#good uncle emperor belos

[oyeedraw-arts]

Dumb toh finale reaction comic featuring tattoo au. Mildish spoilers for that one scene with Belos at the end.

[purplequay]

fluff for yall before you get fucking demolished by the new ep <3

[deercoven]

hunter, jokingly: i crown you king... no... emperor belos :)

[unfried-mouth-wheat]

[Image ID: A traditional sketch of Belos and Hunter from The Owl House. Belos is an old man with long hair, a broken nose, shirt pointed ears, and a scar cutting across his face, dressed in decorated robes and cloaks. Hunter is a teen boy with short hair with a long forelock, a hooked nose, a scar on his left cheek, and long pointed ears, dressed in a tunic, a vest, and gloves. Belos stands to the left of Hunter, his hand on Hunter’s right shoulder. Hunter is looking up at Belos, holding a book close to his chest. Belos is saying “My nephew isn’t autistic, this is normal behavior.” Meanwhile, there’s an arrow pointing to his head that reads “also autistic”. End ID]

[aroacemisha]

Some RLAU memes, for different points in the timeline.

[crossroadsofchaos]

Retired Leaders AU Info Masterpost

Figured I'd compile basic info about this AU into one big post.

----

THE BASICS:

It's a "Good Uncle" kind of AU, where Belos is a better person. He actually tried to unite the realms, because he believed it would be beneficial for both, but it was doomed from the start and went horribly wrong. He has publicly admitted to and apologized for his wrongdoings and resigned from his position, and the Coven System was abolished. His family occupied leadership positions within his Coven and also left those roles behind, hence the AU's title.

I refer to the family as the Wolf Fam. It consists of Belos, Steven, Hunter and Kiki, along with their palismen. They all live together in a newly built house.

--

THE CHARACTERS:

This isn't a list of all characters that exist, just the Wolf Fam and a handful of others, mostly OCs.

Belos Wittebane (he/him; mid 410s): Former Lord of the Boiling Isles; now a palisman carver; husband of Steven.

Steven Bellamy (he/him; 53 y/o): Husband of Belos; former Head of the Lord's Coven; now a P.E. teacher at Hexside.

Hunter Wittebane (he/him; 17 y/o): Nephew of Belos, raised by him and Steven; former Golden Guard; now mainly focused on pursuing his interest in engineering and tech.

Kikimora Volk (she/her; mid 20s): A sort of adopted daughter to Belos and Steven and adopted sister to Hunter; former Secretary; now works at a history museum.

Crescent (they/them): A floating snow leopard palisman belonging to Belos.

Ash (he/him, they/them): A dark gray wolf palisman belonging to Steven.

Waffles (she/her, they/them): A winged red wolf palisman belonging to Hunter.

Grusha (she/her): A spotted hyena palisman belonging to Kiki.

Jasper Tholomule (he/him; 44 y/o): Younger half-brother of Steven; father of Matt; husband of Cass.

Cassidy "Cass" Tholomule (they/them, she/her; 44 y/o): Spouse of Jasper; stepparent of Matt.

Matthew "Matt" Tholomule (he/him; 13 y/o): Biological son of Jasper and stepson of Cass; nephew of Steven.

Leslie Bellamy (she/her; 80s): Mother of Steven and Jasper; grandmother of Matt; wife of Opal.

Opal Bellamy (she/her; 80s): Wife of Leslie; stepmother of Steven and biological mother of Jasper; grandmother of Matt.

Ren Kanemaru (they/them; 53 y/o): Steven's childhood friend; former scout.

Valerie "Val" Durand (she/her; 54 y/o): Best friend of Steven and Ren, who they met after joining the Lord's Coven; former scout.

Petra Barany (she/her; mid 20s): Best friend and former assistant of Kiki.

That's about enough I think, I won't be including the rest here. One thing to note is that the Collector doesn't exist in this version.

And you may have also noticed that "Steve" is a little different. I created this version back when we only had one scene with Steve and had no idea he was going to get a face reveal and more canon info, and I just chose not to change the name after that happened. So Steve technically exists, but it's not canon Steve. They do have some similarities though.

--

THE STORY:

Back in the 1600s, Philip did not kill Caleb, and reluctantly gave the Boiling Isles a chance. Though resisting it at every turn, he ultimately fell in love with it. He developed the belief that uniting the two realms would be beneficial for both, combining the less dangerous climate of Earth with the more open and progressive culture of the Isles. After Caleb died in an accident during the search for one of the ingredients for the portal door, Philip only became more committed to the idea.

