#hunter is right caleb WAS a witch hunter with belos he just stopped doing it

[pandoratheprocrasticreator]

I actually hope hunter doesnt find out about calebs heel turn towards befriending witches. Or at least, he doesnt find out about that until he accepts that its okay if hes a clone of a witch hunter.

I want hunters realization that hes a Good Person, Actually to come from understanding that sharing genes with someone doesnt mean you inherit their bad qualities. And that he's free to choose whether or not to be like his predecessors. I dont want it to come from him learning that caleb is Good, Actually, and have that mean hes automatically destined to be good like caleb

[captainmera]

My God I love your depiction of the Wittebane brother ❤️

Do you think there might have been a chance that your Pip wouldn't kill his brother when Calec goes to Demon Realm? He seems way more tolerable of weirdness and is actually curious about the taboo things. That it makes me wonder if other steps were taken by people around him, maybe he would make different choices and not turned into a brother-killing genocide goop man. Obviously, the blame is still his for what he did, but I can't stop wondering what if.

And him getting along with Evelyn instead of hating her right of the bat is really cute.

Thank you! :D <333

He grew up with this theatrical bisexual of a brother. Pretty sure the reason Belos didn't give a hoot on the Boiling Isles about queer stuff is because he kinda knew, and accepted, that Caleb was kinda queer. In some cases, people can ignore or bend certain rules for people they love. Even disregard them or pretend they don't apply or exist.

(long rant about writing and narrative foils and blah blah under the cut)

Unlike Caleb, I think Philip is the sort that only picks-and-chooses whatever rules he feels will supports his personal wants/thoughts and tosses the rest.

Caleb was not hiding it as well as he thought he did. lol.

I think that, sure, there was probably a turning point for Philip.

And absolutely, people around him influenced him. He's just a kid, a vulnerable one at that, in a protestant Christian cult.

I kinda like to think of it as a corruption arc. Mostly because it seems (to me) that the whole reason Luz was meant to have a depression-arc and Philip getting all "YoUrE JuSt LiKe Me!" thing was because.. There was supposed, I think, to be similar beginnings for them.

But Luz, in season 3, got depressed and felt a lot of guilt, so her arc is going from this happy-go-lucky kid interested in different things, to a depression arc where she questions herself. While Philip has a corruption arc, where he gradually goes from a well-meaning kid interested in different things, to evil and delusional.

I am also combining Luz, King, and the Collector into Kid-Philip's themes.

King is fascinating as a pre-narrative foil for kid-Philip. I think. As King was very clingy to Luz and didn't want her to leave, he too had a delusion about his own importance (disregard that it was kinda true in the end there). King tried to dictate (in that book episode) about what his and Luz' book should be about, how it should go, and it really hurt Luz' feelings. In the end, they solved it. But as a narrative foil, I think for the Wittebanes, they probably had a similar struggle on a larger scale, and it didn't get resolved.

The Collector, too! They're desperate to be close with someone, anyone, who gets them and wants to play on their terms. Kinda like Belos wanting him and Caleb to be witch hunters. Not accounting that Caleb is his own person outside of him-- Which, if you think about it, Caleb made his whole life (in my version anyway) about taking care of Philip. So I'm sure Philip felt like he really was Caleb's entire world. And then suddenly he wasn't. Because of a witch. The Collector, despite having this incredible power (just like Pip having his brilliant brain) is still a child and using their power in selfish ways. Not intentionally, I think, just out of a fear of abandonment or isolation.

I personally am in favour of nobody-is-born-evil-but-anyone-can-become-evil kinda thing.

I would like to explore how Philip gets corrupted.

I am slowly influencing Philip in my fanfic with little things that will, eventually, boil down to not so great moments.

The thing about delusions is that the person truly believes in it. Philip believing he's a hero has to make sense and feel believable.

Belos is a jerk. Philip isn't, yet. He becomes that jerk. But I don't want to write a sociopath. I also don't like using less-favourable mental illnesses as an "easy way out" to write why Philip became Belos and a genocidal maniac.

I have strong feelings about de-stigmatizing mental illnesses in writing, without romanticizing them or leaving out the really awful and less discussed sides of it. This includes diagnoses within all the clusters of the DSM5. I will not sit here and say I only support a diagnosis like Autism or GAD, and not things like Histrionic or Borderline.

And including people with MH issues and personality disorders is important, too, as well as not trying to downplay them.

People throw around Belos with things like Narcissism and Psychopath, without actually understanding what those means or what the different types there are. For example, is he a grandiose, oblivious or a fragile narcissist?

Yes, these disorders are looked down upon. A lot of people who have them aren't very nice people. But that doesn't mean they're evil or have no heart.

Lots of children can display early signs of these, and in a rough time like the colonial 1630s of America, it is not unthinkable that those rough times bred some dysfunctional people. I'm sure Philip has his own slices of pie as far as mental health goes, just like Caleb and many other struggling people.

But, I will not write from an angle that implies Philip just has darkness from the start in him.

There's a reason why I had Caleb go on a rant about being born evil in chapter 5. Because puritans, and Christians alike, at the time - truly did believe bastards were just... Half people. Did you know that if an orphanage found out a baby was a bastard, they wouldn't let it suckle the nursery goat's udders. Because they were afraid it would soil the milk and, in turn, might give the non-bastard babies bad influence. Somehow.

With that kind of logic in your culture, it's no rocket science that people would put nonsense together and think it made sense.

I'm much more interested in how puritanism and witch hunting culture influenced and corrupted Philip into becoming who he became, and why he refuses to budge on his beliefs to the point of murder.

As the owl house, the show, has commentary on systems influencing cultures in a bad and positive way. But in particular, the one Belos tries to influence the Demon Realm with; being a not-so-great way. So! With that as a clue: what made Philip turn bad, most likely, was partially the puritanism and its extremist ways. I think TOH is also a bit of a nudge at the HAYS-code of Hollywood and how it has trickled into most all the American culture-core. As it's both trickled into schools, morality, politics and other things outside cinema.

Just pointing at him and going "He's a sociopath because he became a genocidal tyrant" is, to me, cheap. Not only does it further stigmatising mental illnesses by implying only a disorder can make someone do such evil things. But it also disregards the most horrific truth of all; that the true monsters are people not at all unlike yourself. And that they, too, were children once.

[prisi]

I feel TOH fails a lot with the treatment that Belos and his lore receive towards the end. I think his arc will feel so much more complete if the show was allowed to show us that he suffered in the past and wasn't like "nah he is just pure evil and he has always been like that". I don't like how the show wants you to believe that Caleb did nothing wrong or reprehensible when there's obvious implications that he abandoned Philip to go with Evelyn, it will be so much more interesting that the show recognized that Caleb was naive and selfish in abandoning his brother (who only have him as family and support figure) to his own in the puritan era, and how that action of Caleb deeply damaged Philip emotionally and mentally (kinda like Luz abandoning Camila to live her fantasy in the Boiling Isles without thinking in the consequences but we are not talking about that right now, I love Luz btw don't get mad at me). And Philip, who probably entered the Isles with the sole intention to "save" his brother who at his eyes was bewitched and seduced by an evil witch to go with her, when he finally found his brother after many years and found out that Caleb actually loved Evelyn and DECIDED to leave him behind he totally lost his mind.

A confrontation escene between Philip and Caleb (it could be a flashback or something showed in Hollow Mind even) will be so interesting to watch, something like in the third season of Infinity Train when Simon confronts The Cat for abandoning him as a child, Caleb will try to justify himself at first saying that he is sorry, that he thought Philip was going to be okay on his own, that he didn't thought that he was going to miss him or something, making Philip more angry, sad and confused.

The situation will scale to the point that Philip, (who's original goal was to kill Evelyn to bring back Caleb in the Human Realm) now that he is angry, sad and out of his senses he tries to attack Caleb with the dagger he had in his hand which triggers the knife fight in which Caleb dies.

Philip, after realizing that he killed the only person he had in the world, he tries to justify himself in an internal monologue like: "oh well, I murdered you, but in doing so I freed your soul from the union with that sinful witch. That's what the witch hunting taught me, right? That's what YOU taught me, RIGHT?". Trying to shift the blame for what just happened onto Caleb but also letting us know and acknowledging that it was Caleb who introduced and instructed Philip in the witch hunt and did nothing to reverse it.

Coming to the end, when the fight ends and Belos and Luz are face to face, the scene would play out more or less as we see it in canon but at the moment in which the first drop of boiling rain falls on his hand and begins to see his body dissolve, he enters a mental breakdown in which he realizes that he wasted his entire life on a goal that made no sense, the witches weren't evil or a threat and he knew it, but he clung to his goal because he did not want to face the reality, he did not want to accept that he had killed his brother in vain nor did he want to accept that he had decided to abandon him, and he did not want to die knowing that he wasted 400 years suffering for something that was not worth it. At the end of his collapse he would crawl a little and see Hunter in the distance (because yes, Hunter should have been present in the end even a little), he would try to extend his hand in his direction but Hunter, noticing this, would close his eyes, look away and take a step back behind Eda and Raine. Philip experienced his brother's abandonment again but with the difference that this time it is merely his fault, because even if Caleb damaged Philip deeply with his abandonment, he is not responsable of the path Philip choosed to take.

