You Leave Your Home Behind, But You Take Your Ghosts With You. Don't You See The Problem? How The Story

I don't think I've ever posted this, but this comic I've been commissioned rotates in my head every so often

still feeling emo about grimwalkers

is he a witch hunter or hunter...the witch? Was every grimwalker named Hunter?

the first chapter of the fic i have been thinkin ab since watching & dreaming aired is nearly finished and ready to post but i keep fumbling when it comes to a name. this never happens usually the name comes first but this!!!!! this!!!!

ft. a note that i did consider lyrics from but were just good vibes

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.

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 ....

i am putting together the pieces. i am hurting. the pieces are there, bc it's the same look. it's the same smile.

it's always, in his story, about sacrifice. it's about giving yourself up to a cause bigger than you, what you have been meant for, made for? as both solider and grimwalker; to know the hurt you go through is for the greater good. to know, weighted and assured and certain, that you are making the right decision, no matter the cost.

because nothing is greater than giving everything you have for the people you love. for the opportunity to help them, save them.

it's bravery in the face of your fear. it's about doing what you think is best no matter the consequences. it's a similar feeling - and yet they are totally different, coming from entirely separate places.

it's the same expression but the based emotions are different, the intentions are different, because hunter is different.

and the story, for him, here – has finally, finally, changed.

Here is the problem: Hunter doesn’t know what to do with his hands.

He wouldn’t even know what to do with his hands.

that first & last line parallel ... i feel it in my blood like caffeine.

it's that good ouroboros lore, it's the feeling that your decisions have already been pre-made, far before you, beyond you? how the story is already set, long before you'd ever even taken a breath?

if your narrative isn't an endless loop, doing spirals around spirals until the entire thing a a parallel of itself, a parable of it's own telling, what're you even doing, u know?

it's giving 'what do you want and how much is it gonna cost me' sibling energy and it brings me so much joy

love writing belos even though there is such a difficulty to it? the haughtiness of it. the melodrama. the ever-constant feeling of everything else being inferior to him. the carefulness of it at the same time, like a craft, a honed weapon.

there is such a calm terror to his tone? he doesn't stress his words often, but the intensity is there throughout. he speaks like a preacher, always on the side that knows more, knows better. each word is specially chosen for the most precise of messages, vague and specific and layered alike. never a mistake, always a parable.

even his outbursts only come through expressing more intense emotion, and there comes the stress of things, syllables sharper and tone more volatile, hard in it's setness; like a story that cannot be moved from it's predestined ending. he's so removed from his emotions, from his humanity, that you can literally pick it apart in his speech and speaking patterns.

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.