#understanding willow

…Anyway, I’m releasing an animatic tomorrow, for Day 5! I worked really hard on it, and I’m really excited to share it! (Still have to make the thumbnail, though. 😅)

Second is the original screenshot. End ID.]

< Previous: Page of Wands | Next: The Lovers >

and not even that, bully her questioning her magic habilities in the demon realm, that is implied as HEAVILLY ableist against magical creatures that are not capable of magic; Bully her by making fun out of her struggles with the abomination course. And her being in a "queen bee" position it FOR SURE encouraged other students to bully her as well, which we see in the IWATA episode, it wasn't just Amity calling her "half-a-witch", it was other students too, like the whole student body perceived her like that. Also in "I Was a Teenage Abomination", the whole episode Amity was MAKING AN EFFORT TO BRING WILLOW DOWN because she could'nt fathom Willow not failing an assignment for once/her not being the better student. It was part of "school hierarchy" for Willow to be a bad student they can all gang up to humiliate, so she, MIND YOU WITH THE MEMORY THAT THEY WERE BESTIES BEFORE, made all that effort to bring her down. THEIR INTRODUCTION STARTS WITH AMITY TAUNTING HER. PRIVATELY. It wasn't for show or to keep a reputation, it just became natural to her to treat Willow like that. None of this is like ever adressed properly, none of this is trully recognized in the context of Luz being Willow's and Gus' (who also was bullied by Amity but not to that extent) friend and the half-assed progression to enemies to lovers. I love enemies to lovers as any good person and I understand a lot had to get rushed to be able to make it inside the limitations Disney execs gave them, but who the fuck in their right mind is going to date their best friends' bully, especially if they had no accountability? and LUZ from all people? that understands how impactful that is? At the end of the day I get it, the struggles production had and how a lot of things had to be put aside and cut down and yadda yadda yadda. But for a whole episode that proposed to be a resolution to the conflict between them in order to be friends again, this just sincerely felt half-assed because they just either raised the bar a lot when concepting their relationship and couldn't get it through in production, or just didn't gave a shit. Extra edit: 1. This whole thing even began from Amity trying to hide her connection with willow under the rug and her stance only changed after being chased down and having to face the things she did, now I'm just fully agreeing with people saying this was more of an Amity episode than anything. 2.People's reaction to this post (both /pos and /neg) actually made me realize that Amity had kind of the opposite of redemption/resolution in that and despite being called "Understanding Willow" is more "Here's how Amity traumatized Willow in childhood and since then joined other bullies and further isolated and traumatized her to levels of crippling confidence and interreliance issues that followed her through puberty, but it's all fine cause she *HAD* to do it in order to go to the school she wanted to go, *HAD* to keep the bullying after to maintain her social status and now that she sees the effect she caused (after only considering becoming a better person once she fell in love with someone her parents would make her pull that trick again), will try to stop the bullying post-almost a full decade of damage done" I still love Amity as a character but I'm just not the kind to ignore how that whole sphere of themes was awfully handled and how that does give her (and by extent of interpersonal relationships, luz as well) bad optics once you start caring for Willow beyond an npc level or her relationship with Hunter. A healthy relationship with enjoying a character is accepting the fucked up results of their actions and sometimes dunking on them for that and thats okay, call me anything but a dickrider.

Eda's Requiem: A special witch from Eda's past enlists her in a rebellion against the Emperor.

After accidentally destroying Willow's memories, Amity, along with Luz, enters Willow's head to repair her memories piece by piece including moments of Amity and Willow when they once hang out as kids. “Understanding Willow” premiered on this day, 5 Years Ago.