Toh - Blog Posts
WOW, oh wow ow wow wow and ouch! This is wonderful,another absolute banger from you! His two contradictory feelings! His fantasy of death and how belos would react, of hurting himself or being killed?! The mix of hate and desperate want for approval?!! God you write such good monologues! W o w. By the conclusion, I can only imagine Amity is in for an absolute shitshow.
Here’s a little oneshot wip(?) for @pincushionx, who inspired me to write a little BPD Hunter character study that takes place during Eclipse Lake
TW: violence, rage, swearing, suicidal ideation, self-harm ideation
There’s no point anymore. Hunter’s done for. This was his chance to prove himself to his uncle, and he blew it.
A wave of despair washes heavy over his body as he falls to his knees. When he doubles over, the dirt is cold under his gloved fingertips, and he can barely breathe over the weight on his shoulders and the sudden, pooling rage in his stomach.
The all-consuming sensations flooding in urge him to scream, fight, and destroy everything in his vicinity just as much as they make him want to throw himself off of a cliff and smack his head against every rock on the way down.
Either reality melts a bit, viscous and toxic, or something’s shifted sideways, pixelated and fuzzy; he’s not sure which, but he does know that he’s filled with the inescapable awareness that everything is wrong. His entire world isn’t right anymore, now that he’s failed, and all he wants is for everything to stop.
He wants this rabid animal under his skin to shred his body to pieces until he’s nothing more than mutilated flesh left behind in the dirt. He wants to make his shameful face so unrecognizable that no one will ever figure out what happened to the boy behind the mask. He wants this world to move on without him, and he wants to pretend he never dared to disgrace it with his presence in the first place.
He wants to die.
He wants to die, die, die.
He pictures himself grabbing his go-to knife in his nightstand and slashing wild gashes into his thighs. He thinks about how good it would feel. How maybe, if he wasn’t such a coward, he could dig deeper and deeper until he’s lightheaded from blood loss. How maybe, if he did a good enough job, he’d bleed out on the floor and never have to face his uncle’s disappointment first-hand. How one minute, he could be there, and the next, he could be gone, leaving behind only a husk for no one but his Uncle to mourn.
The thought of Belos finding him murdered by his own hands sends a bolt of thill through his body. He can't help but fantasize about it. Belos would walk into Hunter’s room, gasp in shock at the state of his poor, beloved nephew, and try to revive him. He would watch in distress as the healers try to revive him, to no avail. When there’d be truly nothing left for Belos to do to fix his mistakes, he would feel so bad about just how much anguish he put his poor guard through. He would look back fondly on all the ways Hunter had helped him over the years and bury his nephew with guilt-ridden tears streaming down his cheeks. He would be so, so sorry, and Hunter could rest in peace knowing that he’d at least be loved unconditionally in death.
Or not.
Hunter lets out an anguished whine as he tangles his fingers in his hair and pulls.
He’s only deluding himself, isn’t he?
When has Belos ever felt bad about anything when it comes to hurting Hunter? When has Belos ever wiped away Hunter’s tears without mocking him, or acknowledged Hunter’s efforts without some kind of ridicule undermining the entire whisp of praise? When has Belos ever said the simple promise of “I love you” without it having to be a reward to chase after?
Hunter understands why Uncle is so harsh. Hunter knows that Belos only wants the best for him. He wants to train Hunter well enough that Hunter will be able to survive in a world without having innate magic. Uncle’s reserving this special position just for Hunter so that the teen won’t grow up without employment. He provides Hunter with the best instructors and the best artificial staff so that Hunter can make up for his deficits. Yet despite the accommodations, Hunter spits in Belos’s face with his failures every single time.
Hunter tries so fucking hard, and for what? Nothing he does ever matters. Hunter always just takes, takes, takes, from Belos, and nothing he brings back from missions is ever enough to buy Belos’s kindness for more than a day. Hunter was born wrong; he knows he needs to earn the right to live, but he wishes it wasn’t so soul-crushing to bear the curse of an unruly body like this.
