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symphonic-concert · 2 years ago

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>.> (hunter and blight twins sibling relationship in darius blight au? thoughts?) <.<

i mentioned some of these headcanons in the previous two rambles but i'll take this chance to put the stuff together and maybe elaborate further on some stuff plus a few new headcanons:

hunter and the twins in general:

-they're a little wary of him at first. they don't have the personal baggage with him that amity did. it's more like, just normal needing to adjust to a new step-sibling. like, their family life was already so weird and then stuff got upended with a divorce and their dad's personality basically pulling a positive 180. and then, just as they were starting to get used to that, there is just this guy and his SON who is so awkward and maladjusted just being thrust into their lives. like they'd talked before in a "this is my dad's boyfriend's kid" context but having to have him there as their *brother* all of a sudden is just A Lot (it's like when you introduce a new cat into ur household and you gotta put it in the bathroom so the other cats can smell it through the door lol)

-there's no big moment that makes them click and become friends, more just them slowly all warming up to one another the longer they're forced to be in each other's presence

-hunter is a little on edge around them early on cuz he can tell they haven't really accepted him yet. but also he kinda looks to them as role models and examples of how he should act in this new family structure. bc his main two responses to unfamiliar circumstances are either "look to SOME kind of authority figure for guidance" or "completely withdraw and refuse all help", and this is a situation that calls more for the first reaction. ed and em barely know anything more than him about healthy families but his only other option (aside from their dads, but he's looking for peers to emulate) is amity. so, twins it is.

-he also sometimes clings to them in social/school situations, if none of his flyer derby friends are available

-when the twins finally start to accept hunter as their brother, they start affectionately teasing and pranking him like they do to amity. hunter doesn't understand this At All and is like "oh no, i thought we were doing so well but now they hate me???" and the twins are like "huh, wonder why he's acting even weirder and more nervous than usual. probably just shy about being accepted as our brother now." they all figure it out eventually.

-i WOULD say it gets fixed after hunter opens up about the twins "hating" him to amity or one of his dads and asks for advice. or that he'd at least be able to simply ask the twins what their problem is. but no, he wouldn't be at that point yet, still partially convinced he needs to handle his problems alone, or that whoever he told would hate him too, or that the twins would be pissed at him for not figuring out why they hate him for himself (darius had been helping him unlearn some of that and he's prolly even in therapy but this stuff takes a long time to unlearn). hunter tries to figure it out on his own before eventually breaking and either A: apologizing profusely to them and begging them not to hate him B: lashing out angrily. it ends up okay in the end, though

-as he gets more comfortable with things, hunter doesn't need to cling to the twins anymore. but he still hangs out with them cuz by then he genuinely just likes them as people

-someone at school once referred to him as "the third blight triplet" as a dig at him hanging around his siblings so much. but he wasn't offended, he was actually super happy and flattered about being included with those two.

-he once briefly considered dyeing his hair green to match theirs but after thinking about it, he firmly decided against it. because something like hair would end up feeling less like the intended "matching to show you're a part of the group, like when some best friends all have matching necklaces, or when a team has matching uniforms" and more like he'd be making himself into a copy of them. which would not be good for any of their emotional wellbeing.

-i mentioned that i think the twins would eventually stop getting into so much trouble once they realize they don't have the same strict rules to rebel against and don't need to act out to get attention. but sometime before that but after they befriend hunter, they invite him to go cause mischief with them. a bit because he's their friend now and that's their idea of having fun with friends, a bit because they think some rebellion would be healthy for hunter

-hunter actually agrees. a little bit from peer pressure, sure. but also a part of him kinda needs to rebel, after being so controlled by belos his whole life. and there's also this unhealthy part of him that's unnerved by how non-abusive his new family is and wants to push limits until someone finally snaps (he can't yet fully accept that no matter what he does, no one is gonna snap and hurt him)