Seeing and realizing all of this Belos would stop crawling and give up, lying on the ground, breathing hard as the boiling rain finally dissolves him and dies.

Or at least that is how I liked it to happen, let me know what you think.

[crimeronan]

Dunno if this counts as horrible things but it sure is a Situation I’ve had in mind for a while but do not have the time or brainpower to do anything with: Post ASITS/Reaching Out but pre-Hollow Mind where Belos somehow gets wind of Hunter having a gigantic crush (probably from Kiki) and confronts him about it with full intent to dispose of another failed Grimwalker but when Belos asks after which witch has stolen his nephews heart Hunter panics not wanting Belos to target Willow and says it’s Luz. She had the Owl Lady and Lilith and The Demonic Bird Tube and she’s already a traitor to the Empire that Belos let’s walk around freely so it’s fine it’s totally fine Belos will just punish him for getting distracted from his duty to the Titan and nobody else has to get hurt. Except the second he says Luz’s name all the menace radiating off Belos that Hunter associates with his curse vanishes completely.

Hunter thinks he fucked up so bad that his Uncle’s so shocked and appalled at him that he can’t even be properly angry so he keeps trying to explain with half truths. Luz was the traveler who picked him out of the wreckage of his ship and they bonded over not having magic and he just keeps going until he says that he believes they can “save her from wild magic,” like Belos saved him. And so whether it’s cause he does want to “save” a human from the Demon Realm and witchcraft or because he thinks Hunter “falling for a human” is a sign that he might have actually gotten Caleb right this time, Belos flips the script and tells Hunter that “Yes, this is your purpose as decreed by the Titan. You are to court and save the Human Girl from the terrors of wild magic by the day of Unity. Nobody has a fun time about this

YELL. THIS IS SO SO SO SO SO SO SO SOS O SOOOOOO GOOD. FIC-WORTHY TBH. i also doubt i have the time to do anything with it ficwise but GOD.

i think hunter would have no fucking idea how to Court Someone and would just be transparently pathetic and weird in ways that like.,... like. luz doesn't even think he's Crushing on her. she's just like hey. dude. are you good?? are you Sick?? what is the deal here

like hunter is not suave or subtle when he's undercover. We Know This. made even more complicated by the fact that luz knows what he's like when he's Not undercover, albeit having met a very different side of him than willow did

i feel like hunter would break pretty fast and fess up about what's going on because he thinks -- based on their prior interactions -- that he can probably get through to luz better if he's honest with her. and he likes having relationships where he can be honest. so he's very earnestly trying to explain that the titan wants her to abandon wild magic and MAYBE come with him back to the castle or whatever and to stop being taken in by eda's wicked ways since she's evil and all that

and luz isn't even upset or put off by the courting thing, like. she's like okay well i'm dating amity but this is probably just how castle politics work, i've read a lot of fantasy YA, i get it, it's whatever. hunter if you think i'm going to leave eda who is my mom and closest friend for your fascist dictator uncle then you are OUT OF YOUR FUCKING MIND-

[rex-shadao]

For the Future: The Tragedy of Belos

This post contains spoilers of the episode For the Future. If you have not seen the episode, please do so.

Under the night sky of the Boiling Isles, a muddy figure lumbers through the forest, intent on reaching the Titan's skull. It is Belos aka Philip Wittebane, a witch hunter from the 17th century intent on completing his mission to kill the magical inhabitants of this realm. He had survived the Draining Spell, the Collector's Game of Tag, and Hunter's attempt to drown him. He has survived for hundreds of years, held together by his determination and the palismen he consumed. And yet...

He is slowing down. Tiring. His body is melting and falling apart with every step he takes. Soon, he's resorting to use his hands to simply trudge forward. After 400 years of prolonging his life, Belos is now dying. He is so close to finishing his goal after the major setback that Luz has put him through, and yet it's all slipping away from him. Everything he has done will amount to nothing if he suddenly dies right now.

For the first time in his long life, Belos begins to fear. Not of death, but of failure. Failure to complete his mission despite being so close. Failure to eliminate all witches and "protect humanity from evil." Failure to avenge his brother's death...

And then Belos stops and sees something. A phantom from his past has appeared before him. A pale, deathly-looking figure with sunken eyes and a lifeless frown on his face. It is Caleb Wittebane, Philip's older and now deceased brother.

The specter doesn't move or talk. It stands there before Belos lifelessly. Is it really Caleb's ghost? Or is it Belos' mind hallucinating thanks to him dying?

Whatever the case may be, Belos is terrified and angered by its presence. He yells at the ghostly image of his brother:

"DON'T MOCK ME!"

Caleb doesn't respond. No movement. No voice. No change in expression. Just a lifeless image starring into Belos' soul.

But Belos isn't just looking at Caleb. He is looking at the blood-stained knife that floats above Caleb. The same knife he used to kill his brother when he discovered Caleb's affair with the witch Evelyn.

Belos continues ranting to Caleb, his voice a mixture of defensive rationality and bitter resentment.

"I tried to save your soul!"

He tries to justify Caleb's murder at his hand, inadvertently revealing that killing Caleb was not his original intent. As Masha's tale puts it, Philip set off to save his brother from Evelyn. He failed and instead ended up killing him. He dreamt of being his brother's savior and the hero he always wanted to be as a young child. But he screwed up so badly that he's now making excuses for his sin. By the end, he blames his brother for his predicament, never taking any responsibility for his actions.

"It's your fault THIS ALL HAPPENED!"

And then he immediately attacks Caleb in primal rage, turning his hands scythes to slash his brother's image into pieces. But unlike the memory portraits, his brother remains untouched and still staring at Belos.

As Belos pants in the aftermath, his hand starts to rot and then falls off from his arm. Belos is shocked and suddenly convulses in pain. He falls to the ground as Caleb looks down on his brother with contempt and sadness.

Belos is now on his knees, almost as if he's begging Caleb for forgiveness. But Belos still presses on, ignoring the specter and simply thinking that a new body will fix his problems. The specter disappears, but the message is clear. Belos can't run anymore.

Belos manages to reach to his old hideout at the base of the skull, where the Grimwalkers are made... and later disposed of. But now he's reduced to crawling, with one of his leg detached from his body. As he stops to catch his breathe, he realizes he’s surrounded by the corpses of the past Grimwalkers. Where all the failures end up. Belos again sees Caleb... accompanied by all the dead Grimwalkers that Belos had killed for "betraying" him.

Belos knows what they represent. What they mean. And he has no energy to even rationalize or justify his crimes. He can only ignore it.

"Oh, shut up...," he wheezes before crawling to his Grimwalker Chamber. He desperately looks for a Grimwalker body, one who didn't manage to break out from his birth site.

"There has to be one left..." he frantically mutters to himself. It seems like the best solution. After all, Hunter's body proved most useful as a host. Youthful, powerful, stable, even has Caleb's likeness. So it stands to reason that a fresh corpse of a Grimwalker would work the same, with the added bonus that it won't rebel him. But alas, when he enters into the Grimwalker's corpse, the dead Grimwalker mutates and decays too quickly.

"No, it's not ready!" he cries. Even in death, the Grimwalker has betrayed him. They all betrayed him. And Belos is running out of time before the ghosts of his past come back.

Luckily for him, he found a new, stable host in the form of a puppet who used to be Raine. The puppet finally gives him stability he craves and even better, a disguise to get close to the Collector and either posses or trick them. With the Collector's powers, Belos could finally achieve his goal of wiping out the witches.

But his moment of triumph is only delaying the inevitable. For 400 years, he's been running from it, hiding himself in his shell crafted from his own insecurities. But death is patience, it can wait. It has been waiting for 400 years. And we the audience now know the truth.

We now see Belos without his shell. We now see him completely alone, with no one to talk to. We see him for what he is in the dark. He is driven by fear. Fear of the guilt that resides within him. Fear that nothing he would do could erase this feeling or make up for his sin. So he overcompensates by planning to kill all witches in one fell swoop, bringing his brother back from the dead and making him impervious to disloyalty, and returning home to hear everyone calling him the greatest Witch Hunter and hero of humanity...

All because he knows deep down, he has committed one of the most heinous sins and cannot undo it. But he can't accept that. He needs to fix it. He has to. Nothing else matters until he finish his ultimate mission to make up for his initial failure.

This is his tragedy. This is his downfall. This is his Hell. A cycle of horror and strife. At this point, no amount of physical punishment or imprisonment would deter Belos, and giving Belos death would be granting him mercy. The only thing that could hurt him now are his memories, specifically the memory of Caleb's murder and how he can never change that no matter how hard he tries.

