Chapter 94: A Very Special Donna
Art by Crash X Fusion: Two therapy chapters back-to-back? Now that's serious.
Donna talks to her counselor Dr. Midnight about how her week has been.
Tropes that appear in this chapter:
- The Ace: Beocrow mentions that Lindsay's the top student of St. Epiderm's Beast Keeping track, and it shows when she tames Slithy the Slitherbeast like it was nothing.
- Affectionate Nickname: Eda begins calling Donna "Silver" or "Silvy" on account of her hair.
- Animal-Themed Superbeing: Each scout member of BIG has both a color followed by an animal as part of their names.
- Atrocious Alias: Donna learns from Felicia that people who don't know her superhero name call her "Burlesque Savior" on account of her supersuit showing off her legs.
- Badass Adorable: Auggie, the Masterskulls' butler, is a pink koala demon with a Blood Knight streak due to harsh training in his youth.
- Battle Butler: Once again, Auggie shows these traits as he can not only fight, but he taught Donna how to defend herself.
- Berserk Button: Acorn does not take kindly to being refered to as a pet.
- Brick Joke: A rather heartwarming one. In the Distant Prologue, Donna mentions that she barely remembers having a brother, and said brother is seen in present time near the end of the chapter.
- Brutal Honesty:
- Kyle's father has no bedside manners, tellin Donna to her face that she could've died from overdosing on drugs and alcohol.
- Beocrow drops a very heavy dose of it on Donna when she goes through withdrawal for the first time, making her look at her reflection and telling her to be better than the pale, baggy-eyed girl she saw then.
- Donna has to ask Luz to tell Lindsay who the Golden Guard really is, and she flat-out drops the news on the cyclops without missing a beat.
- Call-Back:
- Regarding the Glandus Top Students storming St. Epiderm in "Prelude to War: Part 3", Riley reveals where he and Danny had been at the time of their appearance.
- Because of the Blight twins pranking Donna, the family butler Auggie began teaching her in self-defense.
- Like Nina in the previous chapter, Donna declares her hatred for Emily growing stronger after learning what Nina getting impaled meant for her future.
- Change the Uncomfortable Subject: Donna is put off by how Luz deconstructs the concept and reasoning why Princess Peach keeps getting kidnapped by Bowser as some kind of kink, so she takes her and Amity to their backyard so they can meet Lindsay.
- Code Name: Emira has selected her superhero name: Ms. Chievious.
- Color-Coded Characters: The Boiling Isles Guardians are each bearing a different color scheme, most of them bearing the colors of the main nine covens. Besides the Golden Guard, there's the Red Vulture Scout, Pink Viper Scout, Blue Shark Scout, Orange Bear Scout, Yellow Tiger Scout, Green Cricket Scout, and the Brown Hamster Scout.
- Connected All Along: Draco is not only associated with Lupe, he's also the uncle of Donna and her twin brother.
- Continuity Nod:
- While telling Lindsay not to believe Emily's a hero, Luz brings up the illusionist nearly killing her and Gus during the Glandus War.
- Nina pulls off her cheerleading audition, after she mentioned meeting the cheer squad for it a week before. She also acts aloof to Donna after she rejected her and ended their friendship.
- Luz continues to remind Donna of their first meeting, and it seems other people agree with her statement about Donna wearing mostly leotards in public.Donna: You'll never let me live that down, will you?
Luz: You really gave me a weird first impression when we met, so... no.
- A Day in the Limelight: Donna takes her place under it as she attends a counseling session to discuss how her week is going.
- Disappeared Dad: Neither Beocrow nor Felix know their fathers, and neither of them really care about what happened to them.
- Eating the Eye Candy: Donna is practically mesmerized from seeing Nina in her cheerleading outfit.
- Everyone Has Standards: Donna mentions that Beocrow, who's very brutally honest, doesn't have the heart to tell Lindsay that she's been crushing on Emily as the Golden Guard.
- Expy: With Donna's palisman being revealed to be male and named "Whirlwind", this makes him an expy of Swift Wind, Adora's steed.
- Flashback B-Plot: Most of the chapter shows how Donna came to be who she is in present day.
- Foreshadowing:
- During Felicia's interview with Wonder Witch, she mentions there have been sightings of vigilante heroes resembling "teenage demon ninja reptiles".
- When Nina meets Lindsay, she assumes she's Donna's girlfriend. Nina's doing so will come into play later, as will Donna and Lindsay's romantic lives blending together...
- Framing Device: Like the previous chapter with Nina and Ms. Traveler, Donna is describing how her week has gone while talking with her counselor, Dr. Midnight.
- Friend to All Living Things: Lindsay manages to tame Slithy and convince him to return to the Knee, which leads to him licking her face.King: Wow, I have never seen someone tame a Slitherbeast before.
