It's been a while, everybody. Luckily, I got this one done faster than my last one. I got stuck in a couple places, but I managed to get it done just before the official release of the new episode. I'm going to be honest. I watched the leak. Yes, I know I should support the creators by watching the official release, but I'm always busy the day of, so I usually watch it online anyway. I won't say any explicit spoilers and I've also kept influences of it out of this chapter. I'll only say two things because anyone on social media already knows about one of them.
1. There were A LOT of theories confirmed. Both general public theories and Moringmark theories. I won't specify which ones.
2. Luz's palisman: It's everything you think it is and nothing your expecting. (Kudos if you get the reference)
Beyond that, I will keep quiet about what I've seen.
"What's a Moonlight Conjuring?" Vee asked.
"It's a slumber party where you use the power of the moon to bring something to life," Luz answered.
"Sounds like something you would have tried here," Camila commented with a smile, yet Vee was still confused.
"What's a slumber party?" Vee asked, not having heard of this since she'd been in the Human Realm.
"It's an ironically named party where a bunch of teenagers get together and do everything in their power to stay awake," Camila answered.
"Oh, sounds like… fun?" Vee said questioningly.
"I wouldn't know too much about them myself," Luz said. "I've only ever been invited to one,"
"What do you remember?" Gus asked. Luz had a short flashback to her first and last human slumber party when she was twelve years old.
Luz looked at the red substance on her shirt as she tried to wash it out in the bathroom sink. She'd been so happy to be invited to one of the end-of-year sleepovers for fifth grade. She'd been so excited, she came to the house wearing her favorite Azura pajamas. Before she could even knock on the door, however, an entire bucket of paint had splashed down on her, drenching her pajamas in crimson paint, to the point where you could hardly see anything left of the original print on them. She looked up and saw the girls laughing, one holding a bucket with red dripping from the rim, and the others holding phones as they took pictures and videos of the humiliated preteen. Despite how mortified she felt, she held back her tears and smiled, waving to the girls.
"Ha ha. Good one, girls," she said, trying to sound somewhat jovial. "Um, could I just… change in your bathroom and try to wash out some of the paint and I'll be on my way."
She changed into her regular clothes, the one she'd been planning to wear home in the morning, washing as much paint out of her hair as she could before leaving on the spot. She didn't want to be there anymore and it was clear they never wanted her there.
"Painting," she said, remembering the reason she gave her mom for why her hair had still had some paint in it. She never wanted to make her mom worry about how her school life had been going, so she didn't tell her about the prank."Sadly, it was canceled before we got to do anything else," Camila was skeptical. She never bought the lie, knowing there were things Luz kept to herself but would never pressure her into revealing.
"Sounds nice," Gus said innocently. Luz looked away, keeping from revealing too much.
"Anyway, the day of the Moonlight Conjuring started with Eda showing a staple of the Demon Realm: Hexes Holdem,"
"Wait, Eda plays Hexes Holdem?" Amity asked.
"Not anymore," Luz said. "She realized she was too obsessed with the game that same night and quit cold turkey,"
"That couldn't have been easy," Camila said. "I don't picture she could overcome an addiction in a single night,"
"King made her stick to it," Luz affirmed, "but that wasn't until later. For now, she started to teach me before her curse flared up and she started to grow feathers. No problem, except… she forgot to restock her elixirs," Silence filled the room. "I was kind of expecting more of a reaction,"
"Well, you wouldn't have brought up her curse if there was an easy solution," Vee pointed out.
"I might have mentioned it happening when it comes up," Luz said. "Once we realized her elixir was out, we ran off to Morton's to get some more. While Eda talked to Morton, I noticed Willow and Gus across the road and went to talk to them, but they were kind of sad,"
"We just ran into Amity and Boscha," Willow explained, "and they went out of their way to flaunt the fact that Amity was hosting a Moonlight Conjuring and we weren't invited," Willow crossed her arms. "Ugh, Boscha's the worst,"
"I'm not going to downplay my part in that, Willow," Amity said. "I didn't say any really nice things to you, either,"
"You did tell Boscha to leave me alone, though," Willow argued.
"And I followed it with an insult to make sure not to show any weakness," Amity turned back toward Camila. "Once I got Boscha to lay off, we all split up and I went to set up for a party, but I didn't see Luz, Willow, or Gus for the entire night,"
"Once they were gone, I wanted to cheer up Willow so I told her we could have our own Moonlight Conjuring," Luz said.