[dittolicous]

"caleb wasnt a good guy cuz he LEFT his itty bitty brother" "caleb indoctrinated philip into the murder cult then dipped so hes just as bad" "caleb wasnt good cuz he was a witch hunter too" "philip had to survive all alone in the human/demon realm to find caleb!" "caleb made philip this bad!"

holy fuck belos apologists shut up challenge

1) caleb was JUST AS MUCH of a child as philip left in an impossible situation, saying he was 'bad' for leaving philip is basically victim shaming him because his only options were a) stay in a place he hates doing something he hated or b) risk alienating philip by move to the demon realm with a person who made him happy.

theres also no evidence to suggest he just left without a word or kept philip out of the loop. for all we know he did try to change philips mind! all we have to go on is belos's VERY biased memories and a folk-lore retelling of bare details. and seeing how evelyns name is still remembered, along with the numerous rebus found in gravesfield, their friendship/courting went on for a while, a good chunk of which im betting philip WAS in the know. at the very least, he knew evelyn as well as a human amd that something was going on.

im also pretty sure caleb didnt even leave the human realm for the last time until philip was at least in his teens if we go by hair length (hair in a ponytail = teenaged to adult)

2) philip was his own damn person and you can only take 'his brother abandoned him' so far. there was likely only 2-3 years between the two brothers ages, caleb was just as likely to be impressionable amd shaped by society. but by all rights, he chose to change. philip on the other hand, for over 300 years, killed countless witches and grimwalkers, justifying it via bigotry.

and dont come at me about caleb not giving him a chance or w/e, because we see in the memories that caleb embraced and tried to reach philip MULTIPLE times before being murdered by him.

caleb leaving philip does not justify any of belos's actions. not a single one.

society failed them both, creating a toxic environment that warped their views of what was right and what was wrong. both boys made mistakes.

the difference is that caleb recognized they were wrong and chose to leave that environment when he finally got the chance.

philip refused to accept being wrong.

what exactly should caleb have done? was his misery in the human realm unimportant? was he to sacrifice his own happiness so philip could have what he wanted? he was a victim too! he was a child just as much as philip! but because he was the older brother, he didn’t deserve a better life? he'd always have to bend to philip's desires?

caleb did NOT 'make' belos. caleb did not turn philip evil. PHILIP chose to kill, to not give the demon realm a chance. philip chose to kill his brother and make grimwalkers. trying to pass off these choices onto caleb is honestly pathetic and actively missing the true tragedy of belos's character.

he could have had a good life with his brother, he could of found happiness outside of witch hunting! but he was so unable to accept being WRONG in any shape or form, to acknowledge his own inability to see calebs suffering for what it was, that only PHILIP'S happiness mattered, that he chased caleb away.

philip is not innocent, nor is caleb. their story is a tragedy. stop acting like he is to blame for belos's actions. really, putting all the blame onto caleb and not the society that left two orphaned children thinking witch hunting was the only way to survive is. fucking bananas.

like.... you do realize that's exactly the kind of manipulation tactic belos would try to pull, right?

[tentacledsnakelover]

The Owl House Finale Rewrite Part 2

I love many things about The Owl House, from its animation, characters, world, music, and themes. However, I feel the finale, good as it was, was far from perfect, and there are many glaring issues, from character retcons, to unexplored lore, lack of nuance, and several other issues. I am by no means an expert writer, and I have nothing but respect for Dana and her team. I give them the benefit of the doubt because we all know corporate disney has given them much trouble in making this show. So here is how I would rewrite the finale. Keep in mind some of the stuff I mention may not be feasible to include even if the writers wanted to put them into the story.

The special starts out with Luz, Eda, King, the Hexsquad, Camila, and the Collector watching as Belos possesses the Titan, and they narrowly escape the now deserted archives as Belos destroys it with his new body. The Collector explains via a flashback that he told Belos titan hearts can continue to beat long after they die (I find it hard to believe only Belos knew what the Titan's heart and the rest of the isles didn't) and that Titans are technically stronger than Collectors, even being immune to the star species. Belos wanted to use the Draining spell as his first plan because he believed possessing the Titan wouldn't be as effective (In this rewrite, I headcanon that the Draining Spell would have concentrated all magic and used it to destory the demon realm planet, as in canon, Belos' plan was just to kill everyone with sigils) and he made the Titan plan his plan B.

Having gotten to the heart during the previous special, Belos managed to possess the titan. The Collector attempts to try and get through to Belos using kindness and forgiveness like in canon, and like in canon, Belos takes advantage of this to try and destroy the Collector. Luz and King both fly up to intercept the shot and are knocked to the ground, both presumed dead and covered in the ever growing Belos-fungus. Luz and King's friends and family angrily try to stop Belos, but to no avail.

Meanwhile, Luz and King's souls end up in the In-Between realm, where they meet Papa Titan. The Titan explains while they are dead, their souls have not yet submerged in the In-Between liquid, and thus, have not fully passed on, giving them a chance to heal their bodies and return their souls to them.

When Papa T imprisoned the Collector, the force of the spell burned his body away, killing him, though his heart managed to remain intact, and is still beating, thus, making him technically still alive. He is now tethered between life and death, and his soul, like all souls, has passed to the In-Between, a type of realm that acts as the glue for other realms, like the frosting on a cake. Papa T has been able to use the strange boxes to watch over King. He explains the cubes are the Collector's magic. When he trapped the Collector, he used the speaking tablets the Collector gave him as a catalyst, and when the Collector got imprisoned, some of the magic inside the tablets leaked into the In-Between and formed the cubes. Frustratingly, Luz, King, and Papa T aren't 'alive' enough to use the cubes to speak to people, only watch.

After hearing how the Titan took his anger out on the Collector, she nervously asks if they are as bad as Belos. The Titan, decides he can't sugarcoat the harsh truth and asks Luz rhetorically if Amity's decision to bully Willow was justified because she was protecting her, or that Lilith shouldn't face consequences for ruining Eda's life just because she didn't think things would get so bad, or that Hunter should receive death like Belos because he thought he was doing the right thing.

Papa T explains that while Belos' desire to save humanity from witches comes from a genuine place (This is one of my biggest gripes with the finale. The show went out of it's way to hint that Belos and Caleb might have had a complex and interesting story, only to never answer any of the questions fully outside of vague, second hand tales, and reduce Belos to a hate sink. Belos needs to be stopped but acknowledging the nuance and complexity of a character is not the same as excusing their actions), his belief that he is doing good means his actions are justified. Belos is an extremist, and anyone can become like him if they believe their goals are noble enough to excuse their actions.

This strikes a chord with Luz, who has been conflicted with guilt over leaving her mother, as well as her other past actions. King's soul then starts to glow, and Papa T explains Belos inadvertently sealed his fate. Baby titans like King have a special adaption where when they are on the verge of death, or get extremely hurt, their bodies activate a special Titan adrenaline rush, that makes them grow and able to use magic for a short time. King embraces his dad and his soul leaves the inbetween as it returns to his body. King can use his temporary powers to heal Luz so she can lead the fight against Belos, and destory the heart, ending Belos' possession of the Titan.

Luz is worried that she will never be able to stop Belos because she doesn't have any innate magical abilites. The Titan assures her she never needed any innate abilities. The Titan then reveals because he is dead, he never had any control over the glyphs, and thus, couldn't reveal them to her. He certainly never would have let Belos find them. Luz and Belos found them all on their own, but Luz found them faster because Belos never took the time to look for them, and actively feared the magic of the Isles (My headcanon is that Belos etched Glyphs onto his body as a reminder to himself that the glyphs were unholy magic, and only brought suffering to mankind). Luz's confidence is brought up, and her soul is brought back to her body as it is healed by King.

Back on the isles, King reawakens in a burst of energy, and heals Luz, before growing to massive size as he begins to wrestle the massive form of Belos. Luz informs her shocked and very relieved family and friends that King won't be able to restrain Belos forever, and explains they need to destroy the heart.

While Luz and her allies fly to the heart, the Collector, humbled by his inability to heal Luz and King, as well as his lesson on empathy and ethics, is unable to use his magic to fight Titan Belos, so he goes around the isles to protect the freed citizens. With Belos distracted wrestling King, the citizens of the isles rally and begin fighting the infection of Belos-fungus (This could be a nice scene for all the minor background and fan favorite characters like the Blight Twins, Viney, Skara, etc. to do something). This keeps Belos even more distracted as Luz and her friends make their way to the heart.

At the heart, Luz's allies help her distract Belos and she manages to slap a light glyph on the heart, destroying it, and all the remaining Belos fungus. The castle collapses around them, but everyone is saved by Hooty, who coils around everyone, shielding them from the debris. As the last of the Belos fungus is wiped away, King returns to his normal size, and everyone embraces.

But they notice a tiny bit of Belos glop, and corner it, a hissing, furious, Belos tries to possess someone else, but he is trapped. The Collector has a fitting idea for what to do with Belos, and they trap him in the In-Between. (I found Belos' defeat unsatifying, as it unintentionally makes him a martyr by his standards. It also doesn't allow Hunter to get any last moments with his abuser outside of the fight in Thanks to Them, but this feels more karmic to me, as Belos reneged on his deal to free the Collector).

