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drabbles-of-writing · 1 year

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as the OG source of the A Little Kindness AU aka Raine adopting Hunter I would LOVE to know how you would change it to be canon compliant. i mean obviously the reveal would be after everything, but god just imagine Hunter worrying about his anonymous friend/caretaker and he finds out its the FUCKING OWL LADY'S PARTNER and hes just so happy theyre ok and to know who helped him out all the time but also OH TITAN LUZ IS GONNA BE HIS SISTER EVEN MORE NOW!

~adoption anon

the little gray box who started it all!!!! welcome back

good lord there would be so many overhauls...just so incredibly many I gotta try to break it all down to smaller sections to even get. a glimpse

1) okay so as we have learned Raine was NOT, in fact, under any mind control, just pulling the biggest brained move on Snapdragon she ever did see. so raine doesn't even go missing in the first place, if anything they might halt the notes altogether but still remain in the castle just because they were under constant vigilance and meeting eda again mightve made them triply afraid of getting other people involved with their work. hunter stresses about it, as you do, but flapjack isn't freaking out cause HE'S seen raine's face, and he knows that they're fine, but he has no idea what happened, so Hunter is less concerned since Flapjack isn't. not by a lot tho.

2) so INSTEAD of Hunter booking it to Luz to plead for help on some criminals, he instead takes all of this suppressed fear and worry and stress and just kinda. balls it up. and then shoves all of it out in the open during Eclipse Lake. he goes HARD trying to get that Titan's Blood and the thing where he tried to relate to Amity over being a failure? he doubles down on that shit TREMENDOUSLY and their shared failing to live up to what other ppl wanted and pushing away their friends (granted Amity actually pushed Willow away to try and help, Hunter didn't push Raine away he just thought he did). you think his breakdown in Eclipse Lake was concerning? hes about to make it even more concerning. hes very very afraid for Bat and he would really rather they hate him than anyone found out they'd been talking to him and they got murdered, so he better try and beat the shit out of Amity! if Belos is pleased with him, maybe he'll hesitate on whatever punishment Bat might be having right now

3) Raine, bless 'em, keeps trying to help Hunter how they can, dropping these tiny hints they don't mean to drop. Hunter's part of setting up and preparing everything for the Coven Day Parade and Raine is noticeably always checking in on the Golden Guard. we know now that Hunter started showing his face more after the Palisman incident, but Raine isn't seen around often, so I imagine it's around the Coven Day Parade that they finally see what Hunter looks like--and good lord that IS a literal teenager what the hell did they DO TO HIM---alright scrap all the plans. darius, eberwolf, change of plans. everything stays the same, but we're kidnapping Hunter on the way out

4) Any Sport in a Storm is pretty much the same, Hunter is just even antsier & more desperate to get these new friends to like him bc. Bat. and also punts Darius twice as hard. Darius for his part is only marginally nicer because he knows Raine's weirdly attached to this little rat of a child--oh wait nvm he sees why now. alright valid point. Darius is a firm believer in "for the love of god just tell him you're Bat it will save everyone a lot of stress" but unfortunately Raine subscribes to "if anyone i really care about is within fifty feet of me we are All Going To Die"

5) mostly everything would stay the same in Hollow Mind, i think? Raine, Darius and Eberwolf might actually go up to the Owl House and speak when Hunter and Luz get trapped in Belos's mind since its both Raine and Darius that are stressed as fuck over the kid? in that instance then everyone teams up much quicker (and in confusion) but Hunter still books it out at fast speeds into the woods and somehow makes it to Hexside. he's a slippery little bastard, but luckily now theres a whole gang teamed together to track him down and hes found by Darius pretty quickly after the Owl House is evacuated and torn apart. however Hexside is VERYYYYY on edge over coven heads claiming to want to "help" and "have betrayed the Coven" so they're all beating Darius back like a rabid raccoon and Hunter thinks he's here to kill him. so thats fun. eventually Darius gives up, scruffs Raine, and throws them down at Hexside and demands they finally clear shit up. its a very cute scene of Raine sneaking in and slipping little notes under the door of whatever classroom Hunter's hiding for his life in, wherein he realizes Bat's come back. and Hunter's finally brave enough to yank open the door to---RAINE?????