If Hunter was just good enough effortlessly, Uncle would love him more, but unfortunately, Hunter eventually has to fuck it all up. His heart always has to drop every time his Uncle sighs heavily in his direction.
It’s not fair.
He sounds like a child, he knows, and he hates himself for it, but it’s not fair.
Dirt gathers under his gloves as he scrunches his fingers to curl into fists. A revelation boils under his skin so hot and vapid that it can’t help but change the tide of rage. He grabs a handful of dirt and screams as he pelts it across the empty lake.
He hates his Uncle.
He hates him so much.
How dare the man string Hunter along like this? If he knew that Hunter was such a fuck-up from the start, why did he even give Hunter the time of day? Why did he breathe false hope into Hunter by saying that Hunter could ever truly achieve anything worthwhile?
Surely he had to have known this would happen. Surely he had to have known that Hunter would never be good enough. Hunter should have been killed from the start, and he hates Belos for treating him with the cruel mercy of of an unearned life.
Hunter’s not sure when he’d started sobbing.
He untangles his knees from the dirt and repositions himself to sit on his bottom with his knees pulled to his chest. From this position, he can wrap his arms around his legs and scratch his forearms as hard as he possibly can.
The sting of pain isn’t enough. He wants to flay the meat of his arms open and cause as much damage as possible. Sadly, gouging welts into ins skin with his hands isn’t as productive. There’s no way he can cut anywhere near as deep without a knife.
He looks around through blurry tears and comes to a decision. He’s already here. The Blight girl should be arriving anytime soon. If he’s lucky, she’ll be kind enough to kill him. That would be much easier than dragging himself back to the castle to do the job himself. He’s quite tired from this whole pointless endeavor, anyway. It would be good for her, too—she seems to hate his guts.
He loves a fair trade.
With a cautious serenity lifting the haze of negativity ever so slightly, he unclenches his fists and puts his hands to work, just like his Uncle likes.
It wouldn’t be fair to make the Blight girl dig his grave, too.
Grimwalker lore + Hollow mind pretty much.
Enjoy another high effort shitpost. Second rendered drawing in 24 hours? Wow. I should probably upload this a different time but nah
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Original below
I love it when people give hunter blond eyelashes it's such a nice detail
It’s a must for me when I draw him! I love some bright colored eyelashes! Plus my boy has gone through too much, he deserves some nice lashes.
(Two of these are WIPs)
Me when I realize I can draw my blorbo with my irl pet.
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I’m surprised I haven’t personally seen people do this before. So, any other artist also willing to do this? 👀
My rabbit Millie! He’s three years old and is very friendly!
been thinking about caleb haunting hunter after belos dies and, since he cant move on and never got to be a father, he takes care of hunter and tries to make sure hunter doesnt find out so he doesnt get scared
Mission failed successfully, making a rendered shitpost. (Ignoring my WIPs yet again)
Staring at my 20+ serious wips while coming up with another idea for a shitpost.
A somewhat old late redemption Hunter sketch. A big part of this Au is the effects of stress on Hunter body, especially post Thanks to Them where he has the survive what’s basically an apocalypse, trying to keep goopy Belos safe. It only gets worst post Watching and dreaming for him (it gets better later) Poor boy is losing hair at alarming rates.
Also a quick explanation for Late redemption, Hunter is raised slightly different and makes different choices which affects the course of canon, hence the name late redemption.
Oh I just had an evil thought about the Ghoul AU
Belos uses food as a main manipulation tactic for keeping Hunter "efficient and successful" on his missions. It has not been revealed where that meat comes from (if I'm not missing or forgetting anything).
I would totally believe that since petrification is admittedly rarely done if at all in the present day, Belos would feed him the meat of prisoners. Maybe he would amputate them and use those removed limbs to simultaneously feed Hunter less and still keep the meat fresh---objectively, it's being efficient with resources and punishing him for underperforming.
How fucked up would it be if (assuming that the ingredients required to create Grimwalkers are reusable and that the process is worth the time investment) Belos feeds him other Grimwalkers. What if he had tried it previously with the bodies of failed specimens? Would they have been able to tell the difference?