"Gus and I have never been to one since we need a minimum of three people," Willow explained. "Since we had Luz, we could finally have our own Moonlight Conjuring,"
"So I went to Eda to let her know," Luz said. "I told her we would do the Conjuring, but she cut me off before I could explain the whole thing and she told me she'd be going out of the house that night so she needed me to stay at the house to watch over it. So instead I suggested that Willow and Gus instead come over and she shot that idea down too, saying Conjurings were dumb and practically magic for babies,"
"Well that's just dumb in itself," Vee said. "You can't perform magic naturally, so it would make sense for her to expose you to any type of magic possible. Even if it was for babies,"
"Yeah, that would have been a good point to raise to Eda," Luz said. "So I had to tell Willow and Gus that Eda said no to the Moonlight Conjuring. And then I lied and told them she said it was okay, so long as we leave everything exactly the way it was and we never mention it happening again," She waited for her mom to get angry, but it surprised her to hear her laugh instead.
"Ah, youthful rebellion," Camila said, calming down. "It's like a rite of passage,"
"I was expecting some type of lecture about obedience and authority figures," Luz said, slightly confused.
"I could do that," Camila said, "but I have a feeling this story might end with you learning some lesson of the sort,"
"Not really," Luz admitted. "Although we did get caught and punished for it,"
"It's true," Gus admitted. "And we would have gotten away with it, too. It it weren't for those meddling demon hunters,"
"Demon hunters?" Vee asked, suddenly feeling nervous.
"Oh, right, well um," Willow tried to work out a way to phrase this delicately, seeing as how Vee didn't have the best impression of the Demon Realm as it was. "They're a group of nomads who make a living by… catching beasts. And selling them for profit," Okay, there's no way to phrase it delicately.
"So this story involves demon hunters," Camila lamented. "Is it too much to ask for you to just have a quiet night inside?"
"There's plenty of quiet nights inside," Luz defended, "but there's no point in telling you about them. You're just seeing selection bias,"
"Well tell me about something nice happening, then," Camila requested emphatically. "How many times in a day do you want to tell me about your adventures in almost dying?"
"Almost dying," Luz repeated, trying to keep focus on the word almost, then realizing adding the word dying doesn't help her argument. "Look, most of these stories end with important life lessons. Sort of. Just let me keep going and lecture me on all my mistakes later,"
"Believe me, I will," Camila warned, making Luz gulp.
"So why didn't you guys just do the Conjuring on a different night instead?" Vee asked, taking attention away from Luz.
"The celestial powers only align once a year with the lunar calendar," Gus explained. "If we missed it that day, we would have had to wait until next year,"
"At which point, I wasn't even sure if I'd be allowed back in the Demon Realm," Luz pointed out. "That could've been the only day I'd ever be able to do it with them," Camila winced at this, unsure what to say. "So I waited until Eda was gone and told Gus and Willow to wait outside the house until then,"
"Did you actually believe Luz when she said Eda was okay with it?" Amity asked.
"Not really," Willow admitted, "but I was too excited to finally be part of a Moonlight Conjuring to care that much,"
"Eda left and gave me a final warning that if I messed up the house, she wouldn't ever trust me again," Luz said.
"I think she probably already guessed that you'd go behind her back," Camila guessed, confusing Luz. "You're a teenager, having friends in a whole new realm which you came to without parental approval, she's a con artist in her early forties, who probably has asked herself, 'What would I have done at this age?' more than once while talking to you, there was an annual event happening that night which you've never experienced, and to top it off, she emphasized her trust in you on the way out to guilt trip you. I sincerely believe she knew what was going to happen once she left,"
"That… actually makes me feel better," Luz said, smiling. "Although, I highly doubt she could have guessed what was going to happen that night. So once she took off on her staff, I gave Willow and Gus the signal and the bush disguises she made blew up,"
"I was a sneaky-sneakster," Willow claimed.
"I had leaves in my pants," Gus added, "and I liked it," Vee giggled at their claims.
"I welcomed them inside the Owl House for the first time that day," Luz said.
"The Owl House is weird even by Demon Realm standards," Amity said. "What was your initial thoughts?"
