#but i suppose a perfect society has no more quarter for parasites than the system it's meant to escape from. only fair after all.

[basingstokemercury]

anyway to completely digress from all-nighter fuelled semi-poetic character analysis

personal life is rapidly approaching the point of impossibility

yes thank you i know i need a job to get anywhere and it's unfair to expect parents to completely support me when i'm perfectly healthy and the things i need to go into serious theatre aren't exactly cheap

so uh

still waiting to find one single job outside the creative arts that can be performed while being:

lazy, selfish, socially nonfunctioning, irresponsible, unable to maintain focus on boring/repetitive tasks, conflict-averse to the extent of shutting down when confronted, completely irregular sleep schedule, allergic to routine that involves more than a couple scheduled events per week, unsuited to manual labour, and oh yeah absolutely terrible at interviews

"you're such a good teacher" thank you. i've been a student. not going anywhere near a room full of kids.

"you said yourself you want to work with animals" i do. i'm also nowhere near responsible enough to be in charge of caring for little squishy things that could die if my attention wanders.

"waitress -" spent years going to restaurants with the kind of person who annoys waiters. wouldn't be one if it were the only job on earth.

"cashier -" just a less intense version of waitress. and anyway i'd never be able to sit there for hours doing the same thing over and over.

it's awfully touching that people have faith in me but i do think i know my own flaws.

okay that was rough. have a fairfax.

[sepublic]

Belos the Cabinet Man!

           MAJOR kudos to @funnyfany for introducing me to Cabinet Man by Lemon Demon, because as they said… This song is PERFECT for someone like Emperor Belos, and just in general slaps! Like, it honestly really describes my read on him? In fact, why don’t I peel and dissect the lyrics to see how they could easily apply to him;

The day they found me, I hadn’t yet been played

Inside my workshop behind my old arcade

Electric desires had unraveled all my wires

Now I’m in the box for safekeeping

           These lyrics allude to Belos’ obvious motifs of technology, as well as him having a ‘workshop’, which ties to his work on the portal! But there’s also the concept of him being rather ancient, as well as needing to be protected because he’s vulnerable in the end; Such as by metal armor, instead of a box?

The news reporters reported that I died

But all my organs were living on inside

Circuit board to brain with two lungs collecting change

One big human heart gently beeping

           The first line immediately makes me think of Perry Porter, but it also makes me think about what the ‘Unauthorized Author’ had to say, about Belos retreating into his castle, and people speculating that he had big plans while he let Kikimora and others be his public face. Again, there’s more machine-flesh imagery, as well as the obvious allusion to a giant beating heart. Two lungs collecting change can allude to Belos and his greedy hunger for power and bile.

You can’t win me, I can’t be beat

I won’t hurt you, unless you cheat

You can’t see me behind the screen

I’m half human and half machine

           We’ve got Belos boasting how invincible he is, but it can also refer to how the Coven System is a lose-lose situation, that either you go off and be alone and persecuted as an individual, OR you conform and became safe, but lose your identity in the process!

          We have Belos alluding to how he can be a merciful dude unless you really piss him off; And that line about cheating reminds me of how the Coven System seeks out only the most ‘worthy’ of people, and how this mentality has affected characters like Amity, who by consequence despise cheating!

          Or how Boscha’s bullying is mostly rude remarks… Until she feels like her attention is being ‘stolen’ by others, then she resorts to some brutal and even dangerous tactics in retaliation! To Belos, he just wants people to fit into their little spots, he’s offering them a nice little role and function in society, an actual place, he’s not a bad and malicious dude! Just a messenger… 

         Similarly, ‘cheating’ could be seen as doing magic the ‘wrong way’, because otherwise, competition to join the Emperor’s Coven and be the best is encouraged, so long as you engage with the system properly and play by its rules! You’re just not supposed to do Wild Magic, mix tracks, that sort of thing; Otherwise you WILL be persecuted by Belos!

          Then there’s the idea of Belos being hidden behind his mask, or just hidden in general (like when he spies on Luz, Willow, and Gus in his castle), and again, the biomechanical imagery! I can’t say for sure if he WAS human or not, because Belos definitely isn’t NOW, to say the least!