6) more stuff that mostly stays the same. Hunter however is very stressed over Raine when they're trapped in the human realm which eventually leads to him and Luz talking a lot and him realizing "im sorry waht the fuck do you MEAN that the owl lady and raine whispers were a THING??? WHAT DO YOU MEAN THERES STILL SOMETHING THERE????" but above all i want to fuck this boy up so insanely bad and at least give him a GLIMPSE of Raine's puppet body being possessed by Belos. even if there is no interaction other than Hunter seeing them for a brief flash I know in my heart that would fuck him up so bad. he would blame himself so so much. Belos really here to kill everything he loves before he can finally be free huh

7) MOST importantly they finally get to hug when everyones reunited and hunter feels SO INCREDIBLY GUILTY when he sees all the fresh new scars Raine has courtesy of Belos. to which Raine, in peak parent fashion, just goes "nah, i dont mind 'em. now we match :]" and Hunter's just god u are missing the point so badly but i'll let it slide. how'd you know my new scars were from belos. and raine just stares like "how did i know your new scars were from WHAT????? oh im so glad i killed his ass" "YOU DID WHAT"

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aerial-ace97 · 1 year

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No way to say this without spoiling things so spoilers under the cut for my biggest issue with the Owl House finale.

I don’t know man I just don’t know that we should be cool with a 14 year old carrying out the death penalty. I’m gonna be honest, a lot of what I’m about to say centers on my personal political perspective but I still think their is a lot of validity of it. Well... of course I do otherwise I wouldn’t choose it as my philosophy about politics which is, of course, deeply important to all aspects of life. I think from a brief glance of other people’s reactions that I’m in the minority on this one but ah well.

I am extremely anti-death penalty in general, but that doesn’t mean that in general I have an issue with killing people in all regards in television. I mean I don’t know what I could properly enjoy if I just resolutely drew the line at ‘No one can kill anyone.’ I do however deeply believe that media is important and while I don’t expect for it to hold the same values as me, I think that all media should recognize the influence that it can have.

Most television shows I watch there is going to be death. Owl House is no exception and I think that showing death in children’s media is over all a good thing. I don’t really have a huge issue with Belos dying but the sudden reasoning behind straight up murdering the guy is not the way I think it should have gone.

When characters kill the bad guys in media I like it is for two very distinct reason. In one they are doing it out of a reaction to oppression or in self-defense or even in a war zone. Or two, they are a flawed but grown human beings. Sometimes media does something else and I dislike those moments while still liking the media (let me make clear now how much I love Owl House, please don’t immediately assume I hate this show. I probably wouldn’t have survived this year if not for Thanks to Them.)

Luz is in neither of those conditions though. She’s a 14 year old kid who is presented as for the most part a good guy and the decision is presented as almost unequivocally the right move. She also is not in a situation where she is at all in danger. Maybe Belos could have done something to the others? Maybe? But with Luz being juiced up with Titan power, she is essentially at demigod status. It’s like the difference of danger between a bazooka and a pistol.

And yeah, she was trying to murder him. It wasn’t just a... oh I’m just not gonna help you. She had GOD powers. The boiling rain is a product of the Titan. She summoned the rain to kill him. And sure Eda comes up to curb stomp him and save Luz from the crime of actually having to murder a dude, but that doesn’t change that she was definitely going to do it.

Does Belos deserve it? For sure. As a certain cricket might say, he’s an irredeemable monster. But that shouldn’t be the line for if we should have a kid execute him. Don’t take this as any kind of belief in pacifism across all spectrums. You fundamentally cannot be tolerant of all beliefs and ideologies when some of those ideologies advocate the death of others. I’m not someone who thinks you can cure a Nazi just with love and hugs. Nah, you should punch a Nazi square in the fucking nose. But there is a big leap between, a good solid kick to the cranium and a bullet between the eyes when you are of no threat to me and you’re asking for your life. Similarly if a Nazi is trying to kill you, that would also be a good opportunity for you to do likewise. Belos is an abusive, narcissistic giga-Hitler who deserved no redemption in the eyes of our characters. But just... if you wanna kill him then make him attack her?