He began to do extensive research into magic, digging for as much information as he could find, which included looking into lost and forbidden magic. The latter is how he discovered both Grimwalkers and a way to extend one's life by consuming palismen. As he formed a coherent plan for how to enact his goal, he began trying out his messaging on small groups of witches to see what works, as well as testing out Coven sigils on the earliest ones until they worked as intended. He also took the name Belos and began to wear a mask.

Slightly over 50 years ago he took power as the Lord of the Boiling Isles, becoming the chief religious figure and a sort of constitutional monarch, with his fourth Grimwalker nephew, Anthony, by his side as the Golden Guard. There was an elected government responsible for things like deciding on budgets and passing legislation unrelated to the Coven System, however Belos had ultimate authority and could override any decision. He largely stayed out of their affairs unless he thought what they were doing would undermine his ultimate goal.

However, his plan to unite the realms was doomed from the start. When he attempted to do it on the Day of Unity, it went horribly wrong and shattered his hopes. The Unification Spell didn't work and was simply draining people of magic. It ended abruptly once Belos's staff, through which the spell was channeled, exploded. He, Hunter and the Hexsquad barely escaped the blast by leaving through the portal door. They ended up stuck in the Human Realm for a time, before finding the same way back as they did in canon.

Belos publicly admitted that he had lied about speaking to the Titan, and that the plan to unite the realms was his own doomed idea. He apologized and resigned, with Steven, Hunter and Kiki following him. The Coven System was abolished, and the Isles became more of an actual democracy, without a single individual with ultimate authority being able to override the decisions of the elected government, which also became more transparent.

Belos helped with restoration efforts where damage had been caused on the Day of Unity, and he later took up palisman carving and caring for palismen in general to make up for consuming them to extend his own life. He also released many palismen souls that were previously trapped inside him, and is now aging at a more regular pace. Though some remain, in part because they have fused with his curse - he was cursed long ago, in a similar way to Eda, and his curse is a wolfcat. Both conditions have physically affected him, giving him scars, catlike pupils, sharp fangs, ability to purr, and making him much bigger than he was originally.

--

EXTRA:

spirituality on the Isles

Belos didn't invent a religion from scratch, but rather built on and expanded - or, to put it more harshly, exploited - already existing spiritual beliefs related to the Titan in order to achieve his goal of uniting the realms.

Before Belos, the Titan was rarely (if ever) viewed as a higher authority who, through messengers, gave witches rules to live by. He was mainly seen and respected as the origin of the Isles and all life on it. People thanked him for their existence, their magic, their harvests, etc. and payed tribute to him, but that was largely it. The prevalence of spirituality/religion has gone down over time.

Belos's rise to power with the claim of him being "the Titan's messenger" caused a resurgence of spirituality/religiosity, with him being seen as the authority on the matter by his followers. It has declined again once it was revealed that he hadn't actually spoken to the Titan.

glyphs

They were in frequent use by ancient witches, in part due to them having weaker natural magic and having to rely more on magical tools than modern witches. Over time, they fell out of common use and were limited to specific spiritual/religious rituals, and then only became more rare over time.

Disabled witches who had weak or no natural magic would simply rely on their staffs, due to which they wouldn't rediscover glyphs out of necessity. On top of that, when knowledge of glyphs was still more common, it may have been taboo to use them for non-spiritual/religious purposes.

Covens

There have been a number of different Coven systems throughout history. Some Covens were based around familial ties, some were based around what kinds of magic people specialized in, some were simply regional, etc. Though sigils had not been used before, and it was possible to move between Covens, with the level of difficulty depending on the type of Covens in question. Whether it was legal to be Covenless may have varied as well, with it being illegal in some places at some points in time. When Belos rose to power, he chose to use the specialization-based model of Covens to sort people into.

With Belos's system gone, the concept of Covens wasn't completely abandoned, but rather became non-official and based on voluntary participation, as opposed to a legally mandated system that also restricted what types of magic people could use.

the structure of Belos's government

As mentioned previously, it was a sort of constitutional monarchy. Belos was the Lord of the Boiling Isles, it's main religious figure and ultimate authority, but there was an elected government, responsible for things like budgets and passing legislation. Belos could override any decision they made.

The Head Witches of the main nine Covens were originally appointed by Belos alone, but after Terra turned out to be a disastrous choice and had to be pushed out, he handed the appointment process over to the elected government, and would now simply confirm or deny their appointments. Those officials could be bribed, though, to appoint someone who shouldn't necessarily hold a position of power, like Adrian. Belos tried to keep an eye on such issues - or more so tasked others with doing so, but some still slipped through.

The Lord's Coven was a separate branch of government, entirely under Belos's control, though he tended to be somewhat reclusive, so day-to-day coordination and such was largely handled by other high-ranking members of the Coven.