"When Luz told us the living room is called that because it's technically living, I couldn't help but be distracted by the breathing walls," Willow told her.
"Wait, breathing walls?" Camila questioned.
"The entire house is Hooty, mom," Luz explained. "The walls move as he breathes, just like a human's chest expands when they breathe," Camila still felt weirded out by this aspect of the house her daughter had been staying at.
"I was entranced by the human bucket!" Gus said. "I wanted to keep it to cross it off my bucket list, but I didn't have enough snails on me for it,"
"Snails are Demon Realm currency," Luz explained, sensing her mother's question.
"How much did Eda ask for it?" Camila asked.
"Forty snails," Luz answered. "Which is about forty-eight dollars here,"
"That's just highway robbery," Camila deadpanned.
"What's a highway and why would someone want to steal it?" Amity asked.
"It's an expression," Camila explained. "It just means extortion. I'll be right back," She got up and left the room, coming back with a bucket in each hand, one solid metal and the other one being a red plastic with a grey handle. "Would you prefer a metal or plastic one?" Gus was speechless, trying to decide which one was the best option.
"Go with the plastic one," Luz urged. "It's lighter and it doesn't rust,"
"But the metal one is bigger," Vee argued. "Plus, the material's stronger. Even if it somehow gets a dent, it'll still hold water,"
"The plastic one is actually colorful," Luz countered. "Putting it up in his room would look better,"
"The metal one is more rustic-looking, though," Vee said.
"I've been in his room. Apart from the wooden floors, there's not much of a rustic them in there,"
"Stop arguing," Camila said, stopping the two teenage girls. "This is Gus's choice alone,"
"I… I need a moment to think," Gus answered, still looking over the buckets. Willow rolled her eyes, always finding Gus's fascination with the Human Realm to be endearing.
"So after we got done looking around the living room, I wanted to get started on the Moonlight Conjuring," Willow continued, getting everyone's attention. "I told Luz the first step was to pick out something to animate. Since it was the first time, the object should be special. Something beautiful,"
"So we chose a Beefy Bob action figure," Luz said.
"That's… not what I would have guessed," Camila said.
"Me neither," Willow agreed. "but Gus really wanted that to be the first thing we brought to life. Once we picked it, we lit some candles for ambiance, sat in a circle and said the magic words: Moonlight, we call, we sing. Moonlight, take this chance. Moonlight tie thing. Moonlight, start the dance!"
"It felt awkward for me, since I just kept repeating, 'I don't know the words.'" Luz commented. "There was a weird whoosh sound and we all opened our eyes at the same time to see if Bob moved at all, which he didn't, and then the house started shaking and we all went sideways. We all started freaking out over what happened. We accidentally animated the Owl House itself,"
"You brought Hooty to life?" Vee asked.
"No, we gave him legs," Luz clarified. "The entire house just rose over thirty feet in the air,"
"The Moonlight Conjuring doesn't give things legs," Hunter objected. "I read about it during my studies of wild magic. If the Owl House had legs then, they've always had legs and still do,"
"He's right, actually," Amity affirmed. "Although if you make it legs beforehand with other magic, the object would use the legs as though they were its own,"
"That means when the coven attacked the house, we could have literally walked away?" Luz complained. Hunter nodded sadly. "It's things like this that hindsight always comes back to annoy you with,"
"Once we figured out what happened, we ran outside to check it out," Willow continued. "Luckily, there was still enough ground outside the door for us all to stand on comfortably. And then Hooty started moving, causing Gus to almost fall off the edge,"
"Willow and I caught him before he fell, but it was hard to pull him up with the whole house still moving. We could barely keep our own balance as it was and had to hold onto each other too. It was then that Hooty listened when I told him to stop. We couldn't get him to listen before because the moon put him into some kind of trance, but once we were all holding hands again, we were able to control him,"
"With the magic of friendship," Vee said.
"And the moon," Willow said. "Besides, the magic of friendship was cut from Hexside's curriculum due to budget cuts,"
"I would have aced that class," Luz stated. "Anyway, once we figured out how to control the house, we started to think about what we could do. I figured we should probably take the house back, but then Gus suggested we take it for a joyride," Everyone looked at Gus, who was still examining the buckets in front of him, not paying any attention to the story being told. "I figured it couldn't hurt so long as we got back in time to put the house back the way it was,"
"Wait, hold on, mija," Camila said, breaking her house. "I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that you brought the house to life. Then, I'm trying to comprehend the house with legs like- like Baba Yaga?"