There are quite a few ways that you could’ve had him killed if you really had to do it. Like... a lot. He was already on his last legs before taking over the titan. You could’ve just had his essence crumble away with that final failure. Or have his essence reform in a place where someone less innocent could have done the deed, like just had Eda off somewhere else and have her do it. Or better yet have Lilith, someone who was also manipulated directly by him, do it. I’d still have some issues with these choices but at least we wouldn’t put it up to a 14 year old. Or just have him be killed in defense in some way.

As a tangent, I find the final battle to be somewhat thematically flat in general. Especially when we have Gravity Falls conclusion of how do you kill god and having to be clever about the way it happens and get everyone involved. It makes the ‘let’s just shoot nondescript lazars and spells at each other until one of us folds’ conclusion feel a lot like a step down. Many of the characters really didn’t have a lot to do and when you have the incredibly beautiful final battle from Thanks to Them you know that it could have been so much more interesting. I can’t get too annoyed about it because that’s what happens when DIsney cuts your show off at the knees though. And also I think the much more impressive achievement that Luz makes in this episode is not defeating Belos but bridging the gap with the Collector, particularly since it is far more thanks to her own talents. But ah... sorry.. back to my point

I don’t know the full extent of Dana’s political stance. I would like to think she’s a leftist and not a liberal based on what I’ve seen but I don’t know for sure. My guess is she would see herself that way. But a core principle of leftism is the belief in ‘Rehabilitation for all,’ which is why I strongly believe that if you are pro-death penalty, you don’t get to call yourself a leftist. Rehabilitation is not the same as redemption. It doesn’t mean ‘Oh well we’re just going to forgive Belos now and move on.’ What it does mean is confronting the root of people’s bigotries and flaws instead of the surface issues. Like talking to Belos about what happened with his brother and how it has effected him or how being entirely stripped of his old world may have influenced his negative perspective on the Boiling Isles. You know hard stuff and just very baby steps in the long run but important for everyone. I mean as awful as Belos was, we never really even give him a chance to try and change at any point of the show. So how can we really be certain that it isn’t possible or at least something we should strive for. With him entirely cut off from any power source of course. I’m not saying be stupid about it.

I generally liked the turn that the conversation between Luz and the titan had where they discussed how her goals and motivations were different from Belos. It kinda came out of nowhere but again I’m gonna chalk that up to time that was cut from Disney being Disney. But to follow that line of thinking through to justifying the murder of Belos leaves it with kind of a bad taste in my mouth. So the difference between Luz and Belos is that his intentions were never good? Ok I guess the audience knows that but I think Belos certainly thinks his intentions were good. I think telling kids that if you feel your heart is in the right place than you’re means are justified is not the play here. Especially since there are numerous other ways in which they are different. Maybe Belos’ motivations are bad because they actually infringe unnecessarily on the rights of others. Or because he did it all without any question whereas Luz has some introspection and input for others. I don’t think the line we should draw is, oh my intentions were the good ones. Because that is impossible to measure.

I know the show is trying to go for this idea that Belos can’t be redeemed and not all villains can. And that’s fine. You can have that and still not kill him. While some people have issues with the final episode, Avatar the Last Airbender does this just fine with their giga-Hitler. Kipo manages it too. You can make it clear that the characters aren’t capable of meaningfully changing the villain and still put the villain in a position where they can’t do any harm to anyone anymore.

Come to think of it, in a similar vein to Avatar, doesn’t Belos not even really have his powers in the end. With the Titan fading away, he would have to learn the whole new glyph magic as well in order to cast again. Also isn’t he already very much dying. I don’t know. The more and more I think about it the more I feel like killing him seems kinda unnecessary.

I also know that this played a lot into the theme of trust the Owl House has been going for, especially with Luz. But they still once again could have just had one of these things happen instead. Belos attacks Luz and Luz is ready for it and easily blasts him OR she just cuts him off mid-monologue and imprisons him without hearing him out. Or neither. Honestly her face communicated enough. I get that she was never gonna trust him. I don’t need for her to also kill him to drive that home.

I did like how Belos tries to throw shade by saying Luz is just as bad as him in his final moments. It is of course extremely laughable and a tactic often used by the oppressor to condemn those who try to fight them. ‘Actually revolution is bad and makes you like us.’ I’m not at all some sort of milquetoast liberal who thinks that socialism and the annihilation of capitalism can ever be attained by anything less than some sort of revolution. Of course Luz and the rest could not have won without righteous anger and violence. But being not as bad as Belos doesn’t immediately mean that it is right either. And there is a big difference between an oppressor dying as the result of revolution or self-defense and it happening as a result of street justice.