-it's something pretty tame by the twins' standards. like, adding some graffiti to an already heavily graffitied alleyway or something. but hunter is having such an adrenaline rush. the twins feel proud of themselves for helping their high-strung brother let loose

-but then they get home and the reality of what they did fully sets in for hunter and he starts Freaking The Fuck Out and finds the nearest dad and confesses and starts profusely apologizing and begging for forgiveness (he accidentally rats the twins out in the process but it's fine because their dads are too busy focusing on calming down hunter to even consider punishing them. still though, they put that down as a second reason to not rope hunter into any more Shenanigans any time soon)

-the twins do decide that they still do need to teach him how to rebel, though. they just decide to stick to things that ARE allowed at home but weren't allowed in the emperor's coven. they egg him on into doing things like taking a nap or helping himself to snacks in between meals or putting off his homework and chores til after dinner instead of doing them as soon as he gets home

-his presence destabilizes the pre-established "the twins are A Unit (that their other sibling is not a part of)" dynamic that was going on with the twins and amity, and indirectly leads both emira and edric to develop closer individual relationships with amity. like, the twins were kinda already beginning to forge their own identities, and they had been getting closer with amity, but his presence accelerated that.

-before any of this, the twins had never really had any close friendships, outside of each other. like, they've had casual friends and romantic flings but no one they could truly be vulnerable around. and almost all of their friends were friends with *both of them as a unit* rather than with them as individuals. again, they were moving towards having their own identities and their own relationships, but their new family situation helped speed up the breaking down of their codependency, and emira and edric start trying to make some close friends of their own, outside of the family

hunter and edric:

-these two are absolute besties

-hunter claims to be the responsible one out of the pair but edric has had to hold hunter back from doing dumbass shit almost as many times as hunter has had to hold back edric. sometimes they balance each other out, other times they just amplify each other's very different flavours of stupidity.

-them fully being besties starts after edric and emira make it their mission to get hunter to break as many belos-rules as possible. edric hears that hunter was forbidden from studying or talking about wild magic. so he decides to get hunter talking about wild magic. and hunter starts infodumping and then apologizes and edric encourages him to continue. at first it's just to encourage rulebreaking but edric very quickly gets invested in what hunter's saying, as he has an interest in wild magic himself

-and something hunter says gets edric talking like "oh that reminds me of this beastkeeping principle" or "that's kinda like this lesson eda gave me" and he goes off on his own infodump

-which reminds hunter of something else he read. and the cycle of them just taking turns infodumping continues for HOURS. it only stops because of some outside factor like it being time for dinner

-from then on, these two just schedule time together to infodump at each other or to study their mutual interests together

-they've invited emira to these sessions before, but she inevitably gets bored after the first 20 minutes, so it's just brother time (amity has gotten involved once or twice, but usually she's not got much interest in joining them)

-edric starts bringing hunter along to his potions-and-wild-magic lessons with eda

-edric is a big people-person and hunter has been isolated and ignored for most of his life so having a best friend be right across the hallway is good for both of them (i mean, edric already had emira as a best friend living with him, but having more than just her is good for him)

-one might worry that edric would just go from being dependent on emira to being dependent on emira *and hunter* but. that doesn't happen. it instead teaches him how to be more independent. his time alone with hunter combined with his time studying beastkeeping and potions in canon show him that "hey, i can do things without emira and still be okay" which later brings the conclusion "i can probably do things without *anyone* and still be okay." he's still very extroverted and prefers not to be alone too much, but being alone is no longer his biggest fear.

-it is important to note that edric doesn't stop spending time with emira or replace her with hunter or anything. he's still got a very special friendship/sibling bond with her. but now he's spending time with her (sometimes alone, sometimes with hunter or amity or their dads, sometimes in social settings with friends) because he genuinely enjoys her company, rather than because he's scared to be alone and needs her.