"Exactly like Baba Yaga," Luz confirmed.
"And now you're telling me that once you figured out you could, you and your friends stole Eda's house?" Luz at least had the decency to look guilty, but stayed silent under her mother's stern gaze. "Well, you're right about one thing. Eda could not have possibly guessed what would happen that night," Luz was about to continue, but Camila cut her off. "Don't think we won't add this to the growing list of things we'll be talking about later, Luz,"
"Understood," Luz mumbled. "So we walked through the woods for a while until I spotted Boscha through the trees and figured it would be fun to pull a small prank on her. We didn't hurt her or anything, we just called her a jerk through an illusion megaphone, then when she said she'd T. P. the house, we rose up the house onto the hill we were hiding behind to make it look like we were a giant monster,"
"I'd never pranked anyone before then," Gus claimed suddenly, smirking at the memory, "but then I had a taste for it,"
"Yet I'd never seen you pull another prank again," Willow pointed out.
"I just haven't found the right person to prank," Gus said defensively, making Willow roll her eyes. Still, it was weird to understand that he'd been listening to the story, even without showing much indication that he'd been paying attention.
"Once we were done messing with Boscha, Luz wanted to head back," Willow continued. "but I wanted to take the house to Amity's and show her up,"
"I showed Luz a post from Amity to persuade her to go to Amity's," Gus said. "It said 'Hashtag: humans can bite it'"
"I want to ask you to tell me that you skipped that and immediately took the house back," Camila said, rubbing her temple. "but that would be the easy way out of whatever mess,"
"To be fair, we don't know exactly what point this mess went past the point of no return," Luz argued. "For all we know, demon hunters spotted us the second we moved the house,"
"That doesn't make it much better," Camila chided.
"So, we take Hooty to Amity's and we're almost there when the house gets stopped by a bunch of ropes tying down the Owl House," Luz explained. "The demon hunters set a trap and once Hooty was pinned down, they grabbed us and tied us up in the house,"
"Why?" Vee interrupted. "They had the house. What purpose did kidnapping you serve?"
"If I had to guess, it was Tom's idea," Gus said, taking his eyes off the buckets. "That guy was weird,"
"Who's Tom?" Hunter asked.
"We're almost there," Willow told him. "So we were trapped in the house and the hunters were pulling it toward a cliff. Gus was trying to break through the ropes while Luz was trying to get Hooty to snap out of it, but I was feeling guilty about getting everyone in this mess,"
"It was just as much my fault," Luz tried. "I could have told the truth or argued we should go home, but I wanted to show Amity up too," She looked toward Amity. "I hope you aren't taking this personally,"
"It would have made my night more fun," she said, smiling. "Boscha was complaining about crazy houses and no one could get the doll to move. Part of me wanted to just take off in the middle of my own conjuring,"
"Anyway, the demon hunters brought us to a cliff overlooking the sea and dragged us out of the house," Willow explained. "The hunters were going to rip Hooty out of the house and sell him as exotic meat. Tom asked what to do with us and the leader told him to throw us over the cliff,"
"I tried to reason with him before he killed us," Gus said, crossing his arms. "I just asked him if that was what he wanted to do with his life, throwing kids off of cliffs. He just smiled and said it was his dream since he was little boy," A momentary silence filled the room.
"Well, at least he's following his dreams," Vee said, "no matter how… wrong… those dreams are,"
"I think this might be one of those rare times I tell people not to follow their dreams," Camila said. "In fact, I think I would recommend to him a therapist instead,"
"What's a therapist?" Hunter asked.
"Something I think we'd all need and would probably get if we could afford it and could explain the Demon Realm without sounding crazy," Luz answered. "Or if we did prove it, the therapist might need a therapist," Camila couldn't help but worry about this, but knew she was right. If only there was a child psychologist somewhere that has experience with alternate dimensions and evil tyrants. Probably would have a scar or something.