I don’t know. I love The Owl House. Don’t get me wrong. My icon is Hunter because he is my son and my real life rat daughter is named Luz. But call me soft I just don’t think that letting our 14 year old protagonist kill the bad guy just because she’s the good guy was the right move.

#Owl House spoilers #toh luz #Toh Belos #Just leftist media thoughts

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i-love-hobbies · 3 years

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Eda and Lilith similarities

1. Both got roasted by Luz

"Cards the paper rectangles that old people think are fun!"

"The real mystery is how Lilith can be both so smart and yet so wrong at the same time. Academics am I right?"

2. Both are hard-working, powerful and physically strong

3. Both care a lot for people that are close to them

4. Both don't respect each others opinion

5. Both cope with childish behaviour, recklessness and apple blood

Differences

1. Being adult figures in children's lifes

Eda is an only parent of someone from another species and a temporary guardian to someone from another dimension, which in her world means their future is questionable and one has food allergies. She isn't a perfect one and is not nice towards kids that don't live in her house.

Lilith is an almost child murderer and is jealous of a sixteen year old. She trauma projected on her nephew. But she also saved King's life twice and Luz's ones.

2. Powers

As a wild witch the owl lady learned in every way, even from school by sneaking in classes. My guess is that this made learning extremely fun for her. This made it possible for her to continue to learn even as an adult.

She also learns through experimentation which means before she learned the basics, she almost got herself killed a lot of times. I'm assuming that she survived thanks to Lilith.

As a cult member, she is someone who never questioned authority, this comes from the fact that she was neglected as a child and needed validation.

At first this helped, cause both she and Eda are alive. But the school in the boiling isles took away her curiosity and joining the coven didn't help.

I believe both sisters had the same amount of talent and hunger for power but the enjoyment was the deciding factor. And this factor was a big one.

3. Showing care

Thanks to running away from the system, the criminal made an emotionally supportive system around her.

She is very mature. The show hasn't yet explained where she learned all this. Best guess for now is Raine, but were both of them that smart at such a young age.

She is selfless, but she also knows how not to be self-sacrificing. That's pretty rare, though to be fair it's not the perfect balance.

There are a lot of mistakes she has made though, but I think all of them can be fixed if she learns to open up, cause her other mistakes always happen when she's too scared or is trying to feel more.

The cop is easily in the top two most immature people in the show. (Fighting for the first spot with Hunter.)

I guess thirty years of isolation with someone, that used the fact that his system had influenced her to be very vulnerable to manipulation, does stuff to a person.

She's either self-sacrificing or ruining someone else's life, usually both. Considering her main motivation is caring, this is painful to watch.

The most mature we've seen her so far, obviously it's after she left the coven, was her acknowledgment of Hooty's efforts and more impressively her not using the fact she's better at glyphs than Eda to make fun of her.

Problem is she overworked herself while having a new curse.

Then s2ep4 happened and she trauma projected on a child, I'm expecting she's nowhere close to realising that was a bad idea.

She also left Hooty after telling him "Are you my mother, cause that's an awful lot of judgement?" without apologizing.

Luckily she's writing supportive letters, so it didn't hit him that much.

Her decision to leave had me facepalm. She just left a person, that has been dealing with the complexities of her being in the coven for thirty years and is easily the only thing that kept her sane and her new friend for someone that for one day acknowledged her existence.

Plus by the way they talked about the father he hasn't visited her at all.

We've already seen the negative effects from this choice on Eda and Hooty, can't wait for hers.

I refuse to believe that this is gonna end well, cause it's possible but it's gonna be luck. And the lesson from this will be "Parents with good intentions change in a day." And trust me when I tell you that is far from the truth.

My parents have been changing, but so freaking slowly it hurts. Fairly they were more flawed and now a bit better than Gwen but still the change has been taking place my whole childhood and until now I've either been refused help or gotten stuck with a bad mental health professional.