The Collector agrees to stay around, unlike in canon, so he can help fix the damage he caused. He is living with Eda and King, and spends time helping to repair damaged buildings, and he is forming a budding friendship with Hunter and Lilith, too, who are also helping to rebuild the isles.

Luz and Camila also reconcile, and Luz begins to move past her black and white worldview. Camila allows Luz to spend time with her friends and visit the isles, but to take her life on Earth seriously too. The finale ends with the timeskip, as Luz celebrates her Quinceanera with her new friends and family.

[httyddragonfox]

Hunter vs Luz's death/Flapjack vs the Titan

It's interesting that both Luz and Hunter had a death scene in the third season. Hunter's death was more a climax to his arc, while Luz's was more a climax to the main arc.

Both were pretty much killed by Belos, but in different ways, lead up, aftermath, etc....these two characters also get a lot of focus in the show.

First let's start with Hunter. Hunter is Belos' creation, in an attempt to have a version of Caleb he wants beside him. The relationship between them was extremely toxic. Belos saw him as a replacement of his brother and an extension of himself for Hunter's whole life. If Hunter didn't fit the mold, he would be killed. In a way, Belos is obsessed with the idea of Hunter. Hunter is his, like Caleb was his, they're not allowed to be their own people. Hunter finally escaped, and started to find himself in the human realm. Once they were near ready to return to the Demon Realm, Belos made his move and attempted to take possession of him again, this time through maximum force. In this attempt he tricks Hunter and Luz into finding the Titan's blood for him so he could use Hunter to return to the isles and kill everyone there. Hunter is his tool, as he always was. Using Hunter, he tries to kill all of the witches present, and then impales Flapjack out of petty spite. This makes Hunter furious enough to fight back, he resists Belos' control over him to thwart his plans and give him cold declaration of who he is and what he wants. In a way, Hunter attempts to kill Belos, firmly against him now. It doesn't work, and Belos is shocked, I tell you, shocked that Caleb would betray him like this. So flabbergasted, he leaves the group alone and continues to see Caleb's ghost haunt him for his deeds. Back to Hunter, he is dying because of what Belos did to him. Flapjack in turn, sacrifices what's left of his life to save him. Hunter inherits his magic in the process and his death forever sticks with the group.

What about Luz? Luz is just another Human, but because of this Belos respects her. He wants to get her on his side, proving he's right, so in a way it would prove Caleb wrong, and justify all his actions. Luz seems to strike chords with him, "You did it to him first" caused him to back off. When she was killed by Belos, it was an accident. He was aiming for the collector, but it doesn't really affect him when she dies, except now the pests are really going at it. The Titan sacrifices what's left of his life to stop Belos and revive Luz. After he's defeated, all he does is try to appeal to their humanity, doesn't even bring up his defeat or the fact he killed her. Also, when the fight is over the magic she inherited from the Titan goes away as the Titan finally passes on.

Some differences to note, Hunter and Belos had a more personal relationship so his death and fight against him would strike a harder chord with him. Luz was just another Human who happened to be in his way, so their conflict is more focused on evil vs good, instead of guardian vs child.

Flapjack was Hunter's best friend, who just wanted him to live never mind the outcome. The Titan wanted Belos defeated never mind the outcome. There's a difference there. Flapjack sacrificed himself so hunter could live, Hunter got his powers as a side effect. The Titan sacrificed his power so Luz could defeat Belos, Luz got to live again as a side effect. Flapjack would do anything for Hunter and would always be by his side. Relatively, the Titan just met Luz, and was only lending her his power. He wouldn't want to spend an indefinite amount of time with Luz, he'd rather pass on once the job was done. For Flapjack the job wouldn't be done until Hunter had lived his full life, thus staying with him.

Yes, the Titan's death did have a lasting impact, but mainly for Luz as she couldn't use glyphs anymore.

This shows us that Hunter vs Belos was a character driven climax, while Luz vs Belos was a Plot/World driven climax. As I learned, character driven climaxes have a lot of close up shots, and plot/world driven climaxes have a lot of faraway shots. The fight between Luz and Belos was Isles wide, so lot's of faraway shots. The fight between the hexsquad and possessed Hunter was in front of a graveyard, not even in the whole graveyard, so lot's of closeup shots.

Maybe that's why Hunter's death had a lot more umpth behind it, because it was a lot more personal of a confrontation. Luz's battle with Belos was amazing, but it was more a duty of the hero, and that has a more hands off approach, probably why the Titan and her didn't go too deep into backstories.

Everything in Hunter's possession and death had personal connotation with it, while with Luz's death while sad, she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and then the right place at the right time.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk!

[sergeantsporks]

Writing Request: Hunter seeing Caleb's statue in Gravesfield for the first time

“Hey, Hunter, Vee’s introducing us… to…” Luz shaded her eyes with her hand, looking up at the heavy stone statue that she’d always walked past before, but that Hunter wouldn’t stop staring at. “Is that…” She shuddered at the profile she’d seen a hundred times before, projected by the echo mouse.

Hunter snapped out of his trance, looking over to her. “Huh?”

Luz pointed up at the person in the back of the statue. “Phillip.”

He followed her point, tilting his head. “Huh. No, I was just…”

Luz glanced at the other figure carved in stone, then back at Hunter, then back at the statue. “Oh.”

He stared up at it. “Oh,” he repeated softly, “I guess…

“Bone doesn’t fall far from the ortet, huh?” Luz asked shakily, “I guess that… answers that question. You… came from… a human.”

Hunter shook his head. “It doesn’t answer anything. I don’t know anything about him! Why Belos killed him, what he thought of the isles, I don’t know anything about what he was like!”

Luz nudged his shoulder. “Well… if he was anything like you, then… he always tried his hardest to do the right thing, even if he didn’t know what that was. He wanted to help people. He’d have been curious, and crazy smart.”

Hunter growled, running a hand through his hair. “That’s the thing, isn’t it? We don’t know if he was anything like me! We can… we can guess what he was like, but just because I’m one way, doesn’t mean he was that way!” He deflated with a sigh. “I just… I want to know more about where I came from, if I’m…”

“Does it matter?” Luz said softly, “It’s like you said, how he was doesn’t change anything about you.”

“I guess I just… want to know more about my family. I know it doesn’t affect who I am, but… It would be nice to know that they weren’t all genocidal tyrants.”

“Yeah. I guess.”

Hunter scowled up at the statue of Phillip and turned away. “Luz?”

“Yeah?”

“Can you teach me… about the glyphs?”

“Whoa, really? I mean, sure, but there’s not a lot we can do with them here. No magic and all.”

“I just… I want to know how. I missed out on a lot, being in the coven, and… books can only tell you so much. And if we get back, when we get back, I want to be able to do my OWN magic. I mean, I love Flapjack, of course, but if we get separated, then I’m powerless. I got knocked out of the sky by that abomaton, and it was purely thanks to Willow that I didn’t turn into a grease spot on the ground. I just… want a backup.”

Luz grinned. “Sure. Hey, let’s make a deal, huh? I’ll teach you glyphs now, and whenever my palisman hatches, you teach me how to do that teleporting thing.”

“Teleporting’s a tough skill to master, especially if you’re new to using a staff at all. You might want to start with something easier.”

“Yeah, but I want to learn how to teleport. C’mon, Hunter.”

“Fine. Deal. But I’m not coming to get you when you teleport yourself to another state.”

“Fair enough. Alright, sit down.” Luz plopped down at the base of the statue, clearing the area at her feet of any rocks.

“What, here?”

“Yeah, c’mon. It’s not like anywhere else is going to suddenly make it work.”

He slowly lowered himself down, and Luz traced a light glyph in the dirt with a stick. “This was the first one I ever learned.”

“That’s a constellation!” he burst out, “The wayfinding constellation—it stays fixed in the sky above the knee, so you can use it to figure out where you are in the Isles!”

“Like the North Star? I didn’t know that.”

“Yeah, before the invention of hot-cold mapsticks, wild witches used the constellations to navigate the Isles. The wayfinding constellation was the most common. You could also pinpoint what time of night it was by which constellations were closest to it, and what time of the year it was based on what constellations were even in the sky at all! Some people said—” Hunter rubbed the back of his head. “Oh—uh, sorry. Mapsticks only worked for a little bit without a magic recharge, so I had to find other ways to navigate. Read a lot of books on wayfinding.”

Luz set down her stick. “Why do you always do that?”

“Do what?”

“Shut yourself down. Justify why you know things. Act like it’s silly to talk about.”

Hunter curled his knees to his chest. “Because it is.”

“No, it’s not. You clearly want to talk about it. It’s important to you.”

He shrugged. “It’s not important to anyone else. Plus, a lot of it wasn’t supposed to be talked about, I could get in trouble. I did get in trouble.”

“You’re not going to get in trouble with us.”

“Maybe not outwardly. But no one wants to hear about it.”