Beocrow: That's Lindsay for ya; she's not Top of Beast-Keeping for nothing. - The Ghost:
- Like the previous chapter, Emily is mentioned on account of everybody describing her past actions.
- Lindsay references Cross when telling Luz that she thought he was the Golden Guard.
- Lindsay mentions her and Andrea's other friend Jackie Courtland, who wouldn't properly debut for another four chapters.
- Given Name Reveal:
- Kyle's last name is Pox.
- Donna named her alicorn palisman Whirlwind after bonding with it.
- Goal in Life: After all the people who cared about her helped her recover from her drug abuse, Donna decided that she wanted to dedicate her life to helping people: this is how she bonded with Whirlwind.
- Hard-Drinking Party Girl: After attending her first party with Serpentina and Eustace, Donna becames one of these due to being pressured into drinking apple blood.
- Hidden Depths: Flashbacks show that Lindsay is also a member of Donna's gymnastics team.
- Internal Reveal:
- The new members of LOWTH learn about Donna's connection to Nina, and Donna later informs Eda about it.
- Donna is informed of what happened to Boscha on her first day in Glandus.
- Luz, Amity, Eda, King, and Camila meet Lindsay, with Amity meeting Beocrow, for the first time.
- Donna, Luz, and Amity learn about the keyblades and their purpose from Acorn.
- Luz and Amity recap the development of their relationship to Donna.
- Luz tells Lindsay that Emily Tricks is the Golden Guard.
- Lindsay meets Nina and Donna meets Andrea during Nina's cheerleading audition.
- Donna learns of Nina's infertility due to Emily stabbing her.
- Donna learns that Lupe killed her parents and Eda (as the Owl Beast) saved her life.
- Jaw Drop: Donna's reaction to hearing Felicia's favorite fanmade codename by the public.
- Killed Offscreen: Luzine was really into testing human products when she was alive.
- Meaningful Name: Emira selects "Ms. Chievious" as her superhero name, which plays into her talent in illusions and her prankster personality.
- Meet Cute: Conversed. Luz considers her first meeting with Amity one, but Amity disagrees.Amity: (teasing) I don't know if faking King's death just to con me out of my money is considered a meet cute.
- Multi-Part Episode: This continues the multi-part chapter leading into the events of "Reaching Out".
- Mythology Gag: Donna mentions that she knew a witch who Luz reminds her of, and apparently offed herself testing human products. Do we even have to mention how Moringmark Luzine
sounds? - Noodle Incident: When Donna, Beocrow, and Lindsay come to the Owl House to deal with the Slitherbeast, Donna finds Luz and Amity covered in bandages and healing patches, apparently due to a confrontation with the Grim Goblin.
- Once More, with Clarity:
- Donna befriending Eustace and Serpentina and becoming known as "Party-Donna", as hinted at by Danny in "Shaping Up or Nothing" and the two instigators in "The Obligatory Beach Day!", is shown in full.
- Donna did catch a glimpse of Nina outside her window while her friends visited after her discharge from the Healing Coven.
- Tina's mugging, which played a key part in the creation of LOWTH, is showcased.
- Donna tending to Nina during Luz, Amity, and Sly's battle against Meteora in "What is it Good For?" is shown in a flashback. Her mothers finding out about her hero work is also seen.
- We see Donna's perspective of her fallout with Nina.
- Propaganda Piece: The Boiling Isles Guardians have merchandising and pay Felicia to run an ad for it during her podcast interview with Donna, paid for by the Emperor's Coven. Said ad ends with the message "Buy our merch", and Felicia even shows off some Junko Pop figures the group gave her.
- The Reveal:
- Donna was adopted by Diana and Gladys when she was twelve, the two wanting to adopt a child rather than conceive one.
- The Masterskulls are old friends with Denise Clawthorne, and Beocrow & Felix met Donna a few days after her adoption.
- Beocrow and Felix are half-brothers, both having different fathers.
- Donna first learned about Luz during this time due to Beocrow hearing rumors about his aunt Eda taking in a human.
- Donna was the last of her friends to join their group, which occurred on her first day at St. Epiderm.
- After Edric and Emira pranked Donna which left her frozen in fear, the Masterskull's butler and head of security, Auggie, trained her in self-defense.
- Donna met Eustace and Serpentina when Eustace tried to pickpocket her. They took her to parties where she was pressured into having alcohol and drugs until she had a stroke during a class social gathering at Veronica's house.
- Besides gymnastics, Donna also plays "skinnis", the demon realm equivalent of tennis. She took up both extracurriculars to help her move past her "party" phase.
- Lindsay is on St. Epiderm's gymnastics team with Donna and Sarah. She, Andrea, and Tabrella are all friends, along with a fourth girl named Jackie.
- Donna carved Whirlwind from a piece of Palistrom wood that Gladys found by sheer luck, and her Goal in Life is to help whoever needs it as a way to pay forward all the help she's received.
