I Am Putting Together The Pieces. I Am Hurting. The Pieces Are There, Bc It's The Same Look. It's The

whyyyyyyy would it be flesh. why would it be flesh!!

like i get it, all magic comes from the titan and everything is bodily and physical and real in that way. but belos' kind of magic is artificial. it's mechanical, all pipes and metallic and machinery.

so if it's flesh, it has to be a kind of artificial magic that uses real magic, but - falsifies it. uses it to create a kind of mockery of itself. something tinged red, made wrong. powerful in execution but not quite right.

i do love the idea that anything his artificial staff magic creates is golden (aesthetic themes bc belos is just Like That, it's good vibes) but why must it be flesh. is it an intimidation tactic? is that just what magic is like? could he do something else and just decided hey, this one is gonna be flesh for funsies! he would do that, wouldn't he.

you leave your home behind, but you take your ghosts with you. don't you see the problem? how the story has already begun to unravel, before your eyes, in your hands: the way the world is too gentle, the light too bright, how your reflection doesn’t really look like you? hunter expects the human realm to be at least somewhat similar to that of life on the boiling isles. it isn’t, and he struggles to come to terms. or: times hunter does domestic human things the wrong way, and how over time he begins to get it just right (in his own way, which means kind of, not really, not at all).

hope u all enjoy some time in the human realm + trying to adjust to it after king's tide angst n comfort vibes. i have a handful of chapters for it lined up and outlined further so far, so buckle up, we're in for a ride >:)

belos' va has that very nice vocal tone that makes my brain go brr, it matches the easy condescending tone that belos hones so well.

that uh-puh-pup sound he makes in young blood, old souls (00:16 in this clip of it) at the beginning of his confrontation with luz is just so nice. the demeaning, mocking ease of it. the okay. i'll play of it all, when luz attacks (first! first! going to talk about that soon too), like he has time to waste on seeing where she's at in battling with her glyphs.

bc it is just a game to him, then. he'd been there the whole time, after all. waiting, expectational, like he'd knew lilith would betray their cause and lead luz there for their rescue. that it was going to happen just like this, the plan of it, and how everything just falls into place, like - how much of this could be seen so clearly? all of them acting like good pawns along a predestined path?

and there's this removed amusement while he fights luz, if you can even call it a fight. he plays with her, toys with her, lifting only a finger the entire time. it's the joy of the catch, the thrill of getting closer to his hands on the portal, what he wants, but there's no rush. how he knows it's going to happen eventually, soon, so he can just chill and go with the flow of things?

it makes me wonder how long he's waited, how comfortable he is now with patience when things are in the works, steadily moving on.

we don't see belos use magic like this in season two. it's a controlled flame, without the anger and emotion that is central to it in king's tide. it's as if here, in s1, he knows what's happening before everyone else, and he flits and melts like light, liquid, almost effortlessly.

there's no reason to try if no one is actually going to test your ability.

it is a game to him, and there aren't any real consequences to any of it until the portal door goes up in flames. he got what he wanted out of lilith, and now he's near enough to reap the rewards of it. but it isn't entirely upsetting either, when he loses it - it just changes the game.

it's similar to this ominous voice trick he does a couple of times - how the visuals turn negative and double themselves atop one another to show the effect - we don't see it again.

it's as if he is a kind of omniscient being, that lingering i will know while they steal borrow the relics, and again during the fight. i love the idea that he has such a control over this artificial magic that he can make his voice actually sound like it is coming from everywhere; that his knowledge, his control, is so overwhelming that it must come from the titan itself / how there are no other possibilities.

go on then. go be a hero, he mocks, but it's such a soft thing. one look, a few words and some oversight and he knows exactly what makes someone tick. i imagine it's why we see hunter do it so well to amity in eclipse lake. he manipulates, so he must know the heart of you.

what a villain! even when we barely know anything about him or his motivations, he's still so powerful and intimidating. and that's good writing. to know just enough to be curious, just enough to be afraid.

i do think that the toh crew hinted at so many different and interesting themes n ideas that deserve to be explored ... yes i want luz knighting hunter. yes i want her getting separated from stringbean and being forced to pick up the curved knife in order to defend herself. yes i want the undying parallels of this is who you have always been, luz the human, and it is who you always will be. so why not accept it? why fight the story when this is what has always been waiting for you? the narrative already holds your name, heroine, there is no other tale left to tell.

it would just be so good and cathartic and truly the nightmare scenario truly steeped to time, the flavor, the retribution, the reshaping of the narrative so that it is finally yours, not something that has been passed down (given without your explicit and sincere acceptance/knowledge, another theme i adore) but something you have instead chosen.