Luz shook her head. “I want to hear about it. You had WAY more time with books on wild magic than I did. And if what you already know can help you remember what I’m teaching you now, then you should TOTALLY talk about it! So what was it that some people said about the wayfinding constellation?”

“That if you wore it around your neck, it would light your way home.” Hunter’s eyes lit up. “Well, if it’s a light glyph, there might be some truth to that! Maybe not exactly about finding home, but creating light might help you recognize your surroundings, or at the very least, give you a way to keep away wild demons.” Hunter traced the glyph in the dirt next to Luz’s. “Light, huh?”

“Yeah, I learned it inside of Eda’s spell circle when my phone broke. The constellation was just a cool confirmation that the glyphs could be found in nature. Well, four of them anyway. Let’s start there. There are four basic glyphs, but by combining them in complex circles, you can make them do so much more. But you already knew that part.”

Hunter settled in, his eyes fixed on the glyphs she drew in the earth. He traced the shape in the air, mouthing what it did to himself. “Oh—fire and ice, I remember those. And that one is plants.”

“Yeah, awesome! You’re halfway there already.” Luz pushed the stick over to him. “Try some combos, how you think they work, put them together. We can’t test them here, but if we get back to the isles, we can try them there.”

“When we get back,” he corrected, “You’ll figure it out, we’ll figure it out. Because I know we won’t stop trying until we do.”

Luz felt a smile tug at her mouth. “Yeah. We will.”

[lollytea]

What do you think about the... you know... bloodied knife hanging over Caleb's head? And the Golden Guards? And the half-dead grimwalker? Because those scenes caught me so off guard...

I think that Caleb's scene was supposed to be a lot more gory. Like the knife was intended to stabbed right through his chest or something but S&P said no. So now he's a sim. I think it's an interesting look into Belos' psych too. At least, if we're operating under the assumption that Caleb is a hallucination rather than a ghost. (Which I want to believe cuz a ghost would be kinda cheesy. But like...why does he looks just like what Hunter saw in the mirror? The closest thing Hunter's ever seen to an image of Caleb is the statue. So like?? Huh??)

The fact that Caleb has appeared, shows that there's a part of Belos that's being eaten alive by the guilt of what he's done. And when he imagines his brother, that's the image of him he has. Cold, silent, disappointed. Belos knows deep down that what he's done was wrong. And yet, there's another part of him that refuses to admit it. A part of him that's been contaminated by denial and resentment and anger towards his brother. So Caleb's haunting stare infuriates him. He lashes out, he blames Caleb for everything, he lunges to attack him, showing that, even though he may have insisted that all he wanted was to save Caleb's soul, he's still filled with hatred towards him and he wouldn't hesitate to kill him again 400 years later. All of this happened because of Philip's own personal feelings of betrayal. And he's trying to put a holier than thou spin on it, but he can't keep denying it. He knows exactly why he killed him.

The images of the grimwalkers confused me a little, I'll admit. I know Belos viewed them as nothing more than failed attempts at a replacement Caleb and was nonchalant about disposing them when he felt like it. But if he never saw them as anything more than that, why are they appearing to him in the same vein as Caleb, who actually meant something to him? Is there a part of him that feels guilty for killing them too? Maybe. Who knows with this deranged fucked up monster.

Maybe some of them stood out more than others. Maybe these were the earliest attempts at grimwalkers, the ones that Philip actually fondly remembers, before the chain of clones became endless and he stopped seeing them as individual attempts, but one long experiment, the same person again and again and again. Maybe these were the ones whose betrayals were too familiar. Maybe these were the ones who fell in love with witches. Maybe these were the ones who he hated so passionately that he still remembers them centuries later. Maybe he sees them as nothing but symbols, reminders of this endless cycle that this depraved world has forced upon him. Betrayal after betrayal after betrayal.

Also grimwalker in the ground, hello??? Now I'm pretty sure he did not make that one recently. Based on how Belos dragged himself in, desperately looking around like "there's gotta be a spare one around here somewhere" that attempt had been abandoned until further notice and forgotten about. Amazing how he just has vegetable bodies lying around. Also that body was a full grown man and he apparently still wasn't fully cooked?? Yeah Hunter was absolutely created as a baby, in what I'm theorizing was a new experimental approach to molding his grimwalker to his liking. It's why he assumed that Hunter would last longer.

[charizardstolemynickname]

SEASON 3 EPISODE 1 REACTION PART 2!!

I am a big ranter and don't shut up so I have had to make it a second part, sorry people, anyway, LETS GO

"You're family now" WELL DAMN, Hunter is just getting adopted left right and centre! As he should be, HUNTER BABY, NO DON'T CRY, god nobody has ever shown him kindness in his like, 16 years of life huh (me neither pal, me neither)

I will never get over how cute Gus and Hunter being nerds about this sci-fi book, like damn bro. BUT CAMILA, what are you hiding?! Either she wrote this book or it was her husband's

AHHH LUZ AND AMITY COSPLAYING THEIR FAVOURITE FICTIONAL GIRLFRIENDS, I am going feral, god someone be the Luz to my Amity. ALSO Azura's green hair is iconic, I will one day dye my hair that green, just you wait

THE COMPUTER WALLPAPER?! Fuckkkkkkk, they are so goals it literally hurts my soul, I am going to cry in a minute!

The costumes are so good!! However Amity's costume (I think the character's name was Hecate?) reminds me of Rosaline but with Daisy's hair colour (Mario characters if you get me) but also some other character but I have 0 idea who, I'll think about it

BUT HEY, GREEN GOOP DON'T BE ON HUNTER'S SKIN!

Oooo Belos lore! And his brother, who is barely mentioned so i am desperate to know more

THE BROTHER'S NAME WAS CALEB! FUCKING KNEW IT, but that means a lot..... Are "Grimwalkers" just a clone of Caleb? Philip's weird attempt to keep his brother? And maybe he died because of a palisman? God I don't know, BUT WAIT, BECAUSE FLAPJACK WAS AN ABANDONED PALISMAN BECAUSE OF THE BATQUEEN HAD HIM, MAYBE HE WAS CALEB'S!

OH FUCK YEAH I WAS RIGHT, however this was probably obvious considering we immediately find it out after I guessed it, damn

"Sounds like big bro got a hot witch girlfriend and little bro got upset. But, that's just me" Masha, I fucking love you

Hunter is sweating and stressing though, bless him

YEAH HUNTER WHAT THE HECK, poor flapjack, but also I get it, still feel bad for flapjack but Hunter be going through a lot, i get him

THE CUTTING THE HAIR WITH A SWORD IS SO RELATABLE, but also these video diaries being from when she was young and everything with her dad AND HER DAD LEAVING HER THE BOOK, AH

OH GOD I JUST REMEMBERED THE FIRST SCENE OF SEASON 1 WAS LUZ'S BOOK REPORT WHERE SHE BROUGHT IN A SNAKE! OHHHH God.

WOAH, Hunter is being controlled by this green goop! I swear if he turns into the Belos creature and Hunter becomes the villain I will have to sob

WOAH IS BELOS CONTROLLING HUNTER! HELL NAH DAMN IT, WE HAVE TO WATCH HUNTER BECOME THE MAYBE VILLAIN, this is horrible

WHY ARE YOU CALLING LUZ/FLAPJACK EVELYN! WASN'T THAT THE WITCH!?! FUCK

DO NOT KILL FLAPJACK YOU PIECE OF SHIT! NOOOOOOOOOO

WAIT NO HE IS ALIVE, I swear if flapjack dies I will sue the studio

CAMILA TO THE RESCUE! Woah, cool portal, but that shouldn't be what I focus on

I am not kidding, if Flapjack and/or Hunter dies, I will go insane and nobody will see me for the next 100 days

NOOOOOOOOOOOOO DON'T TURN INTO PARTICLES FLAPJACK, YOU CAN STILL LIVE, please, i swear

"Is everyone else okay?" YES YOU SELFISH PRICK, OF COURSE BUT STOP ASKING ABOUT EVERYONE ELSE

.................................... YOU MUST BE KIDDING, they wouldn't kill off flapjack right!? He comes back, I know he does. You'll see. This isn't "delusional" or "denial" IT WILL HAPPEN

"TOOK YOUR MOTHER TO THE DEMON REALM!" Again, Camila to the rescue, fucking love her, CAN'T WAIT FOR CAMILA AND EDA TO MEET

VEE MY ICON, good luck trying to be everything sweetie, I BELIEVE IN YOU!

OKAY! Episode 1 done people! That was, scary, damn. But we survived the first episode! AND nobody died! FLAPJACK DIDN'T DIE OKAY, I WILL DIE ON THIS HILL, HE SHOWS UP LATER IN THIS SEASON, I CAN TELL

[kookies2000]

So turns out some people didn't like the special because it only seems like the writers are torturing Hunter now. Let me just say, as short as possible and speaking from experience, some abusers like to torture their victims.