The top leadership originally consisted of three positions: the Lord (Belos), the Secretary (first Winston, later Kiki) and the Golden Guard (first Anthony, later Hunter). The third position was later split into two, the Golden Guard and the Head of the Lord's Coven (first Lilith, later Steven), with the latter taking on some of the former's responsibilities, which allowed Belos to keep Hunter in the castle more for his safety.

The Lord's Coven was the Isles' military, and they performed other tasks and missions for Belos as well, such as finding abandoned palismen for him to consume as "medicine" - something he agreed was unfortunate, and claimed he was looking for an alternative to - and searching for Titan's Blood. Regular law enforcement was typically done by members of other Covens, though some scouts, mostly newer ones, could get the assignment. Usually, experienced scouts were only brought in for emergencies, or to deal with particularly powerful criminals.

the basilisks

The basilisks were not tortured and were generally treated better than in canon, but they were made to do things they didn't like, and were still kept in captivity, in part out of concern that they'd start attacking people if released out in the wild, and they were unhappy with their lives, so they still escaped.

The basilisk that attacked the schools in season 1 had always had behavior problems, possibly a combination of being the earliest and thus least correctly created, as well as being mishandled by those responsible for their care. They have since been treated, and are no longer dangerous.

Vee had complicated feelings about Belos, but was not terrified of him when she saw him in the Human Realm, especially once he made it clear he had no intention of forcing her to return to captivity.

[beejbsbswiwisnsnwwk]

Good Belos idea, when Hunter was about 6 or 7, he and belos would make little stories together. Hunter would ramble about anything he could think of, and belos would right it down and turn it into a story with a genuine plot. When they finished writing the book, belos would read it to Hunter as a bedtime story

[akisa-acl]

I made a drawing of Belos possessed by the collector who is inside my AU, I'm making a comic about this idea I had, if you want go see it on my instagram, I hope to upload it here too

https://instagram.com/akisa_acl?igshid=ZDdkNTZiNTM=

[alithetiredartist]

Post canon boiling isles politics fights are probably so funny. Like “NO THIS TEENAGERS IS EVIL” “NO THEY WERE THE GOOD ONES” whatever the boiling isles equivalent to thanksgiving is probably like hell

[jessiedoodles01]

I did a quick drawing of good uncle belos and hunter, is it okay to draw hunter without his scars?

[sepublic]

Unlocking the Sad Backstory

I find it interesting how a lot of arcs in TOH have this general pattern of…

Character hurts others -> Character is unhappy, reconsiders their harm -> Character begins to do better -> Character’s sad backstory that re-contextualizes them is unlocked

And it applies even to characters that aren’t exactly villains or even antagonists, but for whom hurting someone nevertheless is a major premise! So to look at examples;

Amity is Willow and Luz’s bully, but we see how she’s unfairly manipulated by Lilith and is ashamed because of it. Luz reaching out to her makes Amity reconsider, she undoes the binding oath she placed on Luz. Then we see Amity’s siblings and how both parties are toxic to one another, and then we get a flashback confirming her parents are abusive. In regards to Willow specifically, Amity acknowledges she’s done harm to Willow in burning her memories, and works to fix them with Luz before we get this context.

Emira and Edric are also toxic to Amity, but in their next appearance they’re remorseful about what they’ve done to Amity, they’re working to make it up to their baby sister. And while they’re not present in the aforementioned flashback, their parents being confirmed as abusive tells you everything you need to know about them.

Lilith has a petty rivalry with Eda, but we see how much she cares and keeps breaking the law to look the other way, too. Then we see how she’s pressured by the Emperor’s Coven, and even threatened by Belos, before she captures Eda. We learn of her curse, but again; We see Lilith next and it’s reiterated that she believes this will cure Eda, we remember wanting to be kinder happened after cursing Eda. We see Lilith attempt to free Eda, and then we get the backstory about how the curse was mostly an accident. We get more info later on how Gwen’s neglect contributed to Lilith’s inferiority complex.

Hunter is the Golden Guard, he threatens to boil Luz, Eda, and King to death and wants the Selkidomus dead, but won’t even do it himself. He kidnaps Palismen to feed to Belos. But then later we see how he’s unhappy over his situation, how he feels like his uncle won’t let him help. Hunter begins to show consideration towards Flapjack and later Luz when he reveals his name, and then we get context as to how physically abusive Belos is, and where that scar came from. Flapjack returns and Hunter spares him.

