Is Like I Am Wacthing A Masterpiece.

This is how it went down, isn't it?

Everytime I want to judge Ford for falling for the flattery of a damn Triangle I re-think and realize I WOULDVE FALLEN SOONER!! If some god came down and started praising me and making me feel special I would’ve folded so damn fast and built that portal quicker then Bill could rip the teeth out of someone’s head

I’m also very lonely so that would’ve aided it all lmao

If the fifth season is about reverse love square...

TW Child abuse/manipulation general Belos shenanigans. No spoilers past 3x01, please don’t add spoilers for 3x02 to this post.

Sometimes I think about how Belos targets kids and why, because he knows that kids are still developing and don’t always understand right from wrong, and also it seems like he just likes being around kids more because he feels like he can control them. He’s very aware of what’ll upset Luz, what’ll make her mad, and what to say to her to get what he wants. He’s even more in tune with Hunter, he kind of trains Hunter on certain words like “replacement” that set him off. Hunter’s backstory that he gives in Hunting Palismen is probably almost word for word what Belos taught him to say (he always highlights how Belos gives him the staff which would be important to him as a half-witch but Belos also highlights that himself which feels… interesting, as well as the fact that it sounds rehearsed a bit, because Hunter trails off and then he remembers where to go next with “And then Belos found me”), and Belos definitely taught Hunter to respond to physical violence specifically from him with the freeze reaction which is fucking awful (ex. Eclipse Lake, Hunting Palismen- Belos makes a sudden movement and in both of these Hunter goes silent and still, and then in King’s Tide, Hunter freezes up and goes silent when Belos addresses him). Finally, the Collector he has less control over but it kind of seems like the Collector looks up to him and Belos uses that against him. The Collector gave Belos secret magic, and helped him create the Grimwalkers, in exchange in a lot of ways for Belos’ friendship. Belos and the Collector even pinky swore that Belos would let him out, and Belos abuses that and uses his position of having something the Collector wants to force him to help him. 

I don’t have anything to say about Darius because we haven’t seen them interact directly or alone and we don’t know much about their relationship other than their vague past when Darius was likely a minor so. Yeah. Probably won’t get elaboration on that at this point but this is a History.

Hunter's Possession Scenes and the Theme of Enmeshment

The usual warnings: explorations of trauma and abuse ahead.

Enmeshment happens when there is the lack of boundaries and lack of defined roles in a family system, and the party with more power, usually the parents/caregivers, prevents a child from becoming their own person independent of the family (this is called individuation or differentiation). Enmeshment leads to a low level of individuation/differentiation because the kid will suffer negative consequences if they try to do so. Which sucks, because we need to become our own person in order to truly love and be loved.

Belos requires Hunter to follow a strict script

and only operate within the confines of the role of Caleb (more accurately, how Philip wants Caleb to be...so, not the real Caleb, though Belos has told himself that's the true version of his brother).

Amity went through similar with Odalia and has been in the process of breaking out of it too. I notice Luz and Willow also get a bit close to experiencing it with their parents: Camila initially getting Luz to conform, Willow's dads initially not allowing her to be on the Plant Magic track. But I need to make the important distinction where I think Belos and Odalia (with Alador enabling Odalia's behaviour while also being abused by her) really crossed the line, because they don't even allow the kids under their care to express their thoughts. They flat out dismiss whatever isn't fitting into their agendas, whereas I can trust that Camila, Gilbert and Harvey, who wound up remorseful about their actions and changing, at least allow their kids to voice their opinions safely and they are the kind of caregiver that'll at least say e.g. "I understand that you want X, but ______".

In enmeshment, the toxic parental figure does not know (or refuses to know) the boundary line where their own being ends and the being of their kid begins: this can lead to issues such as a parentified kid who has to manage the parents' emotions for them. Very sadly, this can also be why when these kids are well into adulthood, they are still terrified of their parents and regress into the same child-like responses they had as kids in their toxic parents' presence.

In the show, I think the two visual concepts that most strongly convey the concept of enmeshment vs. trying to break away from it, are Hunter seeing Belos in the mirror and Belos taking control of his physical body:

Parental figures who are enmeshed with their child feel that their kid is them, has to be them, with the same desires, feelings, beliefs, perspectives...not a separate person. If not, the parental figure's own sense of security feels threatened. So if the child tries to create needed space or establish that boundary line by putting up resistance in any form, you get a tantrum/begging/manipulation/other toxic response from the parent (example: Hunter mentions wild magic in front of Belos and is physically threatened), which then aggravates the child's anxiety and wears down their mental health.

The parental figure takes up more space than they should have in the dynamic, while the kid is boxed in more and more. Obviously such treatment is hazardous and puts an awful strain on the person in the relationship who has less power.