- When Nina, Tito, Cain, and Kadabe came to St. Epiderm, Riley was busy making sure Danny didn't confront them, lest they injure him.
- Diana and Gladys learned about Donna being in LOWTH when she came home after the Glandus War in her Wonder Witch costume.
- Lupe was present during Donna and Nina's fallout.
- Donna can understand Acorn, who knows about keyblades.
- Lindsay is shown to be the Beast Keeping top student of St. Epiderm.
- Kyle has joined LOWTH along with Gavin, Sarah, Roxy, Riley, Minerva, and Lindsay.
- Donna has a biological twin brother, and Draco is their uncle.
- Clé is Tyrone's older brother.
- Lindsay mentions having a friend at Hexside, who turns out to be Andrea Pinkjoy.
- Tamme goes by she/her/they pronouns.
- Sell-Out: This is pretty much what Felicia asks Donna to do when she recommends making merchandise to promote LOWTH. The Boiling Isles Guardians have practically already done this, and they haven't even performed any heroics as of yet.
- Sequel Hook:
- Luz and Amity had a run in with the Grim Goblin.
- Eda and Donna prepare to watch the Bonesborough Brawl from the orphanage.
- Ship Tease: After learning that Tina was mugged, Beocrow became enraged and determined to find her attackers. Once he calmed down, he checked how Tina was feeling.
- Shout-Out:
- The first scene has Donna treating someone who got cut by a living pair of scissors. This was how Frankie was introduced in the pilot of Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends.
- The Masterskulls perform "Reach Out I'll Be There" by the Four Tops during the karaoke scene.
- Donna's counselor, Dr. Kobe Midnight, is inspired by Dr. Midnight of DC Comics, named after the late Kobe Bryant, and has his appearance based on Jacob from Camp Camp.
- Kyle's father Dr. Pox is based off Dr. Cox from Scrubs.
- Beocrow's Brutal Honesty to Donna is based on the scene from The Crow (1994).
- Felicia mentions there's been sightings of "teenage reptile ninja demons".
- While recovering, Luz and Amity play a video game about plumber brothers trying to save a princess from a turtle dragon.
- Lupe stalking Donna and whistling is a nod to the Wolf in Puss in Boots: The Last Wish.
- Donna sings Michael Bolton's version of "Go the Distance".
- Strange Minds Think Alike: Luz isn't the only one who thinks Donna dresses as a showgirl, given that people call her "Burlesque Savior" due to her supersuit.
- Synchronous Episodes: This is the second of the set of chapters that overlap with each other.
- Take That!: To the Super Mario Bros..Amity: I don't get the story. Like, the princess constantly gets kidnapped by the villain because she had like, crappy security apparently. Why does this keep happening to her?
Luz: If you asks me, she's into that shit. Like, think about it; the princess allows security to go off so the villain could kidnap her, and they're in on it to help her satisfy her kink.
Donna: (nervous) So she must really be into being kidnapped... - There Are No Therapists: Averted once again. Donna has been seeing Dr. Midnight to deal with her drug withdrawal and stress ever since her stroke, and he helps her deal with her problems by offering advice and solutions.
- Toxic Friend Influence: Eustace and Serpentina were horrible friends for Donna to have, encouraging her to drink and do drugs at parties for older teens that they brought her to, ultimately abandoning her when she had a stroke at Veronica's party. Until the Scarfish incident, she hadn't seen them in 4 years.
- The Un-Reveal:
- Donna starts receiving flowers from a secret admirer, and with Jackson saying he wants to work with roses, it's implied to be him.
- Donna can somehow understand Acorn, but neither of them know why.
- Before Acorn can reveal why the keyblade is more than just one of the most powerful objects in existence, Ghost eats her.
- Donna's brother is on another Titan. How he got there and their being the niece and nephew of Draco is a riddle to be answered.
- Wham Episode: Donna gets a new secret admirer, learns from Acorn (who she understands) what the keyblade is and gets Luz to break to Lindsay the news about Emily being the Golden Guard, and about Nina's infertility. Beocrow and Lindsay take the Slitherbeast back to the Knee, Donna encounters Lupe and discovers her connection to both him and Eda, and she turns out to have a twin brother with Draco apparently being her uncle.
- What Could Have Been: In-Universe example. At the end of the chapter, Donna asks Eda what her life could've been like if the Owl Lady took her in. The most Eda says is that she would've been the middle sibling of King (the eldest child) and Luz (the youngest), and neither of them consider it any further.
- Whole Episode Flashback: Like with the last chapter, this one is told in a series of flashbacks and except for the scenes with Donna and Dr. Midnight, which are a Framing Device.
- You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Donna is not happy to hear that one of Wonder Witch's assumed names is "Burlesque Savior", on account of her Wonder Witch" outfit.
- You Remind Me of X: Donna sees that Luz has a lot of similarities to her deceased classmate, Luzine.