Alador is either a controlling abuser to Amity, or a neglectful one. But he does hold his wife accountable when she tries to betray their daughter by going back on her end of the deal, and later shows genuine love for Amity when Alador isn’t more concerned about the family’s socioeconomic status. Amity admits how unhappy she is, Alador realizes he truly is hurting his daughter, and promises to talk with his wife over this. We later see him try, and then we see that Alador is also abused, and it’s implied his neglect comes from overworking himself in exchange for his children being spared the same.

Boscha is a bully, through and through. She torments everyone for purely petty reasons. But she also admits to feeling similar pressure as Willow, and then confesses to being lonely without Amity, Skara, Amelia, or Cat. Amity acknowledges that Boscha is lonely, but points out that Boscha needs to respect her for who she is. Boscha listens, and helps stop Kikimora. In the credits we see fully that she really was a miserable, scared child being manipulated by a grown adult.

The Collector is aiding Belos’ genocide, and (seemingly) knowingly. But they’re also fretful over the nature of their ‘friendship’ and are left betrayed and hurt. They meet King, and after being freed by him, we see how they try to be a good friend to King and are slowly listening to him bit by bit, which is why King vouches for rehabilitation over imprisonment. The Collector is already against harm to a certain point, defying what the Archivists mandate. And then we learn that they were unjustly imprisoned by the Titan, and didn’t even know about death in their childish, simplistic view of the world, seeing people as only broken and unmoving yet capable of being fixed at any time, if all the parts are there.

Gwen makes Eda feel ashamed of her curse, she neglects Lilith. But she does care for at least one daughter, and is horrified when she realizes the harm her antivaxxer actions have done. Gwen makes things up not only to Eda, but Lilith especially in taking her back home, even as Gwen explains during her reconciliation that she honestly saw Lilith as self-sufficient. And then a few episodes later, we find out her husband was mauled and left disabled by the curse, unable to continue his life’s work. And we get even more context for Gwen’s obsession in curing her daughter of the condition that gave her so much guilt.

Camila made Luz feel unwanted at home, going along with the camp, and her outburst later on was the wrong call; But she’s not punished for it, that’s not necessary. Instead she apologizes, we see Camila worry about the camp taking away Luz’s passion by salvaging her daughter’s weirdness for her, we see her be accommodating to Luz and her friends when she returns, having reflected in that time, and offering support. And then we learn that Camila was just like Luz, she fit in to survive, and she lost Manny, someone she needed to stand up for herself.

Bump is introduced as a principal willing to dissect Luz, but he also appreciates Willow’s magic and vouches for her to her parents. We see that he’s actually open-minded and cares about his students, he lets Eda enroll Luz on the fair grounds that Eda clear her own messes; Bump insists on following the coven system and places students into the detention track, but when those kids save the day, Bump owns up to a mistake he clearly didn’t like anyhow and changes things. And then we see his past, and how he’s been improving things this whole time, challenging Faust and looking out for Eda!

Even Steve technically qualifies; He’s a covenscout, he’s a jerk who knocks over someone else’s books to express his cop enthusiasm. But Steve forgives Skara for punching him in the face because he kidnapped her, and then admits to Hunter that what they’ve done is wrong, and he’s now reconsidering. Afterwards Steve has his introspective interactions with King, and then we see his face; Implying (and eventually confirmed by Dana) that he is the older brother that Mattholomule spoke of, who gave him the map to the Looking Glass Ruins that Adrian, in the previous episode, admitted he couldn’t find; Because Steve gave away the map to make his kid brother happy.

Likewise, I want to discuss two characters who don’t exactly fit this sequence, and don’t mature or get better, not of their own volition for one:

Kikimora is Belos’ assistant, she’s complicit in his executions. She tries to murder Hunter out of nothing but jealousy, helps bring Raine to Terra, goes after everyone at the Knee, etc. But then we see Kikimora is miserable because of her unsympathetic mother, who is probably abusive; She has no consideration that her daughter is obligated to their dictator, who demonstrated on live television that he’ll execute even his own high-ranking officials if they don’t go along with him, and Kikimora was there in-person. And is now expected to help with a major event involving other high-ranking officials and the dictator himself.

So we get Kikimora hurting people, being unhappy, and having a sad backstory; But we don’t have Kikimora reconsider the harm she’s doing. She accepts Luz’s help for her own sake, and instead of empathizing with Luz as a result, Kikimora betrays her when she sees a potential promotion. Kikimora is let down, we see later that she’s been demoted to the Crate Coven.

But then she attempts to bring Hunter to Belos, and it’s revealed later that she knows what happens to Grimwalkers like him, and has known about the genocide and still went along out of obsessive devotion. Despite this, Kikimora does not warrant Belos’ callousness, it’s not triumphant it’s just cruel because he was going to kill her just for being a demon, villain or saint it didn’t matter. So Kikimora is given her revenge when she helps free the Collector, who splatters Belos, an injury that leads to his eventual death, and stops the draining spell, saving Kikimora’s own life in the process!