As awful as it is, some abusers just love the feeling of satisfaction from abusing the victim. Whether it be to satisfy their anger, frustration, pride, what ever. It makes them feel better. And they just don't stop until they feel that satisfaction. In this case, Belos is mostly out of pride. He needs Hunter (Caleb in his eye's) to see he was right about witches. He desperately needs Caleb to be a part of this plan so Philip can finally say he succeeded in his plan with his brother. So the possession makes sense and yes even killing Flapjack. Abusers do anything they can to destroy connections their victim has. Friend's, by calling them useless, the homophobic slur, or pedophilic. Yes, soemone I lived with called my friend that just so I wouldn't talk to her anymore. And all my friends, the ones that made me feel good about myself, were all in the LGBT+ community. So that didn't end well. And if the abuser can't force you away from those connections then they'll use physical force. You be surprised how psychotic some abusers can get.

I'm Hunter's case, like I said, Belos needs Cakeb to see he was right. He needs Caleb to play a part of his plan so he can feel accomplished in his mission. As for killing Flapjack, it's confirmed that was Evelyn the whole time. Which is interesting, I don't think there ever was a theory where Caleb's wife is actually Flapjack. It's so sweet when you think about it. Evelyn made it her mission to defeat Belos and make sure he never hurts her family or anyone else again. And she went to Hunter to help him and guide him away from Belos and his abuse. And now that Hunter found where he belongs, people who love him, a father figuer, a mother figuer, new siblings and a possible lover, Hunter didn't need her as much anymore. Or at least, her part of the work was done. Yes, it would've been nice if Evelyn remained with Hunter and stayed as his friend, but I'm sure she would be in peace knowing Hunter is in safe hands now. Besides, I'm sure she would happy in the after life with Caleb again. It's bitter sweet and poetic in it's own way.

[travlersjoy444]

Some Sunny Day (Pt.18)

  TOH Hunter/Golden Guard x reader

 Masks and Bets part eighteen.

The links to the other parts are now at the bottom of the page.

*******

The Day of Unity is officially upon us, and the best laid plans have fallen through. 

  I swallow as we enter the cave on the head, walking towards Belos and possibly death.

  But this isn’t where we left off, is it. Allow me to rewind a bit.

  Once upon a time, there was a pair of witches named (Y/N) and Hunter- those witches, of course, being me and my best friend. 

  We sat outside in the snow laughing and grinning and being hopeful, and we listened to the adults who would save us, and then Luz was gone being a martyr, and now my arm hurts-

  I swallow and move forwards, trying desperately to ignore the tears that blur my vision.

  Hunter squeezes my hand, a similar pained grimace on his face. “It’s gonna be okay,” He says, and I have a funny feeling that he’s trying to convince himself more than he’s trying to convince me.

  “Oh how the tables have turned.” I smile, attempting a joke. He smiles back but it doesn’t reach his eyes.

  Willow takes my other hand. “Hey (L/N), Caleb- you guys ready to take down Belos?”

  I grin, trying hard to sound tough. “I’ve been ready since I was twelve, Park.”

  “That’s the spirit.” She grins back, and I smile for real this time.

  Yeah…yeah. We could do this.

  “We. Don’t. Belong here!” Yells an ever-familiar voice, echoing off the walls of the cavern, and suddenly my mind is in the throne room again and I’m just a kid and Hunter is leering at me behind his mask-

  I swallow again, and Hunter is not leering at me but staring in worry with his eyebrows knitted together.

  I cough. “Sorry.” I say, and although I mean it, I’m not sure that I can go into the cave, even to save Luz- 

  But I have to. I’ll hate myself forever if I don’t.

  I squeeze his hand and nod silently, and he nods back.

  “Oi Belos! You looking to finally get ya-self that tricycle? I’ve heard they’re all over the Human Realm!” I yell, slipping on a mask not unlike the one I lost in Latissa half a year ago.

  The goopy, sinewy, muddy thing that threatens Luz looks unlike the Belos I once knew. I choke back the bile in my throat and step forwards as it glares at me.

  “Ooh, now your outside finally matches your inside, huh, old man?” I grin, and he moves towards me only to get caught in Willow’s vines. 

  “We're here to help!” She yells, waving at Luz.

  Amity nods. “Did you really think we wouldn't follow you?”

  Luz beams.

  “Yeah girl, get with it.” Gus says cooly.

  “You guys are literally the coolest!” Luz grins.

  “Hell yeah we are,” I say, tossing my head. Hunter rolls his eyes, smiling weakly. 

  “Classic Ego.” He teases, although there’s something scared and animalistic behind his eyes that reminds me of when we were back in the coven all those months ago. I’m willing to bet that the fear is reflected in mine.

  “We have to get him to stop the draining spell, but he's all...berserk mad!” Luz yells, and he struggles with the vines. 

  To my terror, he meets my eyes, and I find myself staring into horrifying blue voids.

  “Lune you sinful scourge!” He hisses. “Renounce this madness, you can still find the light!” There’s a note of pleading in his horrible voice, but I feel nothing. 

  (Weird. There used to be a tinge of pride, or guilt, or anger…but not nothing. Perhaps I have changed.)

  “Oh sure, Philip ol’ pal.” I smirk, hoping I sound more confident than I feel, and Hunter pulls me back as Belos whips towards me. I mentally prepare for a scolding, but instead Hunter grins at me in pride.

  “I literally love you so much right now, you absolute egotistical dumbass.” He says softly, a bit of our old Golden Guard vs (Y/N) banter returning.

  “I know, I love me too.” I say proudly, hitting Belos with a bolt of fire from my spell circle. 

  He jolts up, ripping through one of the vines-

  Uh oh.

  Willow summons more vines to pull him back, and I swallow hard-  the bridge we're on begins to break.  

  Uh oh. 

  Belos breaks free of the vines in the chaos, knocking down pieces of the cavern with him-

  “Hunter!” I yell, barely aware of the chaos that surrounds me. And suddenly he has my hand and we’re both wincing as the draining spell takes effect…I stare at our hands, with the cracks of glowing gold shining through…

  CRASH! A hunk of rock slams into the ground next to me, and suddenly the beast’s shadow is over us.

  “(Y/N), Hunter, why are you hurting me? I only wanted to help you!”

  I swallow, staring at the thing as it took on the face of a man I once held in high regard.

  Belos. For just a second, he is the Belos I knew of back in the coven. The Belos with blonde hair, a kind-ish face, and only two blue eyes rather than a ton.

  Hunter snaps out of it first. “You're... You're lying!” And his voice breaks the spell. I hiss at the putrid man in front of us, because it’s all I can do, all I can muster to properly convey my hatred. Words fail, falling instead to an animalistic instinct I didn’t know I have, and I hiss again.

  “Lune, Caleb?!” Howls Belos, and his face melts back to the creature’s.

  “Yeah, stay mad.” I grunt.

  Unfortunately, he complies, grabbing my wrist and swinging me upwards. I kick it as hard as I can, but he jams me into the wall. 

  “Fuck- off!” I hiss, struggling against him.

  “Lune, I don’t want to hurt you.” Belos growls. “I just want to teach you a lesson. This is sinful!”

  “Actually, it’s sinful to be that ugly.” I grin despite myself, feeling my arm begin to throb as the draining spell increases.

  “You never were one for propriety.” Belos growls.

  “Please stop talking to me. Your face stresses me out.” I say weakly.

  He lets go of my arm and I hit the ground with a sickening THUD.

 Someone pulls me towards them, which is helpful considering I don’t trust my legs to stand up right now.

  “(Y/N)!” It’s Luz.

  “My…my arm hurts…” I finally manage to say as the world blurs, and I feel someone squeeze my good hand. Someone in dragon leather gloves. Hunter. I squeeze back and pull him towards me, slamming my eyes shut…

  “Whatcha playing?”

  I crack an eye open.

   A…child?

  Well that wasn’t quite expected.

  Belos freezes as the child steps forwards, smiling cheerily.

  “Collector!” Belos says, the cracks in his armor shining through. “You're free, just as promised…”

  “What?!” I whisper, sitting up a bit firmer. 

  “As promised?” Says the child, narrowing their eyes. “I remember someone throwing me off a bridge. I'm not angry though. Say, you wanna play tag?”

  They wave their hand and Belos flies towards them.

  “I'm it.” They say, and tap him on the nose. 

  My vision seems to slow down as Belos is thrown above the door, exploding outwards in a horrifying squelch. Drips of his goo splatter on the floor….

  I swallow back the bile that rises in my throat.

  “Too slow!” Laughs the child- the Collector- “You guys look slow too. Do you need a head start?”

  “Whoa, whoa, Collector! Buddy, pal!”

  King!

  “King!” Says the Collector, grinning. Perhaps I’m hallucinating. I must be hallucinating. This is a dream, brought on by….bad tea or perhaps the throbbing pain…or maybe Belos dropped me on my head. Maybe I’m dead. 

