#and bellum was surprised at linebeck not dying and saw enough of his memories and mental state (and got stabbed by him) so hes kinda like

[waywardsalt]

im gonna elaborate on bellum being a friend a lil more bc im thinking abt it and i like it (drawing coming. at some point)

i already go into post-phantom hourglass stuff specifically with the idea that the whole bellumbeck thing, while obviously intensely uncomfortable and traumatic, managed to clear some things up for linebeck and actually ended up being the final nail in the coffin for a lot of things he’d been struggling with. plus i go with the idea that he has some kind of internal confrontation with bellum during the whole thing, so theyre actually a bit familiar with each other by the time that whole thing is over

with post-ph specifically, bellum survives and is sealed away in the phantom sword (i mean. he turned into sand and that sand was absorbed by the phantom sword. i think of it as smth like. he cant really be killed just sealed away) and as punishment for the, uh, *checks notes* murder and kidnapping and abduction and manipulation and likely attempted genocide and very likely war crimes he is sent by oshus into the world of the great sea, extremely weak (as a result of being sealed away) and essentially forced to help link n linebeck (hes basically mega-grounded idk) and begrudgingly has to use his little human form half of the time

he and linebeck kind of understand each other after the whole bellumbeck thing and after an (obviously) rough patch (mostly with linebeck being paranoid around him) they end up trusting each other to the point where they’re just friends. bellum is linebecks pet evil demon squid. hes a member of the crew. one of the boys. not allowed to cook because he prefers live meat over seasonings in general.

i enjoy the idea of bellum having your general sort of… learning to actually appreciate life instead of approaching it with the attitude to either consume it or eradicate it arc. mucking around with stupid little mortals arc. making actual friends and not just being a violent warmonger arc. trying something outside of fulfilling what he assumed he was made to be good at and finding some new kind of purpose arc. hes fun as a chaotic and malicious villain but i like to build off of that and i like this direction. funneling that violent chaos into him letting linebeck throw him like a dodgeball at something he wants to kill

he still gets his usual scrappy and opportunistic moments and all of that but it is a lot of fun to just take a step out of that and just imagine him n linebeck working past the initial hostility and discomfort and being able to enjoy each other enough to the point where bellum can drape himself around linebecks neck like a pet snake

link and bellum probably never become close friends tho. doesnt help that bellum’s human form lets him convincingly pass as a family member of link’s

thinking about linebeck and bellum being friends or smth hang on. small bellum wrapped around linebeck’s neck like hes a snake or smth