Sorry for the ramble, I just woke up from a nap and had a brrrrrr brain moment
Correct for the most part! The Emperor coven is already known to have secret petrifications of Wild witches so it would make sense for some of them to be executed in different ways for reasons. I don’t think he’d be bother to have limbs amputated, rather why not just kill them if he’s already fine with doing that.
Though the idea of “reformed” wild witches(aka those forced into covens) leaving the conformatorium with missing limbs and being told that’s just punishment is all sorts of dystopian. Though, I always like the idea that the most wild of witches would just “disappear” and the rest, lesser ones would be forced into covens or kept imprisoned. They all get arrested but have different fates depending on severity of their crimes.
After Hunter carvings arise, Belos has a select few witches hanged and taken to the morgue where they could be butchered by him or Hunter (a form of punishment) for food privately.
I always saw Grimwalkers being a limited product due to having very limited sources. I mean there aren’t many palistorm trees, selkidomous are rare, stonesleeper lungs where already limited at the start and might degrade over time, and the galdorstones are difficult to obtain. Realistically, I think Belos could only have a max of two grimwalkers at a time since he’s reusing parts.
Also the horror that Hunter’s body parts had been reused multiple times for past Golden Guards is too horrific to pass up. I think Belos harvests the corpses for these parts after killing them, all besides the bone since that’s too tedious for what it’s worth. So as much as he would like to make Hunter cannibalize other grimwalkers for experiments, he can’t do that unfortunately without further degrading a limited source.
(I think he would have had more sources in the past where he would have been able to do experiments on the grimwalkers until these materials eventually became unusable and he had to be more cautious on what he used his remaining materials on, much to his dismay)
So the best he could do is make Hunter eat the bones. Yes our boy eats bones, plenty of carnivorous animals do and it’s a good source of calcium. Though he can’t survive off them, thats an incredibly deficient diet. Since Hunter is actually consuming something that’s the same species as him, this is genuine cannibalism and it makes him incredibly sick.
Hunter is unaware of this of course, assuming it’s some random witch bone that tastes weirdly gross and is also a bit aged for his liking(not like he has the option to be picky)
Like I said, it makes him sick. Like he’s been poisoned sick. Through these are just bones and who’s to say that Belos doesn’t have grimwalker organs and flesh, preserved somewhere in storage. Might explore that possibility in the future.
shortened s3? flapjack is dead? what are you talking about. its the summer of 2021, do you think that hunter is going to lose his eye or not?
personal believer in kid hunter drawing fucked up things like the horror movie trope. its how he coped ☝️
Hunter giving Belos a second curse just to fuck with him: ya know I had to double it
Need a version of Hunter where he traumatizes Belos back or something
It’s out of character but it’s a funny thought, like after Hollow mind he says fuck it and commits acts of warfare, psychological and physical on any emperor coven member he sees. He’s been betrayed in the worse way possible and makes it everyone else’s problem.
Sees what Gus can do in labyrinth runners and instantly wants to learn how to replicate it! Heard that Lilith cursed Eda, where she get those scrolls from?! Wild magic and dangerous magic/potion books from Eda and the school, he must have have them!
I don’t even know the specifics on how this would work but all I know is that kid needs to go rogue and traumatize that hag back I say!
Need a version of Hunter where he traumatizes Belos back or something
It’s out of character but it’s a funny thought, like after Hollow mind he says fuck it and commits acts of warfare, psychological and physical on any emperor coven member he sees. He’s been betrayed in the worse way possible and makes it everyone else’s problem.
Sees what Gus can do in labyrinth runners and instantly wants to learn how to replicate it! Heard that Lilith cursed Eda, where she get those scrolls from?! Wild magic and dangerous magic/potion books from Eda and the school, he must have have them!
I don’t even know the specifics on how this would work but all I know is that kid needs to go rogue and traumatize that hag back I say!
I love it when Hunter is just a neurotic child. Like yes child, go on your disturbed monologues and then do mental gymnastics justifying your wellbeing.