  It was a peaceful thought, being dead. Not a fate I wanted, by any means, but if I was dead, at least Belos was someone else’s problem. At least I could be with my brother, and the mother and father I had once upon a time…perhaps I could ask Lune Byrne, whoever they were, for answers at long last…

  I close my eyes again, tighter this time, and conversations happen around me…bizzare conversations, something about an Owl House… 

  “Boop.” Says the child’s voice. Maybe they’re dead too…

  But wait. My arm…

  …It doesn’t hurt anymore. 

  “(Y/N)...” Breathes a voice, and I instinctively hug the voice’s owner.

  “Hey Hunter…” I murmur. “Is it over?”

  I feel him shake his head on my shoulder.

  “No…maybe…I don’t know. But we’re okay. You’re okay…right?” He says through a ragged breath.

  “Mm. Dunno. Maybe. Where’s everyone else?”

  Hunter pulls me to my feet gently, letting me lean on him, and I see Amity, Luz, Willow, Gus, and King standing by the child a few yards away.

  The child. The Collector. He was…real…this was real. This was happening. This was happening to us. To me. To (Y/N) (L/N).

  Surreal.

  “Hmm.” Says the Collector, looking out at the isles. “If we're gonna play Owl House,” he says, starting to float off the ground, “-we're gonna need an Owl House!”

  They slap their hands together, and every part of the island starts to disassemble to prepare for the game.

  I stare out at my home in horror, grabbing Hunter’s hand and Willow’s hand too.

  My eyes blur, and I am probably crying, but there isn’t anything to be done about that…

  “We're gonna have a blast, everyone!” The Collector declares, smiling like the evil ringmaster of a horrible circus.

  “I think there's a way out!” Says Willow next to me, pulling us back.

  “Come on (Y/N), I’ve wanted to play with you for so long!” 

  I freeze, slowing my run.

  “...What?” I breathe, ice crawling up my spine at the Collector’s words.

  “You were fun, you found out so much- I wanted to give you more hints, but that’d have killed the fun. But now you have to say, now we have to play!” They grin, grabbing my free hand.

  Hunter pulls on my left hand, staring with his eyes wide as the Collector drags me off the ground.

  “Hunter…” I whisper, tears filling my eyes.

   I don’t know why I say it. I don’t want him to go, I want him to stay, to pull me out of the child’s grasp, to take me to the portal, to let us be safe at the end of the journey.

  I say it anyway.

  “Go.” 

  He stares back at me, tears filling his eyes. Fear flashes in them, and then determination. 

  “No. No (Y/N), you have to come with me, with us.”

  “C’mon (Y/N), we’re gonna have funnnn!” Says the Collector, and my hand slips further from Hunter’s.

  “I’m sorry Goldie…I don’t think I can.” I breathe.

  “No…” He says hugging onto my hand. “No! Luz, Willow- help-”

  The kids stare at us in horror from by the portal, and I make a quiet decision. 

  “I love you, Goldie- I love you, Hunter.” I say.

  His eyes widen further as he realizes what I’m about to do.

  “We’ll meet again some sunny day, okay?” I grin, letting go of his hand.

*******

  Hunter felt Gus drag him back to the portal, and he was half aware of the water that fell on his shoulders.

  He stared at his hands emptily as the human rain dripped down his face and off the tips of his ears.

  Luz opened the door they came through to an empty house, opening it and closing it again and again, and the sound echoed through his skull.

  He wanted to curl in on himself and cry and just let himself keep crying until he was emptied of all the water.

  Instead he hugged Gus and Willow.

  “It’s over now, isn’t it.” He whispered.

  It wasn’t sunny.

  (Y/N) was gone.

*******

Links:

Act One:

Masks and Bets (Part 1)

Masks and Beasts (Part 2)

Masked and Beat (Part 3)

Masked (and Unmasked) On the Seas (Part 4)

Cracks in a Mask (Part 5)

Revelations (Part 6)

Bad Moon Rising (Part 7)

Act Two:

Hey Lilith (Part 8)

Way Home (Part 9)

Back to the Future (Part 10)

Lost Threads (Part 11)

Teatime (Part 12)

A Slightly Distorted Lens (Part 13)

Mindscapers (Part 14)

Act Three:

Eye of the Hurricane (Part 15)

A Team (Sort of) Reunited (Part 16)

Knee Pain (Part 17)

Taglist:

@vievi

@generousdoodleforillustration

@harlanfalcon

@ronipiamka

@draarnaak

@cloud-9ine

@jinxed-jk

@not-nubno

@hunter-therapy

@scaredy-cat-anne

@bleh-stupid

@luleck

[azure-blaze92]

what do you think of the main villain of "The Hunchback of notre dame"? Is he better written than Belos? Also, is he alot more cruler?

Hello, Anon~

Frollo is hands down one of the best villains. He is my favorite villain, right next to Belos. (There is a reason why Frollo Inspired my characterization of Minister Bastion in AYCF) Frollo is written in such a way that makes you uncomfortable like he just has this presence about him that is unsettling. I can't put it into words. Also, he has the absolute best Disney song to exist. The lyrics, the music, and the animation. (this shot right here is the best imo) It’s just perfection! Also, love how the motif is used throughout the film.

Now, the next two questions are tricky to answer because the answer is subjective, so let's start by breaking down what they have done.

Frollo: Murdered Quasimodo's mother, nearly drowns her child in a well (he is only stopped because the archdeacon stops him, and he only agrees to care for Quasimodo in an attempt to save his soul from damnation for no other reason.) is emotionally and psychologically abusive towards Quasimodo, wants to commit genocide against the Roma. He lusts after Esmeralda ( in the book, she’s 16), sets Paris on fire, and blames Quasimodo for it since he helped Esmeralda escape from Notre Dame, nearly burns her at the stake, tries to kill Quasimodo. Sets a house on fire and traps the family inside said burning house( Phoebus saves them), etc...

(Interrupting fun book fact: Frollo names Quasimodo after Quasimodo Sunday, which was the day he found him abandoned at Notre Dame.)

Philip/Belos: Was a witch hunter, helped kill witches back in the day, most likely. Murdered Caleb, desecrated Caleb's grave, cloned Caleb, killed said clones, abused them, wants to commit genocide, has used people as sacrifices, manipulated multiple characters.

In my opinion, Frollo is the more evil and the cruelest if you compare what each has done. I feel like if Disney was brave enough, they could have easily made Belos on the same level of villainy as Frollo, but I can see why they wouldn't.

Don't get me wrong, Philip/Belos is very well written. He is such a complex character and a fascinating character to study. As I said, he’s my 2nd favorite villain. But I feel like Frollo just slightly outclasses him.  

[theprinceandthewitch]

No but... there is a chance Belos is going to go back in time to give his past self specific instructions to follow: like donating his journal to the library and writing lies in his journal. There's even a chance Belos is going to go back even further into the past to possess King's father:

The reason why he donated the journal in the first place was to lure Luz into the past so she can give him the Light Spell. Like... there is no other logical reason why he would hand over that journal to a library which just so happens to be the library she will use in the future. There's also no reason for him to write a bunch of lies in his journal. The lies are to make him look like he's a decent person, so that Luz would be enticed to go to the past and ask him how to build a doorway home. He's not going to teach himself the light glyph because that would cause a paradox with unknown ripple effects. This is something Luz always had to do.

And the thing is, Belos isn't going to give this information to his past self directly. Philip isn't going to listen to a monster nor is he going to be open to an old man who claims to be himself from the future. He's going to think a witch or a demon is playing some kind of trick on him. So Belos would give this information to his past self indirectly.

The indirectness of this information would explain why Belos never thought about returning to the past before trying to leave through the portal door. He wouldn't think this information actually came from himself until after his "Day of Unity" plan blew-up in his face. Belos is going to give his past self information of the future in a similar way he made Hunter see visions of himself in the distance when he was possessing him.

So...

I legitimately think Hunter and Luz are going to go on a trip to the past. They are going to arrive on the day Philip murders Caleb. Hunter is at a point in the story where he is willing to sacrifice himself to make sure Belos never hurts anyone ever again. And he will forfeit his own existence if it means he can stop all the pain and suffering Philip inflicted on TBI's over the last few centuries. I also think this is the best way to solve the mystery surrounding Caleb's and Evelyn's relationship presented to the majority of the audience. Since the writers purposefully left it ambiguous in TTT. [Again, WE know they were lovers, but most people don't, so they're going to clarify it for the majority.]

Hunter isn't going to know where the time pools are because their location is completely random. He needs special tech to find them and he needs to find them during algae growing season. Even then they might not even be on TBI's - they can be on the other side of the planet. But Belos would know where they are going to be in the future through time travel shenanigans. Belos is going to know where they are, because he's is going to time travel to the past to give this information to his past self. He doesn't need to track these time pools down like Lilith and Luz needed to in Elsewhere and Elsewhen.

But yeah... Hunter and Luz are going to end up time traveling to the past by following Belos to a location where time pools are. Hunter wants to go back to the past to kill Philip before he becomes Belos and Luz is going to follow Hunter so that he doesn't kill himself... because ya know, he's her friend. She just saw his lifeless body on the ground not too long ago so like... she wouldn't want his existence to be erased right in front of her eyes.