At which point, you think she’d learn, right? But instead Kikimora does the exact same thing as Belos, which Luz calls out, despite having had her pedestal shattered because Kikimora doesn’t care about the harm to others, only herself. And so she can only temporarily be an ally, before going back to being an antagonist; The system is fine if she’s in charge, she doesn’t learn anything from what happened. And Kikimora is captured by rebelling students, and forced into community service four years later.

There’s also Belos, whom… Okay do I even need to explain??? We learn that he is upset by his brother’s death and misses him, too. And he does feel guilt about murdering Caleb and even the Grimwalkers, they weren’t purely replaceable in his eyes! But he never reconsiders his harm, he keeps repeating it, he never changes. Belos doesn’t even acknowledge that he’s doing witches and demons wrong. And while we do get his backstory, it’s clear from his priorities, the details, and Masha and the Titan’s own takeaways that he fully chose his misery, and that his backstory is not so sad with this in mind.

I wonder if the takeaway is that these characters can’t truly get better because in the end, they won’t acknowledge the harm they’ve done; They won’t admit it, they won’t do anything about it. And so they can only be counted on to care about making themselves feel better, but that’s it. And so on a pragmatic level, co-existence has to be forced.

Because with Kikimora, she’s made to do community service, and with prisons being abolished for hospitals, she’s likely on house arrest because the alternative is execution and no state should have that power. And with Belos, he proved himself too dangerous, he was well past his lifespan and dying anyway, and they were not going to sacrifice even a single, unwilling Palisman to keep Belos alive.

As for all the other characters, for whom things do work out with? I find it interesting how Sad Backstory is something for the protagonists and viewers to unlock. Maybe the idea is that the protagonists aren’t prepped to forgive a character simply over what happened in the past, just what’s happening now, and what they’re trying to do about it. You can still empathize when they’re sad, even without a backstory for context because look at Luz during Covention!

But as a whole it makes sense for the takeaways of those around them, because why should I care that you were sad, if you’re still being a jerk anyway? Now I know your sad backstory, but you’ve known it the whole time you were hurting me, so what difference does it make about you if you’re not changing; Do you just expect me to keep forgiving you out of pity?

It could be a consideration for what characters around them might realistically feel. The sad backstory, the re-contextualizing for why they’re like that, is the cherry on top to their arc; Yes this person sucks, but maybe they aren’t having a great time either. They give people a reason to be sympathetic. And then those people get to really appreciate their side of the story when they don’t have to worry about still being hurt.

Maybe it’s also a message to the audience, because with other characters showing that you still need to be careful in extending a hand, and given the toxic and abusive relationships we see, maybe this could be the context for that? An abuser’s sad backstory is the last thing on your mind; Your first thought should be that they’re hurting you.

But if they’re looking for help and actually want to improve, then you can offer it, and if they accept, then you can let yourself be caught up over their tragic past, instead of making excuses for them from the get-go because of that, RIP Hunter. When it comes to Willow, she was allowed to be angry well after learning Amity’s Sad Backstory, when she felt Amity wasn’t pulling her weight in making up for everything.

By contrast we have Eda not really giving a damn whether the curse was an accident, because Lilith still took knowingly took Luz hostage and threatened her, captured Eda. So her present actions are being unaddressed even if Lilith thinks her past one is. And when King vouches for Lilith, Eda refrains from taking vengeance; Lilith saving the family and taking the curse, past and present actions made up for, culminates in forgiveness.

It’s not enough that Lilith felt bad about it, she needed to tangibly do something about it, something genuine that doesn’t miss the point (unlike a certain emperor), and so to a no-nonsense adult like Eda, that’s when she can be forgiven. That’s when her sad backstory resonates, just as for the audience, that’s when we learn it so we can even appreciate it at all.

Some of this may just be basic storytelling conventions, like of course you’re going to get the character first and their characterizing actions, and then their backstory. But then again you could just as easily mix things up. Or it could just be an extension of this show’s larger fascination with re-contextualizing previous scenes and details. I just think it’s an interesting pattern to dwell over, and I wonder if it was intentional, how much was intentional, etc. Because with a show wanting to help kids understand abuse, to avoid it and/or realize it’s happening to them, to get help and heal, and finally figure out if they should forgive their abusers, if they want to… All of this could work in that regard.