More emotional deregulation please
This is just a random ramble but I appreciate works that explore the ugly emotions and differing mental states.
People who think Huntlow is edgy sad boy x sweet girl do not get it. Willow is a fucking menace. She's a gremlin. She's not the mom friend she goes "I can show you all the plants you shouldn't touch, and how to touch them!" She's COMPARATIVELY normal next to the rest of the group. She's a lil unhinged too. It is not sweet girl and edgy sweet boy. It is teasing gremlin and snarky depressed but very sweet guy. People who write the ship as Willow being the kind ever patient therapist do not get it. They are so weird about each other. She pulled him out of the fucking sky to join a sports team. They get up to so many shenanigans once Hunters out of the scared jittery cat phase. They're going to be absolute menaces together.
A high effort shit post based off of this post I saw a while back and tagged Hunter core.
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Well I’m definitely do some art of it now! Not the whole thing but some stand out parts because wow. The idea of Hunter giving out these morbid, awkward speeches is wonderful, much less a freaking eulogy for Belos!
"Hunter is talking to his friends and realizes Belos never said “I love you” to him but to the mask."
ooffff this makes me think how the golden guard mask is the only time belos is truly able to control hunter, the only time belos feels he is most like the idolized "caleb" he made in his head.
hunter is obedient, silent, and unwaveringly loyal in the mask. but as hunter, he is scarred, pursues wild magic and a constant reminder of how different he is from "caleb"
belos is only able to "love" the mask because that is what is closest to what he really wants with hunter: a blindly faithful witch hunter, just like how it was back in gravesfield.
Pretty much. Hunter was never loved, at most he was simply idealized because in the end he was a decent tool no different than the artificial staff he once wielded.
Not I’m imagining a free churro type of episode with Hunter and him giving a crappy eulogy…that actually makes a really good fanfic idea
The idea of Hunter going to human college and suffering is honestly so funny to me, same with Vee.
Probably also includes a lot of gawking at the ears and scars if he decided to not use a concealment stone
I think that people sometimes don't understand the kind of abuse Belos put hunter through. He didn't just make him miserable and do nothing but ever hurt him. Hunter wouldnt have been so loyal if he had. Belos manipulated him. He made him think it was his own fault if he got hurt, he deserved it because he let Belos down. Think of the way Belos spoke to him during the last episode of season 2. "Why are you hurting me? I just wanted to help you." He lies to him. He probably HAS told hunter that he loves him. Probably when he was younger he DID show him affection, and then started withholding it. So he starts feeling withdrawals for it. He gets more desperate as he's forced to fight harder and harder to get it.
And on a similar note. I don't think people realize Belos not being able to control his curse wasnt a lie? Like we see him struggle to repress it on multiple occasions. As early as when he meets Luz in the past, we see when we see his arm with the glyphs on it, the way it ripples and bulges and he's obviously in pain as he forces it down. That's what happened in hollow mind; we see the mass of palisman souls are fighting inside of him. Thats his curse. All those souls he's consumed trying to destroy him. And then Belos destroys it, which gives him for the first time full control over his fucked up body. Before that he genuinely doesn't have full control of himself
"Hunter is talking to his friends and realizes Belos never said “I love you” to him but to the mask."
ooffff this makes me think how the golden guard mask is the only time belos is truly able to control hunter, the only time belos feels he is most like the idolized "caleb" he made in his head.
hunter is obedient, silent, and unwaveringly loyal in the mask. but as hunter, he is scarred, pursues wild magic and a constant reminder of how different he is from "caleb"
belos is only able to "love" the mask because that is what is closest to what he really wants with hunter: a blindly faithful witch hunter, just like how it was back in gravesfield.
Pretty much. Hunter was never loved, at most he was simply idealized because in the end he was a decent tool no different than the artificial staff he once wielded.
Now I’m imagining a free churro type of episode with Hunter and him giving a crappy eulogy…that actually makes a really good fanfic idea
In terms of the belos saying "I love you" I feel like he said it once and exactly once, and it was the day he was sworn in as the guard but he didn't mean it to Hunter, he meant it to the mask, this was done so that Hunter would only want to be the guard
OUCH
Belos saying “I love you” but only to the symbol and Hunter mistaking it for him. How happy Hunter would be at the words while Belos doesn’t even acknowledge it.