"He pushed us off the cliff, but our ropes that he didn't bother untying caught on a tree root on the side of the cliff," Gus said. "That might have been our first stroke of luck we'd had as a group,"
"Looking back, I wonder what it was doing there," Luz commented. "He pushed us off a grassy cliff, sure, but there were no trees nearly big enough around for a root to be thirty feet down and strong enough to hold us,"
"It's almost like the Titan was looking out for you," Hunter joked, making the other kids have slight glares. "Okay, okay, bad joke. But there were so many close calls that it doesn't make sense in retrospect that we've all survived," Camila didn't fully understand the joke, but figured it would make sense eventually.
"I… can't deny that," Luz agreed. "Had I not discovered the light glyph when I did, there's no guarantee I would have even made it past that night,"
"I'm sure you could have figured something out," Vee encouraged. "Although the light glyph was probably still the best way to handle it,"
"So when we were snagged on the root and just barely hanging on by a rope, I started worrying about how much trouble I'd be in when Eda found out about the house," Luz continued.
"Typical teenage response," Camila muttered.
"And Willow started giving me an exposition dump," Before Willow could comment. "Which means you were telling me a lot of backstory that I didn't previously know. She told me a long time ago, Amity and her were friends, but when her magic powers didn't come in yet, Amity stopped hanging out with her,"
"Is that really what happened?" Camila asked.
"Essentially, yes," Amity confirmed, looking away from everyone else.
"Omitting several key details that we didn't find out until a month or so later," Luz argued. "It wasn't your fault so stop pretending it was,"
"Irony," Gus hid behind a cough. Luz chose to ignore it, knowing he still didn't know about her biggest mistake…
"I told Willow that it was crazy of her to think she needed to prove herself to anyone," she continued. "She brought a whole house to life and that she was the most powerful witch I knew next to Eda, no offense to Gus,"
"And while I can fry people's brains with illusions, I know who our powerhouse is," Gus agreed, making Willow smile.
"Have you ever actually done that to anyone?" Vee asked, laughing nervously.
"Three people on accident," he answered. "One time I tried to do it on purpose, but he was able to shrug it off and stopped me from finishing,"
"That's kind of scary," Vee commented, getting a nod from Camila.
"They were Emperor's Coven," Hunter specified. Vee relaxed slightly at this, but still regarded the youngest witch with slight trepidation.
"So Luz was helping me feel better about my powers," Willow continued, "but the root we were on was starting to snap. Luckily, the ropes loosened enough for me to get an arm loose and I just needed to touch one to work my magic. It only took half a second to make a big enough plant to support us and cut the ropes off of us,"
"Once we were on our way up, we heard Tom bragging about managing to kill us," Gus added. "And the leader answers, 'They were children, Tom,' right before Willow comes up and hits them with huge vines,"
"We may be children, but we're also witches," Willow said, flexing her arms. "Powerful ones," Hunter nodded, noticing the flex. "Still, I wasn't going to fight them, I just had the vines distract them long enough to get back in the house and take control of Hooty."
"Good plan," Camila complimented. "No need to take more risk than you needed to,"
"Plus, we were almost out of time," Luz added. "We only had about ten minutes left to get the house back to the hill it was on,"
"Wait, you were out all night?" Camila asked, getting a hesitant nod from Luz. "What was Eda doing this entire time?"
"She had to get a new bottle of elixir from the night market," Luz answered. "Only one person was selling it and it was too much for Eda to buy it from him. So, she bet the bottle of elixir for something of her own of his choosing on a game of Hexas Holdem,"
"And that wasn't an obvious hustle?" Vee asked.
"She got too cocky when it came to that game," Luz answered. "So she was destroyed in a single game and Tibbles, that was the guy's name, claimed King as his prize," Camila gasped. "So Eda couldn't do any magic still thanks to her curse and Tibbles tied her up with magic chains. He planned to send her to the Conformatorium for the trillion snail bounty on her,"
"It was admittedly a solid plan," Gus commented. "Too bad his stand wasn't,"
"Eda realized her mistake with getting too obsessed with a card game and swore it off for good," Luz continued. "Still, she was trapped in chains until we passed by on the house and accidentally squished Tibbles's stand,"
"And that was how we were caught," Willow said.
"King got Eda her elixir while Tibbles was distracted, they escaped, and flew into the house while it was still moving before we put it back,"
"I've always wondered how she was already inside the house," Gus said. Camila thought about this briefly.
"Your summary of what Eda did was much more brief than how your story went," Camila said.