-at some point it dawns on edric how hunter hardly ever got to act like a child, so he makes it a goal to fix this and gets amity and emira involved too. they make a plan to get together every so often to introduce hunter to things like snowball fights and pillow forts and cartoons on the crystal ball. the og blight siblings (but especially amity) realize that they were forced to grow out of that stuff too early by their parents, so these fun little sibling hangouts are good for all four of them

hunter and emira:

-emira is quick to be nice to him (he is sad and scared and sickly and she is a healer and has Eldest Sister Syndrome) but is slower than the others to fully Trust him (she is habitually cautious on amity and edric's behalf and he's a new person and (though he already proved he was 100% not loyal to the emperor/not Like That anymore) she heard how he treated amity at eclipse lake)

-in those early days when hunter is kinda clinging to the twins for guidance, he clings harder to emira than to edric, because she acts just a little bit more sure of herself that edric

-in some ways this endears him to her and gets her to trust him faster.

-but it also kinda bothers her because having ONE brother clinging to her all the time already felt suffocating, she doesn't know how she'll deal with a second one. he at least doesn't bring the same "being considered a matched pair" baggage that edric did, but still.

-hunter stops clinging to her (and edric) as he gets more comfortable and less nervous about life. and edric is no longer glued to her side almost 24/7 when they're at home, because now he's got a brother to hang out with (or sometimes he hangs out with amity because, as mentioned many paragraphs ago, he and emira have both forged their own close relationships with amity)

-emira's really relieved to have some alone time to figure herself out, and to not have the constant low-level stress of people needing her all of the time

-but she is also Afraid. hunter doesn't need her for guidance anymore. edric doesn't need her constant company anymore. even amity doesn't need emira to protect and take care of her anymore (because now there are actual adults to run to). she worries that, now that no one *needs* her, no one will *want* her anymore.

-her fears prove unfounded as nobody stops hanging out with her but she's still a little worried. but she tries to push those feelings down/hide them. but edric notices something's up because they've spent 16+ years together so he can recognize when she's hiding something. so she opens up to him and he reassures her that he still likes her (in a way, moreso now than ever) now that he isn't so dependent on her, and he's always happy to spend time with her. there is probably a little bit of crying and/or hugging involved. with edric's encouragement, she also opens up to amity and hunter about it and they also reassure her.

-emira and her siblings (but especially her and edric) have a big 4-way talk about what they all need, and how to make each other feel included but not suffocated. surprisingly healthy and responsible communication between all of them.

-it's good for her, to have more time alone without any of her siblings. sometimes she just enjoys the quiet or figures herself out and explores her own interests. sometimes she uses it to make friends outside the family, to befriend them as *just emira*, rather than as emira-and-edric or as emira-and-edric-and-hunter

-hunter (grimwalker) and emira (twin) bond over feeling like a copy of somebody else. edric can kinda also relate but he's not as distressed about it as emira and hunter are

-hunter and emira (and occasionally edric) like to hang out by putting on skin care face masks (hunter learned to enjoy them from darius long before he became a blight) and complain about life or commiserate about their emotional Issues. or just watch low-budget movies and mock them relentlessly

-but a lot of their friendship, when no one else is there to bring the energy, is just kind of a quiet deal. hanging out in the same room doing different things, like cats do. or doing little favours for one another. like, hunter will braid emira's hair and emira will heal the scrapes and bruises hunter got from flyer derby practice

-emira is the first family member that hunter is comfortable receiving physical affection from (aside from dadrius, who earned that honour way back when their family was just himself and hunter). i just Feel It In My Heart

bonus hunter and amity headcanon:

-they like to go to the library together. for amity, it's sometimes to do her job, sometimes just to read. for hunter, it's to be able to finally read all he wants about wild magic without having to be secretive about it. sometimes amity will help him get books from the forbidden stacks (after asking for permission from the head librarian- she learned her lesson from that one time with luz.) eventually, she trusts him enough to let him into her secret hideout. he's allowed to use it anytime he needs to, on the conditions that he doesn't snoop through her personal belongings, and that he'll get out if she needs to use it to be alone

#darius blight au #toh #so cute!!!

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