To me, I never saw Belos saying “ I love you.” He only ever loved the idea of the Golden Guard or the perfect replacement but never actually loved it in execution if you get what I mean. He seems more like the type to say “The Titan blessed me with a nephew.” or “appreciate your presence” or some flowery crap like that.
In the drawing it was Hunter grabbing onto Belos and saying “I love you” because the poor child is desperate and exhausted while Belos stands there surprised and doesn’t hug him back.
Though now I’m imagining a BoJack Horseman ICU moment where Hunter is talking to his friends and realizes Belos never said “I love you” to him but to the mask.
Huh, I’m mildly surprised that Lilith won, Dell and Gwendolyn were in the lead for a while. Everything else is as expected though.
I’m curious, I often see people talk about Hunter having family and platonic relationships with adult characters like Darius, Raine, Camila and Eda.
Reblog or comment to state your reasons why if you want! I’m curious :3
Also Happy thanksgiving ya’ll!
I’m curious, I often see people talk about Hunter having family and platonic relationships with adult characters like Darius, Raine, Camila and Eda.
Reblog or comment to state your reasons why if you want! I’m curious :3
Also Happy thanksgiving ya’ll!
Bizarre request: hunter suffering a food service job
Meet my interpretation of the previous Golden Guard, Credence
Credence was created at age 18 and made Golden Guard at 22 where he picked up a talent for abominations and Illusions. Basically anything flashy. Rather than being isolated or directly abused by Belos, Belos put Credence on a pedestal and made sure coven members below the ranks would listen to him while also making frequent threats towards him in regards of his image. Credence was made to feel he had to be constantly making a show, proving that he’s not powerless.
Credence is a bit of a germaphobe, values personal grooming and image. He always try’s to present himself perfect but he’s a bit unprofessional. In short he’s a little shit.
To his knowledge, he has no family relation to Belos but rather a young adult who had passed the coven trails and gotten to terrible accident where wild witches attacked civilians who he heroically saved. That Belos saw his heart as pure and took him in despite his amnesia and lack in magic. (I like to think Belos raised his Golden Guards differently as tests) Where he was trained to become the Golden Guard, purest of them all.
He a bit of the “ideal” type in regards of being Golden Guard, which is where such a harsh standard was set on Hunter.
He differs from Caleb due to having a straight nose and more narrow eyes as opposed to and aquiline nose and rounder/droopy eyes. His personality also differs greatly, he acts a bit like a nicer Adrian , if Adrian was a good person. Can come off as mean or arrogant but in reality he just likes putting on a show.
Despite being Darius mentor, they are actually close in age. Credence was 23 he met Darius who was 22. Darius had been trying to climb the ranks in the Abomination coven when Credence stepped in a decided to take him under his wing. Credence was fascinated at the research Darius doing on merging flesh with abomination matter. They soon become good friends with light pining.
He revealed his face to Darius when he was 25, 3 years into their friendship.
The mentor title comes from the fact that Credence was essentially the one who advocated for Darius and taught him more combat oriented ways on abomination magic to fit in better in the Emperor’s coven. The whole mentor, student ting became a bit of a joke for them and way to fondly view each other.
Credence begins gathering data and information to go against the Emperor at age 26 due to Belos saying some stuff that contradicted the Titans will. Credence bagan questioning before finding some dirt on Belos which resulted in a confrontation.
He went “missing” when he was 30 years old and then a two year old appeared. He was one of the longer lasting Golden Guards. He would have loved Hunter. Darius was 29 and regrets never admitting his love.
I head canon within the empire’s 50 years of existence, there was a total of 9 castle Golden Guards. Credence for 8 years and Hunter for 3 years.
I definitely have an another Golden Guard planned out to make, one before Credence with some stuff involving Lilith.