"I actually didn't even think about telling it until you asked," Luz responded. "I wasn't there personally, so I'm a little light on the details anyway. These were all they could agree on that happened. King says the hustle was way more obvious in person considering the cards were on the front counter, while Eda said she spotted the deck in the back. Eda said Tibbles dressed King up in several adorable outfits while King denies any sort of sailor outfits,"
"I personally don't know which one to believe," Willow said.
"So we get the house back to the hill and put it down just in time before the moon set and apologized to Hooty for putting him through all that," Luz continued. "He was happy to be included. And for a second I thought maybe we could convince him to keep things quiet and not tell Eda, but then she slammed the door from the inside, creating the illusion that she was there the entire time,"
"And for some reason, I can't think of a single way she could have just appeared behind the door," Gus said. "She definitely wasn't there before we landed."
"Maybe she could turn herself invisible?" Willow offered. "I mean, I've never seen her do it, but she's never said that she couldn't,"
"Once she closed the door, I knew I was in trouble," Luz continued. "I mentally prepared myself for whatever she'd do. She might've grounded me, ended my apprenticeship, threw me out of the house with no way back to the Human Realm, who knows?"
"I figured she was going to eat one of us and told her to just do it now," Gus said.
"I don't know why everyone thinks she's going to eat them," Luz wondered. "I mean, the snaggleback had good reason to be scared of that. He actually was eaten, but no one else knew that,"
"Maybe it's because the name 'Eda' sounds a little like 'eat us'," Vee guessed as a joke, earning a couple chuckles.
"But no matter what punishment she would give to Luz, I couldn't let her take it all," Willow said. "Gus and I pushed her into the conjuring. We knew Eda didn't approve but we did it anyway,"
"Eda actually let us off pretty easy and just made us clean the house," Luz said. "Then she said she was definitely joining us for next year's Moonlight Conjuring,"
"I'm in," Vee and Hunter said at the same time, making them chuckle.
"I'd like to join you too, if that's okay," Amity said cautiously. Willow grabbed her shoulders and turned her so they stared right into each other's eyes.
"Listen, Blight," Willow said seriously. "If you are not at that Moonlight Conjuring, I will personally track you down and drag you there. Understood?" Amity giggled, nodding affirmation. Willow let go of Amity and returned to her normal tone of voice. "Okay, as long as we're clear,"
"I'll do the dragging," Hunter offered, earning a light punch from Amity. "So how did your Moonlight Conjuring go, anyway?"
"We failed to move the doll," Amity said sheepishly. "And once it was too late, we started scrolling through Penstagram,"
"That's a bummer," Willow said.
"And it embarrassed Boscha that much more when she saw you three moving the house on Penstagram,"
"Wait, people took pictures of us?" Luz asked. "Shoot, if I'd know that was gonna happen, I might've fixed up my hair that day,"
"The wind would have messed it up anyway," Amity responded. "So she saw the pictures and showed them to all of us, practically foaming at the mouth," She chuckled. "That might have been the most mad I'd ever seen her. I think that might have been the start of her personal grudge against you, Willow,"
"All we did was move a house," she said, brushing off the statement.
"Which you pranked her with, on the night she and four other people couldn't make a doll move,"
"Well how was I supposed to know she'd take it so personally?" Willow said defensively. She turned to Hunter. "What do you think, Hunter?" He didn't answer, Willow now noticing him deep in thought. "Hunter?"
"Hm?" he said, looking up. "Oh, sorry. I was just thinking if there might be a practical use for the Moonlight Conjuring,"
"Paragon or renegade use?" Luz asked. She didn't even have to wait for a confused inquiry about her question. "And by that, I mean is it like a good guy use or a bad guy use?"
"Somewhere in between, I guess, since we're technically the rebels," he answered. "I just wonder if reanimating a petrified witch could potentially break the petrification," Luz's eyes widened, wondering what idea Hunter just stumbled on. "There's plenty of unjustly petrified witches in the Conformatorium. And I think there's probably even more we don't know about,"
"Even if we can only break it a little, it can be undone the rest of the way by a powerful witch," Luz continued.
"And then there's an army if we need them all gathered into one place," Amity added. Suddenly, all the witches were more excited than ever for the next Moonlight Conjuring.
So this time, it only took me little under two months. Half the time as last time.
I got stuck figuring out how to write the prank on Boscha, but I think I managed to help it flow by not putting too much into it.