Only now am I getting actual help. I'm expecting a speed run after sixteen years of unintentional parental abuse but it's not gonna happen in a day and it's foolish to believe so.

Also we didn't see her watching King's video on her sister's account. Which has to mean something. Why did they show everyone but her?

4. Respecting others

Eda was the favourite child or at the very least she got a lot of attention for being younger. Also I refuse to believe that her parents did anything about her "breaking the classroom" behaviour.

But she respects a lot of people's opinions. Whether it's a bard with stage fright, a child from unknown species or a teen from another dimension. She's gotten close to all three of them. And they have all shaped her point of view (except for Raine but fairly enough we know nothing about their relationship with her).

So what about her complete "I don't care about Lilith's point of view."

Well it's not just her. It's a huge hatred towards "Belos is a saint." She grew up in this system, she had this opinion at one point herself. She isn't hearing anything new from her.

She doesn't have a right to laugh at her but she has a right to refuse to talk about it with someone that refuses to go beyond "It's just the right thing."

Talking about that, it took Eda almost dieing for this stubbornness to shake. No one could tell her Belos is wrong.

On top of that she lived (and "lives" but that's kinda debatable) with huge amounts of fear from both Belos and thanks to his gaslighting, Eda and was working a job that asked of her to be a workoholic.

This makes her emotionally exhausted which makes it hard for her to question stuff. How do you do that when you can barely think?

Eda worked on her laughing in the beginning of season 2 but I'm not sure how she'll act now. Because after Raine seemingly died, she acted awful towards Hunter. She needs ways of handling her trauma outside of making fun of people.

Lilith did too. Firstly, she commited treason and she was also quite open to King being the king of demons.

Now, it was idiotic to believe in it. She's shaking between Belos is always right and wild magic is always right. She needs middle ground.

What's funny is Eda has found the middle ground that works for herself. She's reading books from the local library and is known for being a wild witch.

Because she's scared of hurting others she isolated herself and that gave the wrong impression to the fandom.

She's the one that believes in the healing and potions covens, not her mom.

5. Recklessness

Eda has a one-sided grudge against a twelve year old. I will never shut up about this.

When she was young she broke everything in sight. But now at the very least she's not breaking her own house.

I think it's a bit better.

For before I think it was ignorance, because she was a child. But now it's her coping. She knows better than this.

Everything the ex coven head does is without thinking, even Eda's rescue.

She can't go beyond "Well she is my sister and we had a good past with each other."

"And how can you prove that she hasn't changed?"

"Well, she saved my life and I actually played a game with her."

If she can say the last sentence, ignore me but I don't know if she can.

Honestly I just wanted to compare the good and bad, but I ended up saying Lilith didn't have a life. And honestly she didn't. She wasn't a positive in anyone's life including her own. She was doing her best to become a robot. She doesn't have opinions or ideas of her own that she respects.

Eda said the words "It's my power, kid and before you showed I spend my whole life wasting it." Eda wasted her powers by isolating herself from people, but she didn't waste her mind. Lilith wasted both.

Her importance in Eda's childhood is the only positive, because she didn't respect herself. Her thirty years in the coven was straight up waste. Nothing positive to both her and others happened, after an action of hers in that period and that's just sad.

It's not too late for her obviously. It's never too late for people that want to change. She was already living. She had a new friend. She was restoring her relationship with Eda. She was begining to have her own opinions... AND THEN SHE JUST LEFT.

I know this is good writing, because everyone goes through their ups and downs. Plus Lilith's biggest fears recently came to life.

#toh #the owl house #eda clawthorne #toh eda #edalyn clawthorne #eda the owl lady #the owl lady #toh lilith #lilith clawthorne #toh gwen #gwendolyn clawthorne #toh luz #luz noceda #toh king #king clawthorne #toh hooty #hooty #toh dell #dell clawthorne

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aroclawthornes · 3 years

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Blooming Brilliant, an Aroace Willow Park Manifesto

[id: a gif of a heart locket opening. One half of the locket displays a picture of Willow Park from The Owl House, winking and making peace signs with her fingers. Blue and yellow stars surround her. The other half reads "willow park my beloved." /end id.]