Even though from Hunter's P.O.V. it's a win-win because he can make "a better future" where Flapjack is alive AND Philip's reign of terror never happened. But he's not going to be able to follow through with it, because Luz is going to remind him that Flapjack is part of him now. So, it's not just his own existence he's erasing. Flapjack exists in Hunter's mindscape like all the palismen Belos consumed exist in his mindscape. Flapjack isn't actually gone forever.

Remember the fire in the painting where Philip and Caleb are fighting? That fire is most likely caused by Evelyn, Hunter, and Luz fighting Belos. I always thought it was weird how Evelyn was so preoccupied with something that it'd give Philip enough time to kill Caleb. She couldn't have been preoccupied with JUST making sure their child was safe.

Hooty is hinted to be a very, very old house demon. He has definitely been with the Clawthorns for generations, so he would have known Caleb and Evelyn.

Do you see how ridiculously powerful and annoying Hooty can be in a fight? He is fully capable of protecting their child from a human and whatever entourage Philip brings with him. He can literally GET UP and run away with the house if he wanted to. And Evelyn would put magic defenses around the house in a similar way Eda made a barrier around her house to protect it from boiling rain.

Another thing to keep in mind is that Evelyn lives in a time period long before Belos' coven sigil system was created. So she is not limited to one type of magic. It's not like she's going to be at a disadvantage, especially if Hooty is around to help her. Yet she is so distracted by something it gives Philip just enough time to murder Caleb.

Another thing to make note of is that Luz meets Philip AFTER he kills Caleb, so he doesn't know the Light Spell yet. Which means he doesn't actually have access to the wider range of magic spells Luz has. He is not a huge threat like he is after he learns the Light Spell. The only way Evelyn could be out of the picture for so long is if she was preoccupied with someone powerful.

Like...

It has always been so fucking suspicious to me how Philip was writing lies in his journal in Elsewhere and Elsewhen. And he lied in a way where he made himself look like a decent person who cares about others. AND how he faked a leg injury to gain Luz's sympathy. He would not do that unless he was INSTRUCTED to do it, because he could have just omitted all the negative details. This is his PRIVATE JOURNAL, so nobody would know the truth besides himself. He doesn't HAVE to present himself in a negative OR in a positive way. But he's writing lies in his journal to make himself look like a good person as if someone is actually going to get ahold of it in the future. Like another human who is stuck on TBI and needs to find a way to get home. For some reason he feels the need to present himself in such a way... and for some reason he needs to fake a leg injury to gain Luz's sympathy.

Which is why I think Belos is going to go back in time towards the end of the second episode or in the beginning of the third episode:

He's going to tell his past self to write lies in his journal and to donate the journal to a specific library. Because a "witch" named "Luzura" is going to come from the future to give him the Light Spell. And he's going to have to fake a leg injury to gain her sympathy. He might even give his past self a few descriptors of what this "witch" is going to look like. He's going to give this information to Philip indirectly. He'll give his past self visions in a similar way he gave Hunter visions of himself.

He's going to give his past self an opening to kill Caleb by keeping Evelyn preoccupied.

And he's going to make sure Hunter and Evelyn don't kill his past self on the day he murders Caleb.

Another thing I want to point out is that there is a high possibility Belos is going to go back in time to possess a Titan. Again, Belos is going to have knowledge of where the time pools are without needing to seek them out like Luz and Lilith needed to because of time shenanigans. His future self is just going to tell his past self where they are going to be in the future. One of those time pools is going to lead to Caleb and Evelyn [specifically the day where Philip murders Caleb] and the other one is going to lead to the day King's father is going to die.

We still have no idea how King's father died and who killed him. The most likely culprit is King because of time shenanigans.

I want to draw attention to the monster in the mural:

The monster in the mural looks similar to Belos' goopy monster form. The color pattern on the skin is the same, they have pointy shoulders, and they have they have the same pointy hips.

We don't know what Titans are capable of, but they can probably see into the future to a certain degree. This mural feels more like a vision Kings father had of his son killing him while he was possessed. So he carved this is into the wall as a forewarning for King and King's family and friends.

Belos is going to go back in time to possess an adult Titan and King is going to follow him into the past. The Titan Belos is going to possess is King's father.

This is where King's growth spurt is going to happen and he'll be forced to kill his father to free him from Belos' possession. I'm not sure if this would mean King will be trapped in the past since he can no longer fit into a time pool. We still don't know what Titans are capable of, but it wouldn't be surprising if they could change their size. They're literally godlike beings so like... it's not unrealistic to think they can do that.

To be honest I'm not really down for King being the one to kill or give Belos a fate worse than death lol. I would still like that honor to go to Luz with Hunter giving her an opening to do it. Yeah this fight with Belos would be "less exciting" to most people than a fight with King could be. Buuuuuut it feels more satisfying having Luz and Hunter, the characters who represent Caleb and Evelyn, be the ones to kill/give a fate worse than death to Belos.

I'm even sure if Belos is going to actually be defeated in a fight with King. He is very difficult, if not impossible to kill because he can reform himself from a tiny bit of goop. And who knows what kind of consequences can come from Belos eating away at a Titan. Everytime Belos possessed something, he was literally eating away at the hosts body. That's why Hunter was mortally wounded despite being possessed for only a few minutes. That's why all the animals he possessed eventually died. But since he's eating away at a Titan he could get some kind of benefit that can make him even more difficult to kill or just outright unkillable.

The most likely fate Belos is going to receive is eternal imprisonment in the mirror The Collector was in. We are most likely going to end up with a situation where The Collector will actually keep the mirror with them forever. So that Belos can never have a chance to escape.

[zirconpetals]

Well, after that fic, I need the Cinderella AU more than ever, can you imagine Hunter fighting with Amity and Willow? And then he is normal Blight, fighting her and all, insulting her and having no mercy, and then "Oh... Will-I MEAN plant witch😳 are you ok? O-oh... You want me to stop fighting? Well if you ask me like that, being so kind 👉👈" so shy and you have Amity looking at him so confused.

THANKS FOR THE RECOMENDATION!!! 💞💞💞

You're welcome!!! ^-^

HONESTLY I think if Amity realized that GG has a thing for Willow she would try to kill him on the spot. (The only thing stopping her would be Willow herself because she finds it hilarious)

GG would be all tsundere-like "It's not like I have a soft spot for her or anything" because he's a coven official and he's got to keep up appearances.

But the real Hunter is absolutely open and obvious about his feelings. He doesn't need/expect Willow to return them, he's just happy to have an opportunity to actually express them.

A lot of the dynamic would depend on whether others know his real identity or not.

Because if they did know, even "fighting" with Amity at some point would become routine and insults aren't serious. Hunter still believes Belos is the best thing in the world, he still needs his Hollow Mind moment, but he also cares about the other witches and has nothing against them, they just need to understand that if everyone followed Titan's will things would be better! But he doesn't want anyone to doubt him or his loyalty to the coven so he tries to keep up appearances. And everyone thinks it's so funny to see him try to pretend to not have the fattest most obvious crush on Willow. He would say something dumb as GG (he likes making up dramatic speeches but doesn't always think them through), and when he's in the Normal Hunter Mode everyone would be like "Oh why are you sitting so close to Willow? I thought you said her vile sorcery wasn't strong enough to distract you from the Titan's plans?"

Of course this dynamic can't last long, and eventually a Hollow Mind esque thing would happen, because you just can't keep someone who works directly with the main villain in your friend group with them changing sides or betraying you.

If they don't know however... I don't know how that would happen. Maybe Hunter wears a concealment stone under his mask and it changes his appearance when he meets Luz and Amity but he doesn't wear it for some reason when he goes to meet Willow? And the whole kidnapping bit at the end doesn't happen. He still goes by Caleb. Now this one has genuine secret identity.

Willow enjoys how flustered she can get the Golden Guard, but why would she think twice about him when Caleb is so sweet and right there? Maybe the fact that GG is attracted to her just makes her angry. He's a creep and he's working for Belos. It makes her skin crawl that he's probably having some weird fantasies about her. Maybe she even thinks he feels the same for her as Warden Wrath does for Eda. She likes Caleb, but he's so secretive. He probably doesn't feel comfortable sharing his secrets yet, and he's definitely not attracted to her like that. Why couldn't she catch his attention instead of GG? (This probably frustrates her and makes her go all out on GG when they meet).

In this one it might be the opposite to the previous actually: Caleb feels too scared to slip up and reveal his secrets, but as GG he has more confidence to actually say what he thinks (more or less. He still needs to keep up appearances).

But of course Luz and Amity from their encounters and Willow herself eventually sees that he's not that bad, that he has a heart and doesn't like to bring harm to people and he's just really misguided. Aaaaand there comes my favourite trope "I'm in love with two people what should I do (but actually those are the same person)"

Eventually the secret identity would have to get revealed, I don't think it would be too dramatic, but it would probably happen like. Just the day before Hollow Mind or something.