[oyeedraw-arts]

Hi! I saw your newest post and what's tattoo au about? I searched the tag but besides a few posts there wasn't much

If the tag gives you about 25 posts, that should be it. Here is the link just in case - https://oyeedraw-arts.tumblr.com/tagged/tattoo%20au

Tattoo au is my feel good fix it au with Belos. Tl;dr of it is 18 years before canon, a grimwalker grieving Belos gets goaded into a drinking contest with heartbroken Eda because she was loudly shit-talking the Emperor. Next morning he wakes up in his room with the tattoo and no memory of the previous night or how he got back. He goes investigating, and finds out that the local trashvendor and swindler Eda has a matching tattoo, can get him most ingredients he would normally need in secret, and she is amusing to gossip with.

Cue the vendor and her now most frequent patron connecting over being smaller siblings, witches having been mean to them, smack talking the EC (mostly Eda, lol) and both quickly shooting down the other's bullshit (aka swindler on swindler radar). Belos traumatizes himself again early on and Eda is in a good place in good time to help out. Belos starts putting in more legwork in their not just yet friendship after that to return the favor. Shenanigans happen.

I have lot more plotted out for the au, but I'm holding most of it under wraps because I want to work on the presentation of it (illustrations or comics), but I might just say "fuck it" and info dump. Like, Luz gets in the Demon Realm much earlier, still kid Adrian follows around Eda and incognito Belos, Kikimora covering for the missing Emperor, other humans on the BI (still a v small minority), Belos making a new grimwalker, other witches who connect with the duo because Eda is a social butterfly, how the mouse found Belos, and how Eda's and Belos friendship clash with Belos being the fucking Emperor. Also Collector drama at one point and a cross over if you can spot it ;)

[findmeinthefallair]

As Hunter puts the work in to recover and heal, looking back on Belos's 'kindness' in offering him a staff, taking him in, and providing the opportunity to be special as the Golden Guard...will be confusing and will involve seemingly conflicting emotions.

Having that treatment from his 'uncle' was the only reference point of feeling loved, while experiencing terror deeper down. This lasted for years before he met Luz and co.

He has overall spent less time in the new framework of healthy found family, than the years in the Castle.

I was looking at scenes from a couple of movies - the Black Widow movie and also Blade Runner 2049 (spoilers for both movies ahead, obviously) - as psychology references to see how two other fictional characters recalled their confusing but significant memories.

These examples carry some big concepts, one of which is that we "recall with our feelings". Not with pure impersonal logic that neatly trims away false info and discards it. If only it were that easy to dust our hands clean this way when healing from trauma.

In Black Widow, Yelena is the character who wears her heart on her sleeve the most, like Hunter naturally does. When confronted with the revelation that her happy childhood was staged, naturally Yelena feels betrayed:

(the GIF file for above was too big so lol I just screencapped a still frame from it)

But she quickly makes a conscious decision on how she wants to view those good memories, when hearing her sister Natasha saying it was all fake. This is perhaps her most important line in the movie:

She still chose to believe it had all been real. She is actively claiming the meaning that her good childhood had provided for her. Choosing what kind of lens she'd like to view those memories through. Defending that good meaning. Because her life fell apart after that good childhood came to an end. She could choose to say it was all fake, if she wanted to see it as fake.

She confronts Melina, her (staged) maternal figure who obviously isn't her biological or even a proper adoptive mother, and says: "You are my mother. You were my real mother, the closest thing I ever had to one."

When it comes to Hunter, he wouldn't find it as straightforward to acknowledge that the times when Belos was nice to him "felt real". Would he ever want to view the late Emperor as his uncle? Not via any conscious decision, I'm sure...since he's the opposite of Yelena here. Hunter's safe haven was after he escaped the Emperor's Coven, but Yelena's haven was at the start of her life, which she wished had been permanent.

Those months of summer when Hunter spent time away from Belos in the human realm must've been so special for him. But when faced with inevitable confusing flashbacks especially after Belos's death (that involve the subconscious, not conscious, part of his mind), he's still going to feel that the Emperor was a close family member whom he had an attachment with. Belos was the closest thing he ever had to family for so long.

In the Black Widow example, Yelena felt that Melina was her mother, from an early age. Around two decades later in her young adulthood, she still feels that this is the case, and consciously still wishes for that. She was lucky to be able to reconcile with Melina in the movie.

Hunter isn't as lucky. While he recovers, I don't think he can simply dismiss what it felt like to be told that he is part of a family (even if it was a lie) in such fragile formative years:

As an example, if I had first been told at age 5 by a parent that they promised to protect me, only to find out a decade later that they actually wouldn't have ever cared if I died...I would be hella confused.