Which brings us to Belos getting desperate enough to possess Hunter.

A.k.a. peak enmeshment, as Belos did not have any proper grip on his 'nephew' anymore, and turned things up to the max to exert control by literally inhabiting his physical being, giving him no choice but to do his bidding in the most forceful way possible:

Put simply, you aren't you when in the midst of enmeshment. The worse the enmeshment, the more imposing the control of the toxic parent/caregiver. And wow when I first saw this scene unfold before my eyes, I immediately thought of how powerfully this concept was being visually communicated via fiction. So unnerving. The crew and of course Zeno Robinson have been so good at bringing his enmeshment-related behaviour to life onscreen. E.g. the contrast below...Hunter cracking under the terror in the first few days of truly breaking out of enmeshment in the left-side frame below, versus the right-side showing his post-possession (very literally translated as post-enmeshment) grief which was so painful that simmering, volatile anger rose up in him to keep the pain at bay:

This gentle, kind-hearted kid never wanted this. The worst thing about going through that and resisting it by running away from the coven and the Isles, was that it culminated into losing his best friend.

His way out of the loneliness and isolation of enmeshment was finding his tribe and leaning into it for support and healthy closeness. There couldn't be stronger symbolism for the tension in Hunter's whole arc, between isolation (the abuse he suffered) vs. feeling like part of a family (a healthy "tribe") than this:

Wolves. Loving, nurturing pack animals. Who "make great parents". Yet we have the phrase "lone wolf" since wolves do occasionally navigate part of life on their own. Hunter is drawn to wolves because it strikes him right away, he sees himself (more accurately, the deepest desire of where he'd love to be) in the way such creatures usually live.

And the bonds in his pack became mighty. Hunter succeeded at building trust with the Hexsquad, getting nearer and nearer to the core of himself - while Belos didn't have a single trusting relationship with anyone and sunk lower and lower, getting further and further from himself as his self-deception only got worse. Hunter built up what can be referred to as "emotional equity" in his relationships, and he's so inspirational especially in the uncertain, risky early stages of doing this:

It's like repeatedly depositing into a bank account (both sides in a relationship need to do this, in a manner that both can agree on as fair) and building up the amount in said account with positive experiences and investing effort and time into the relationship. Various difficulties and conflicts that come along will take small or big chunks out of that bank balance. More serious incidents will obviously threaten to break the relationship apart and empty the account or send the balance into the negative. The bond between Hunter and his friends was strong enough to withstand the eventual traumatic loss that they all suffered:

In fact, he was already putting up a quiet resistance in Belos's absence (I'm relieved Belos didn't require that he be escorted on every single mission or be surveilled all the time in his own room, which would've granted him no privacy to express such thoughts), shortly after we saw him get unmasked:

Unfortunately, wrenching yourself free from the violating nature of enmeshment comes at a physical and emotional cost. It can no doubt be a long journey, an injurious experience, damaging one's sense of discernment of who to trust. It doesn't magically become bright and easy post-enmeshment because grief, confusion, emptiness etc are still present, just in different forms. Hopefully it is the intensity of all that which is reduced and well-managed.

The hope is that Hunter does not feel any impulse to want to over-isolate and hurt himself with concerning self-deprecating thoughts and engage in concerning behaviour (which could be a parallel to how he wanted to dig his own grave in Eclipse Lake), especially as he is still processing the moral injury of harming Flapjack and threatening the others while possessed.

would you still love me again?

A computer science student named Priyanjali Gupta, studying in her third year at Vellore Institute of Technology, has developed an AI-based model that can translate sign language into English.

I’M STILL HERE (2024) dir. by Walter Salles

I've seen a few Billford fics where Dipper is onto/extremely suspicious that Bill isn't exactly "human", but I think the reverse concept is much much funnier... where Dipper's convinced Ford is the cryptid and Bill is 100% the normal guy

Dipper "Paranoia" Pines: "Mabel, don't you think there's something WEIRD about Great-Uncle Ford??? He barely sleeps, he wears a turtleneck AND coat in the middle of summer, he has a ranked blood 'flavor profile' list, he always sneaking around at night, he always smells like brunt hair... which is... also weird but not really a sign of anything I guess... but I still think he's vampire? Maybe?? -chewing pen, frantically searching The Monster Book of Monsters for more clues- Mabel: "What, Dipper, you're crazy! Right Grunkle Bill?" Bill Cipher -clearly doing something supernatural, up to and including still being a floating triangle in a top hat- "Gee, I dunno Shooting Star, personally I've always suspected my hubbie's a shaved Bigfoot... how else do you explain Stan?" Dipper -oblivious to the real cryptid in the shack-: SEE, yes, thank you, good to know we have one voice of reason in this house!