it. However, not being involved simply isn't an option. There's too many lives at stakes and he has never done nothing in his life. Plus at the front of all this is Darius leading the rebellion and Hunter wants to be as brave as Darius. He feels like he would be a disappointment if he doesn't make himself useful.

He's been compensating during their talks by summoning as much as the Golden Guard as he possibly can because all of his confidence has kinda deteriorated since Hollow Mind, which he is desperately trying to hide from Darius. Their relationship just reached a point of mutual respect and he's terrified of losing that.

Despite how much they have come to care about each other, they still don't fully understand each other, due to their own flaws as people and the limited time they've spent together. Hunter is still under the belief that he has to earn this relationship through heroics, despite the fact that he really doesn't want to.

Meanwhile, Darius doesn't understand that maybe he should talk to Hunter a little more, express how much he cares about him, stabilize their relationship in Hunter's eyes. Maybe then they could have come to an honest understanding and Darius could have found a job for Hunter that would have helped the rebellion but wouldn't have put him directly in the crossfire. However Darius has never been good at expressing deeper emotions, so he just doesn't. So they get absolutely nowhere.

-- Darius assigning Hunter as Luz's escort was absolutely a sneaky way of giving him something to do that would keep him out of harm's way, similar to how Eda sent Luz off on the "mission" in the first place.

Darius kept his connection to Hunter to himself. It wasn't something he talked about. But Raine could obviously tell. And of course Raine tells their girlfriend everything. And like. Who would understand what Darius is going through better than Eda? She also took in some dumb kids just for shits and giggles only to become unwillingly attached to them. And though Darius remained tight lipped on his own dilema, he did listen as Eda plonked down beside him, offering him a swig of her apple blood ("Ew. No. Your spit is on that.") and expressed how frustrated she gets with those kids sometimes. Too young and too stubborn and unwilling to back down, even when Eda is begging them to let her keep them safe. But they'd never trust her again if she forced them out of it, so now she just feels completely helpless.

And though Darius never mentioned Hunter, Eda knew that he felt similarly. The Amity mission was the brainchild between the two of them, a way of getting both their children out of the way, without them feeling like they were being pushed out of the way.

-- Once the dust lifts, the draining spell stops and the Boiling Isles is turned upside-down, the BATTS are forced to regroup and adjust to their current dilema. But, as Darius and Eda eventually discover, Hunter, Luz and King are nowhere to be found.

-- There are also 4 distressed and furious fathers who want answers on the whereabouts of their children. With everyone in such hysterics, Darius is obligated to be the level-headed one, despite his own nerves. He assures the parents that wherever their children are, he believes that they are definitely with an amazing boy who will do everything in his power to keep himself. This Darius promises, because he cannot fathom a reality where Hunter is torn away from the other kids. He has to be with them.

Darius later sits down next to Eda, finally opts to take a swig of her flask (Truly a sign that the end is nigh.) And says "You know I meant that. They won't be hurt while he's with them. Luz included."

Eda erupts with a dismissive snorty laugh. "Luz doesn't need that nerd taking care of her. Betcha twenty snails that when they pop up again, we find out that she was the one saving his butt."

Darius scoffs. "Twenty snails? Really, Eda? I know you can make it more interesting than that. Fifty."

It might be an odd way of coping but Darius and Eda making wagers over which of their kids is tougher really reinforces the wishful thinking that their kids are out there somewhere and they're alive. Because Darius and Eda don't know what they would do if they let themselves believe otherwise.

-- So like. At this point Darius and Hunter care very deeply for each other but they haven't had the chance to come to a mutual understanding, which has led to miscommunication and uncertainty and a reluctance to admit just how much they do care. The groundwork is in place but they still have so much building to do. I figure that it'll be after season 3 before their relationship can really grow. But I kinda LOVE how complicated it has the potential to be.