Greetings! It’s me, User Aroclawthornes, and instead of working on all the time-sensitive homework I have I sat down and wrote an essay explaining why I think Willow Park OwlHouse could plausibly be read as aroace, and why it would be a thematically enriching interpretation. I’ve never written anything like this before, so it’s oddly formal, a little pretentious, and contains a lot of qualifying language, but I'm confident that it gets my point across. I’m not intending to speak over other interpretations of Willow or assert that it's the only true way to read her, but it's a headcanon I find interesting, and I think there’s a lot of evidence to back it up, between certain elements that Willow’s arc employs to some good old overanalysed symbolism. If you're aspec, I hope this is validating; if you're not, I hope it's interesting; if you don't care, scrolling past it is quick, free, and easy.

Some disclaimers on terminology: I’m speaking from an aroace perspective, and so when I say “aspec coding” I’m generally referring to both orientations as a catch-all - a lot of the coding surrounding Willow could go either way. I’m also going to be talking about commonly accepted “aspec” narratives, but I’m aware of the limitations of this insofar as my experiences are only a single facet of the diverse range of aspec people in this world, so anyone who wants to add or argue anything - respectfully - is encouraged to.

Analysis below the cut!

The Thing About Plants

I’m not going to pretend that an association with plants is historically indicative of aspec coding, because, frankly, there haven’t been enough aspec characters to establish it as a convention, and it’s also a fairly wide-reaching branch of symbolism. However, I am going to propose that lighthearted comparisons between asexual people and plants (however misguided on functions of plant reproduction they are) are fairly common elements of budding ace teenage humour, as are related quips about photosynthesis.

[id: a screenshot of Willow from "I Was A Teenage Abomination", depicting her sitting on the ground while casting a spell over a small, pink flower. /end id.]

I’m also not going to claim that the colour green Belongs To Aromantics, and therefore that All Plants Are Belong To Us, but in tandem with everything else I’m about to cover, the connection between Willow and plants seems like a fairly plausible nudge to a relatively common element of aspec humour.

“Half-a-witch” Willow and the Late Bloomer Experience

[id: a screenshot of Willow with glowing green eyes, from "I Was A Teenage Abomination", depicting her summoning a mess of thorned vines. /end id]

Willow is literally nicknamed “half-a-witch”, in reference to her supposedly incomplete state - this is a sentiment eerily reminiscent of the pressure to find one’s “other half”, which affects aspec - especially aromantic - people particularly profoundly. She’s considered a late bloomer, someone who hasn’t reached the societal milestones of growth at the expected age, and who is derided and considered immature as a result of this perceived failure. However, we quickly discover that Willow is, in fact, an exceptionally competent and powerful witch - taken out of the restricting frame of the Abominations track, she’s able to grow into her own, “complete” person, therefore proving that she was never really lacking in anything in the first place. Like real-life aroace people, she was perceived as limited and immature based on the expectations and judgements of other people, but Willow was never deficient in anything, least of all herself.

[id: a screenshot of Willow and Luz from "I Was A Teenage Abomination". They are holding hands - the former is laughing with her eyes closed, and the latter is grinning, while covered in abomination goop. /end id]

As far as symbolism goes...the track Willow is initially put in literally requires her to conjure up another humanoid entity, with the expectation that she will therefore prove herself to be a whole and mature person. Only with this ability, she’s told, will she be successful and happy as an adult. The shapelessness of her attempts at conjuring an abomination reinforces this connection in my mind - if I may reference this quote from Ducktales 2017‘s (absolutely stellar) A Nightmare On Killmotor Hill, in which the protagonists explore their own subconscious fears via. the dream realm, for a second:

“I think that’s supposed to be my romantic interest, but I’m too threatened by the concept, so it never takes shape.”

A lot of young aroace people find themselves in situations where they attempt to convince themself of their interest in someone in an attempt to be “normal,” or end up lying in response to family members or friends’ questions about crushes. While Willow’s abominations, first and foremost, represent the expectations from her school, classmates, and family to be a successful, “complete” witch with a profitable future, I think that with an aroace interpretation of Willow they could also very easily be read as representing some latent insecurities over a lack of attraction, or pressure to find a significant other.

(I’m not condemning Willow’s dads, by the way - they seem like perfectly lovely fellas, and I’m confident that they were doing what they thought was best for her. They’re certainly very quick to drop everything to assure her future in Escaping Expulsion, so obviously they care about their daughter very much.)