Also go help the timeline make sense, Darius and Eda are 43, Lilith 44 by the time Luz shows up.
I’ve been wanting to create some Grimwalkers lately and I’m glad my ideas are coming together.
Some Hunter/TOH speculation
Woah, I just realized that Belos told Hunter to keep an eye on the owl house members in the end of Young Blood, Old Souls. You can see in Separate tides where he watches them from the ship. Lil creep lol
Since the show being cancelled and the team had limited episodes, lots of things had to changed. (They didn’t even plan for the collector to be character in the first place!)
Makes me wonder if there was going to be more Golden Guard episodes planned before we truly met Hunter. I wonder if the also means much of his characterization was changed. Was Hunter meant to be a liar of some sort or a spy? I’m pretty sure he was bluffing for the most part in separate tides which is technically him lying. Idk it would have been cool to see him stalking the owl gang. A fun play on his name. Makes me watch to watch imaginary/cut episodes about him in between separate tides and Hunting palismen.
Rip spy Hunter, your potential will be missed.
honestly one thing that confused me about toh is how hunter reacted to the revelation that he was a grimwalker. his initial reaction was realistic but later, he seems more worried about having his friends find out that he's a grimwalker than he was about.. BEING a grimwalker.
think about it. if you found out that you were a CLONE of someone else, made by your abusive uncle to fill a role, wouldn't you spiral into existential crisis? especially if you also have the information that there were a dozen other clones before you, and they were all MURDERED by your super awesome uncle?
just the idea of being a clone and being a replacement for someone else is impossible to wrap your head around. i can't imagine how i would feel if i was faced with such information. what other people would think of it would be the LEAST of my worries.
hunter however seems to readily accept the idea that he's a clone. the only time he seems to even think about caleb is during the montage in the first episode of s3 where he cuts his hair after getting a traumatic flashback. but even that is more connected to belos himself rather than the reality of being a grimwalker.
i understand that the series was cut short but i never understood why they put so much emphasis on how willow, gus and amity would react to the news of hunter being a grimwalker.
on one hand, sure, hunter is afraid of losing his new friends. it makes sense. it's his first time being truly accepted and loved by people, and he doesn't want to lose that.
but on the other hand, it seems like he came to terms with the whole grimwalker thing pretty quickly. he doesn't think of its implications, he doesn't take time to ruminate on it or come to terms with it, he just.. doesn't seem to care about it that much at all.
i feel like one of these things is a bit more important than the other.
i just feel like hunter's entire storyline had so much potential for some serious existential crisis and psychological horror even, but the creators barely scratched the surface.
(and again, i wouldn't be saying this if the creators hadn't chosen to focus on completely unnecessary characters and plotlines with the little runtime they had.)
Imagine an AU where Belos is imprisoned after Titan Luz defeats him rather than killed.
Then one day Hunter comes to visit him in his prison and he asks if Belos ever thought he could have been happy with him.
And (and I know this would be OOC for him) Belos can't bring himself to answer. He would gladly say no just to make Hunter feel bad, or maybe even say yes to manipulate him, but he actually finds himself lost for words.
Hmmm, this is outside of what you asked but I wonder if Belos did have any sort of love for Hunter.
It’s already stated that Belos created Hunter as a toddler. It’s still unconfirmed if he made any other baby grimwalkers. I’m also pretty sure it was confirmed that he experimented on grimwalkers too, so not every grimwalker was a Golden Guard. So I’m going to assume all the previous Golden Guards where older teens to adults. I wonder if he had any attachment to Hunter, I mean he was around since he was basically a baby. It’s hard to imagine not having some fondness for something like that but again this is Belos.
I see different thoughts on why Belos created the grimwalkers, some say it was Belos way of justifying himself and reliving the betrayal over and over, it was genuinely to get an ideal version of Caleb, to have a new brother to take care of him, ect. I genuinely wonder if Belos ever loved a grimwalker, maybe the early ones but that was hundreds of years ago and that’s still a maybe.
He hallucinates Caleb looking down on him, disappointed. He knows subconsciously that what he doing is wrong but he’s too far deep into his delusion that he’s saving mankind from these sinful witches.