Quoting a guest lecturer from my first year of therapist training, the part of our brains responsible for reasoning and logic - the prefrontal cortex - does not begin to seriously mature until our late teen years. Which is why early childhood memories can't just be viewed by our adult selves and easily trimmed away and viewed in black-or-white as truth-or-lie. Those early years are sensitive for us all, in how they shape us later in life. That inner child is still in each of us.

Blade Runner 2049's protagonist, K, has an arc that takes a different direction: he had actual false memories implanted that were not even his own, but the theme that is consistent for this post is those memories still felt real to him, and thus affected him emotionally. He felt unfulfilled and wanted something new, to feel like he had a soul, which led him on this risky quest. Sadly, he easily believed in a lie because it matched the truth he wished for. Thus, even false memories could feel real to him because he was desperate for meaning in life.

This movie has a cyberpunk dystopian setting, so it's of course more bleak. K was made to believe so strongly in those memories because he was ultimately used as just smokescreen, to keep the real person (who had those memories) well-hidden. Below, he speaks to the memory maker who formed his false memories. She is a very skilled deceiver, and successfully engineers experiences that didn't actually happen because she inserts fragments of truth here and there.

And she makes some good points about how she succeeds at implanting false memories:

Especially the last two lines, "We recall with our feelings. Anything real should be a mess."

Linking back to Hunter, it would be a tough process to learn how to make peace with his childhood with Belos. Because anything that felt real would be a mess.

And K has a similar line as Yelena did:

The running theme I spotted is the realness of confusing memories for these characters, because their inner conflicts involve questioning themselves: whether or not they were just imagining the good feelings they felt.

While we never got confirmation whether Belos used false memories or not, I'm inclined to think he didn't...in order to work more subtly and over a long period of time on Hunter as his latest grimwalker project. The deadlier lies are the ones with many bits of truth scattered throughout their intricate webs, like what the memory maker in Blade Runner 2049 could pull off.

Belos's treatment would've felt kind to Hunter at the time. As they say, how we feel about any experience we have is "what we make of it". Or how we choose to view the experience.

I think Hunter needed to believe his uncle really was kind, while maintaining his own image, in order to keep going and survive.

This tragically meant he had to believe he wasn't doing enough.

It is always scarier for an abused child to see that their parent in fact isn't loving after all/isn't a good person, compared to imposing shame upon themselves and believing they aren't good enough.

Of course, all this would've changed by the time we get to here and beyond:

Memory is subjective and our minds are so powerful that they find evidence to seemingly confirm any kind of beliefs that we form.

All three characters in this post were cogs in a machine, reduced to being pawns in a scheme...until they later had the space to decide things for themselves.

As seen in Hunter's efforts in his Golden Guard days to be good enough in the role, Yelena taking a stand to preserve the purity of an untainted childhood (even if it was staged and not organic), K defying authority to cross a line in his duties and get answers about who he was....this is how much we as humans will clamber to grasp onto a sense of personhood, to give our lives meaning and survive the best we can.

Yelena wanted to preserve the memories of her childhood as good, as a haven or a warm fuzzy bubble to look back on, because it got torn apart before she reunited with her family many years later.

Obviously Hunter can't do exactly the same i.e. preserving the entirety of his time in the Castle as "good", since he has now been able to see that Belos was a constant threat upon his life. However, he could still look back on smaller pockets of his childhood as pleasant, by isolating those specific memories.

We have two examples in canon: the way he grins when remembering the experience of being left on top of the mountain and climbing back down. And him saying that "weekends were nice" since he tasted partial freedom by being outdoors going on missions.

In fact, he would likely start out wanting to erase his childhood, view it as entirely bad and terrible to revisit, and try to force himself to forget its significance and start afresh. But this would only worsen the unpleasant emotions associated with this time of his life that he'd rather wish had not existed.

Mental health recovery is counter-intuitive: avoiding or denying emotions tend to make them grow bigger and scarier, while letting them feel seen and heard can help them along to shrink and positively transform over time. Hunter's therapist would have to provide him with psychoeducation on this so that he doesn't feel like he's grieving wrongly. It would bring him more peace if he can acknowledge both of these seemingly conflicting truths:

Factually, Belos did lie to him and betray him.

(Here's the important part) Emotionally, if the 'kindness/love' offered by Belos felt real at the time, received by Hunter's very legit need for attachment and meaning, then yes, it was real.

Both these points can coexist. Belos's love was untrue in the factual sense (we in the audience can easily see this), yet true in the emotional sense for a young child like who Hunter was. Which is what makes it hard.