Greens, Blues, and Yellows: Colour-Coding Willow Park

A while back, I made this post comparing Willow’s palette to the aromantic and aroace flags:

[id: a screenshot of a post depicting the aromantic and aromantic asexual flags, colour-picked from images of Willow in her Hexside uniform and casual dress respectively - these are overlaid on top of the flags. The caption reads "observations on willow park". /end id.]

The grey-and-green aromantic flag has long been the accepted mainstream symbol of aromanticism, and, as the above post - and many others - demonstrate, Willow’s palette reflects it near-perfectly. This could easily be a coincidence, owing to the palette of the standard Hexside Plant Track uniform, as well as her hair and eye colours - which are obviously supposed to be reflective of her plant-related abilities. However, given how fond of employing hidden meanings The Owl House has shown itself to be, I don’t think it’s far-fetched to claim that there’s at least a chance that her palette was constructed with the flag in mind.

The latter is...a bit more problematic for me, although it’s fun to joke about. The blue-and-yellow aroace flag was only created in December 2018, relatively late into The Owl House’s initial production, and it’s still relatively obscure, although on the rise in popularity as the accepted aroace flag (I only recently started using it myself), so I don’t know if Willow’s casual wear is enough to verify the presence of any deliberate subtext. I think it’s a fun coincidence, however, and (as was pointed out in this post) it’s cool that these blue and yellow stars surrounding Willow occur in the same frame as Luz’s bisexual decor:

[id: a photograph of Luz, Gus, and Willow, all surrounding a disgruntled-looking Principal Bump. Luz has flowers in the colours of the bisexual flag decorating her hair, while Willow is surrounded by bright blue and yellow stars. /end id.]

also seen above: powerful bi/aspec solidarity

Conclusion:

Do I genuinely believe that Willow is being deliberately written this way? If you’d asked me, say, two months ago, I’d have said probably not - as far as queer representation in kids’ cartoons has come, it has a ways to go, and focusing on transgender characters seems like a more obvious (and equally invaluable) route to go down. I can name maybe five explicitly aspec characters off the top of my head, two of whom have been written as alloromantic and/or sexual in adaptations or continuations of the source material (I have...some grievances with 2005 Doctor Who). But the emergence of Raine, an explicitly nonbinary character on Disney Channel, has given me a little spark of hope, and so, even if it’s never confirmed, it’s comforting to be able to see a character with such strong elements of aspec coding and think to myself, just maybe, that there might be some intent behind it.

I also...really want to see interesting things done with Willow. We’re halfway through Season 2, and despite some promising setup for her arc in the Season 1 finale, she’s sort of been left by the wayside lately in favour of developing the more “plot-relevant” characters, such as Luz, Amity, Eda, and Hunter. Frankly, I think it’s a disservice to her Season 1 development, despite how much I adore all the characters I just listed - beyond any personal motivation, the prospect that Willow could be aroace adds a lot of sorely-sought depth to her, and, as detailed, a lot of this has already been set up in her earlier episodes. I just...I think it’d be neat. Rarely do you get a kids’ show so brazenly queer in its themes as Owl House, and aspec people deserve to be included in that.

Willow would also be great aroace representation because, well - those five or so aspec characters I mentioned being aware of are all white or “raceless” (...also written as white, basically), and so an aspec Asian character would be a really lovely step forward in this area. Additionally, all the characters I referred to are also conventionally skinny, and Willow is not only fat, but written in a way that doesn’t treat this feature as a caricature. People who are more knowledgeable on these topics than I are absolutely free to make additions, as is anyone who feels like I’ve left certain details out.

tl;dr: Willow’s association with plants could be read as a cool nod to aspec humour, her “late bloomer” narrative is eerily reminiscent of some common aspec experiences, her palette speaks for itself, and it’d be really cool if we could diversify the so-far fairly bland sphere of aspec representation.

I’m going to conclude this by linking Rose by The Oh Hellos, because they’re my favourite band, they share The Owl House’s initials, and I also think it’s a good Willow song. Peace out.

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#the owl house #willow park #pspspspsps you will read my 1.5k word aroace willow essay #hooting #meta #willow #aroace willow manifesto #fuck it. this is getting posted

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