In the end they are just tools, an uncanny replacement for the brother he murdered and never got over.
But at the same time he did express disappointment at Hunter not lasting, the collector also question why he didn’t kill Hunter when he had the chance to after eclipse lake which is odd if Hunter is so replaceable. That he genuinely believed that Hunter would stay in line and be his most loyal one.
Actually now that I think about it, Hunter never betrayed Belos explicitly. He only rebelled in small ways like studying wild magic, making friends and having a palismen which Lilith also had. Hunter only nearly got killed because he found out the truth but Belos never gave him the chance to plead for mercy or the option to come back. Who knows if Hunter would have gone back if he was given the chance, Belos could have at least attempted to manipulate him to believing what he saw was fake or something.
He says their betrayals hurt but never shows it. While I do think the grimwalkers are set for failure since the start, he might have had hope that Hunter would have lasted since this one he actually raised this one and the fact that Hunter was actually loyal and devoted to him. It hurts how much this kid loves him.
Idk if the other grimwalkers were tricked to believing Belos was their family or something but Hunter loved him like a father figure and wanted his approval so badly and Belos knew this.
To your hypothetical, imprisoned Belos Au are interesting but something you don’t see often. I think he would spend a lot of time pondering, praying and wondering what if’s. Considering there’s not much to do when you’re locked up. He allowed himself to live in ignorance and hate for so long, was it even worth it? Could have he been happy in a place like the boiling isles? What if he never killed Caleb? What if he never left the human realm? What if he never made a daring spell? Why did he make coven again? What if he gave which kind a chance…? What if he never abused his grimwalkers? It all too crazy and he’s spiraling.
Hunter visits one day despite being told it not a good idea. But how could he not? Despite being abused and hurt in unfathomable ways by him, he still loves him in sick way. He was his only family for so long, that man who kept him isolated. He still fantasizes about being fussed over and loved by Belos, still has ‘fond’ memories of him. So to Belos surprise, the Grimwalker he once killed and abused is now sitting in front of him, ready to chat.
They talk for a bit, Hunter tells him a bit about the outside word and the changes made. He isn’t aggressive or confrontational, he couldn’t be even if he wanted to. Belos stays silent, unsure of what to say. Most grimwalkers expressed hatred before death, yet this one who he actually once killed was chatting with him like it was a normal day. Hunter is terrified but he keeps chatting, pretending this is fine. Belos tries to make his own comments and redirect the conversations but can’t. He lost for words because he’s in a situation not even he foresaw. He expected rage, ridicule or even tears but not this. Hunter was talking to him like he was still family.
I imagine Hunter, in his ill mind, still thinking of Belos as family. Still someone he wants to love despite everything. That he often thinks of him even on good days.
Soon Hunter asks that question if Belos could have ever been happy with him, if he ever loved him. Hunter believes that answer is no, he was already marked for the slaughter with that sigil, a dead man walking. Even if he wants that answer so badly to be yes.
And Belos can’t answer because he’s already thought of this. Could he have been happy with Hunter? Was he fond of Hunter? Was Hunter just a replacement? Was he a good replacement? Could he have loved him outside of being a replacement? Was there any love for the child he raised?
He could say no and hurt Hunter, the ‘love’ was always conditional, he was just a tool, was meant to be dead, ect. (But that might drive Hunter away and Belos is lonely)
He could say yes and give Hunter false hope, manipulate him, make him take pity, revive that old loyalty, ect. (He could get caught in this monitored state and get his only loyal companion ripped away)
But he can’t answer because he doesn’t know. It’s been so long since he had loved. He hated for far too long, he got rid of any chance to love. Was it possible to be happy with Hunter? Just him being Hunter and not some tool or replacement?
Idk this concept is good, I genuinely wonder what would have happened if Belos did actually love Hunter. I don’t think he does or ever did, he was just upset that his tools broke faster than he thought it would but it’s an interesting thought. I think if Belos and Hunter did start to bond in this Au, everything would be bittersweet in the worse ways.