like, at last – this is your story. your name. this, everything, has always been waiting for you to call it your own. it has always been yours.

thinking ab the similarities of luz and hunter and how they are so different in their experiences and yet so alike.

they are both so desperate for acceptance. for acknowledgement of who they are, who they want to be – for love, given without terms, unconditional. to be seen, in the light that is all their own, without being asked to cut off corners, pieces of themselves that aren't ... acceptable, by most, that would be easier if they weren't there.

their stories are different and yet their hearts are the same. they want to be strong, brave, enough to get through the next thing, and the next, and the next – still holding on to a hurt that makes them. that changed them, fundamentally, so long ago. how it still changes them today. how there is no separation, even still, even here, in the light of the human world, bright enough to dream by.

so can you see it, the way they are tectonic plates, shifting up against one another, holding up and together entire worlds? the weight of responsibility, of what it means (and what it is) holding on to hope. what it takes from you, and how you have learned not to talk about it, because who else would understand? and how would you hold yet another piece of it, too heavy for your hands?

the earthquakes that would result in them butting heads. the way the story has always led to the parallels of things. the way brothers and siblings will eventually come to this point, the event horizon of hurt and hope. the way the bones of it have always been lying in wait, to return to this, right here - what becomes of us now?

the way it was always going to come to this. the story doesn't know any other way. so it will do it again, it will do it over, and over, and over - until it can get it right.

(including a small snippet of a vague chapter intro:)

good afternoon, still thinking softly of the trailer for wad and the idea of the hex squad protecting hunter (from luz for extra pizazz, thank u, especially since she was the one to begin all of them coming together, to be the thing that unravels them as well is just so chefs kiss)?

and just how lovely of an idea that is. to finally be something that is deemed worthy of protection. of friends. how the story says you have been strong enough. the story says you can be safe, now. in a dream you spoke a secret, in the dream you wanted to be safe and now you are here, among friends, and how they would lay down their lives for you (instead of just the inverse, instead of how the story has been for ages and ages, beyond memory, beyond you)

he would sacrifice himself for them. listen to me. listen to me, he would, he did, and even still he would give everything. he would choose to give everything.

do you understand what i'm saying? he would choose.

everything he has ever lived for has been chosen for him. a guiding light to live by, a glowing halo of rightness that was always out of reach. never crowned, but close. always having to earn and work and prove to be there. to have the the right to it.

with the others? he's - he doesn't have to. for the first time, he doesn't have to work for their care, their attention. he can just be. he can be whatever he wants. do you realize how insane that must feel for him.

what do you mean you don't want me as a tool. i can do things, i can give you things, i have worked my whole life to be the sharp edge of a blade and you want me to be soft? you want me to be whatever i am, however i come? how does that make any sense?

to never have that, and now do, so fast and so decisive it must feel like leaving something integral behind you for it? here, in it, almost a near-thing, like dusk, like dawn, the cusp of everything new?

of course he'd give them everything he has. they'd do the same for him. and what do you do, with that, other than do it first? to grasp the chance with both hands and say thank you for finding me?

putting my head in my hands. the grief. the grief of not knowing now where you belong .... of trying to find a place and making it for yourself and yet nothing fits the same ....

no because it IS in the fact that belos had moments where he was kind to hunter. the gentleness of an almost love. something for him, as well, to hold on to caleb by. even by ghost, by dream, by copy.

hunter asking about the human realm in eclipse lake and shaking his head no to belos' you know i've been there before, have i ever told you that? that instilled curiosity is hunter's through and through: but oh, some piece of him has to feel at home in the human world. some part of him being there like finally, finally, i have been waiting for this, i remember you.

that soft nostalgia in belos' tone. the way hunter softens in the face of it? there had to have been more moments like this. not many, not enough by far, but enough to keep him holding on until the next one. enough to keep working towards. motivation, drive, inspiration.

not just for approval, but for pride, for love.

even if it never comes, there is always, always the chance of it.

and that's enough to keep dreaming by. hoping for. fighting for.

because it has to be. it has to be.

so like, remember how in agony of a witch lilith kidnaps luz to get eda to come to the castle for her witch's duel? just before twilight, at the end of the beginning of things, stuck in a room, lost to the story and attempting every escape plan she can think of - luz has an unexpected visitor. he says he’s the golden guard, whoever that's supposed to be.

i published a fic! it's a what-if if hunter and luz had met while she was being held at the castle before the witches duel in agony of a witch. something soft and silly with a lot of fun foreshadowing. enjoy!