Someone would ask Hunter, "Do you think he loved you?" and the answer isn't simple. Maybe it'd be something like "He didn't, but I felt like he really did." And the second half of that sentence ("but I felt like he really did") honestly doesn't need to be changed or removed, and the grief in those words should be honoured. Belos only cared about meeting Hunter's emotional needs as a means to an end, and as strange as it sounds to say this...it did help Hunter survive long enough, however mistreated he was. Because he still clung on to meaning and a purpose in his life.

The love wasn't there in the technical sense: instead it was a twisted version of Philip's love for Caleb, not any love extended towards Hunter. But this love still felt mostly real to Hunter before he fled the coven.

And I bet that even if it was for a split-second, Belos's gaslighting of "Why are you hurting me? I only wanted to help you" felt real and true to the poor kid here:

before Hunter expressed that he knew who Belos truly was as a person: a liar.

[deercoven]

deerthings (a good uncle belos au) aka these soggy miserable creatures braving the lukewarm rain of the knee as they're run out of yet another village

[glyhpsrfvckincol]

Yay! Can I request angst where reader gets petrified and Hunter (toh) has to watch it because belos is teaching him a lesson :)

g/n reader pls

Petrifaction || Hunter Noceda

Synopsis - Hunter Noceda painfully has to watch as you slowly die.

Warnings - Angst. Death. Toxic relationship. Tragic lovers. Abuse. Gaslighting. Manipulation.

A/n - I’m sorry in this isn’t any good, I haven’t written angst before nor do I really understand how sadness works T_T

Requests are opened; headcanons only

↳ Belos is so fucking cruel.

↳ Forcing Hunter to have to watch you be petrified. Like I’ve mentioned in another post, Belos is a psycho.

↳ Hunter tried begging, but after so long, his throat hurt and all he could do was cry.

↳ “Hunter. Look at them.”

↳ Hunter remained curled into a tight ball, his chest heaving heavily as hard sobs tore their way through his body.

↳ “Hunter.”

↳ Belos’ voice seemed to darken, adding edge to the boy who was heartbroken on the floor of the throne room. This displeased the lord, as this was meant to be a moment of punishment and for Hunter to realise that getting attached to people was weakness.

↳ Hunter knew it was a bad idea. Knew that straying from his duty’s as the golden guard would end faster than a match’s soft flame.

↳ You knew it too. You knew that if caught, not only would Hunter take the blame for it, you suffer great consequences yourself.

↳ But the blonde boy let you take him under your control, let you care for him and love him the way he craved. Had he not grown addicted to you, he would’ve realised that Belos had already caught on.

↳ Your body had only been petrified half way up, Belos wanting to drag it out, but you couldn’t even talk, due to the Emperor having also tortured you prior.

↳ Fucking Maggot.

↳ You wanted to comfort Hunter so badly, hoping that it might calm him down a bit. To tell him that none of this was his fault, and that Belos cruelty was at play.

↳ “Y/n, I’m so sorry!! I’m such an idiot for getting us caught!! I’m sorry!”

↳ Oh poor Hunter, his apologies and pleas for you meant nothing, especially to Belos.

↳ “Hunter, all your weaknesses are because of this wild witch. But I understand, a relative of ours strayed and let a wild witch control him. I know the pain that comes with it, and I’m just trying to protect you.”

↳ Oh how you wished you could’ve screamed at the Emperor. Not only for hurting Hunter but also the abuse that was evident in his and Hunter’s relationship.

↳ You could feel your skin slowly turn colder as it continued to turn to stone, now reaching up past your neck and now starting to permanently shape your chin.

↳ “Uncle, please! Let them go! I promise I’ll never talk to them again if you just leave them alone! I swear!”

↳ Belos scoffed.

↳ “Then how would you learn anything? If I let them go, how do I know you won’t fall for another wild witch? One that wishes ill intentions on our home here in the Boiling Isles.”

↳The emperor truely could not synthesise with his nephew, even as he watched Hunter cry harder, after realising you were fully stoned.

↳ “I know it’ll take time for you to get over them, but I know it won’t take you to long, right Golden Gaurd?”

[aroacemisha]

Autistic Hunter Week, Day 1: Shared Interest

(Tap/click for better quality)

Hunter's main special interest is mechanical engineering and tech, and he shares that interest with Belos, from whom he got a lot of his knowledge and skill. He has been fascinated by the subject from a young age, and continues to pursue his interest in it. They're discussing some schematics here.

There's also been a couple design updates for both of them, like Hunter's shirt color and a slight change to his overalls, Belos's scar shape and droopy left eyelid, and his dress being a lighter blue. It'll probably be tweaked again later.

And I'm super late for my own prompts, yay.

Do not repost/reupload my work, but reblogs are appreciated.