Thank God for business, they let me take the floor

I stood so proudly, like I was going to war

Players soon appeared and I quickly was revered

This must be what love would have felt like

           The Titan is responsible for Belos’ power (allegedly), as he claims to enforce its will. Belos’ art depicts him as standing above the rest, and him being VERY tall definitely helps… Then you have him going on a crusade against wild witches, being worshipped by many others, and POSSIBLY a connection to my speculation on him being a lonely individual who was never properly loved in the past, and is confusing this with distant worship…

          And really this just makes me think of other analyses of the Coven System as creating codependent relationships and hollow images to love VS that people actually are! Regardless, it also reminds me of Belos’ parasitic motifs, that last line, so you know!

Such dedication, they came from miles away

With eyes so piercing, they’d wait their turn to play

In perfect patient lines because I was in their minds

I could do whatever I felt like (Whatever I felt like)

           Students from Hexside literally travel miles to Belos’ castle on a field trip, and we have Eda mentioning how Lilith was so excited to meet him as children! Kids looking up to Belos, seeing him as someone to adulate, a role model even (with Lilith invoking him in her motives for the curse)… People literally dedicating their entire lives (and even those of their children) to Belos and his Coven! And of course, we have Belos having the power to do as he pleases, be it going back on his promise to Lilith, letting Luz rescue her friends because he has the portal anyway, etc.; It’s an almost nonchalant disregard of others for what matters to BELOS in the end…

I’m happy for years and years

And only eating the occasional maintenance man

Only driving a few kids to madness

Maybe they were predisposed to madness, who knows?

           Skipping over some repeat lines, we have Belos being at the top for a while, and of course, draining palismans for their bile to restore his health! Kids going mad easily describes people like Lilith, Boscha, or Amity, who base their entire self-worth on joining the Emperor’s Coven, being at the top, and/or fitting in, to the point where Lilith even curses her own sister, Boscha brutally bullies those she sees as a threat to her popularity, while people like the Blight Parents abuse and indoctrinate their kids for social status!

          But then Belos speculates that, hey… HE didn’t make them do this! His system encouraged and enabled them, sure… But in the end it was their actions, which brings to mind how while influenced, none of these characters are entirely faultless either for their actions. Not only that, but it makes me think about how some people seem predisposed and outright embracing of what Belos has to say, as if even without his Coven System they would always be this kind of awful… Such as Warden Wrath, or again, the Blight Parents!

          That last line really makes me think about how different characters coped differently with the pressure, with some remaining good people, while others enabled themselves to do terrible things. Perhaps Belos merely revealed what was already there? Because it still says a lot about other people that they chose to believe and follow in him when others made the decision notto.

I only want to have fun

But now they’re telling me my days here are done

‘Cause there’s a little tiny box they make in Japan

And pretty soon it’s gonna fit in your hand

           Belos just wants to be at the top, he’s ‘just a humble messenger for the Titan’, and maybe like Luz in Episode 2 he just wanted to be special… But he’s also clearly past his expiration date and dying, too. Not only that, but we have a rival… Someone smaller than Belos both literally and in the metaphorical, underdog sense;

          A foreigner from a different land, one who can teach others to cast magic within their hands through Glyphs! There’s Belos, an Old Soul, being made obsolete and redundant by Luz and her Glyphs, which potentially function as a work-around to his coven bindings and draining of bile! Not to mention how her ideals also make Belos’ seem rather antiquated, don’t they? Not to mention the idea of power and control being in the hands of the people, not dependent upon a singular source like Belos…

          His short-lived reign is being actively threatened by Luz’s presence, which Belos acknowledges as having changed everything… And really, it just reminds me of how characters like Boscha enjoyed being at the top as a result of Belos’ influence, only to feel threatened when others come along and ‘steal’ that glory!

It’s getting lonely, it’s getting hard to breathe

The arcade’s empty, I think it’s Christmas Eve

Someone’s broken in, now they’re painting on my skin

Breaking me and taking my quarters

Bashing in my face with a crowbar

Kicking me and pushing me over

Now they see my blood on their sneakers

           Literally the first thing we see of Belos is him having labored breathing… And again, there’s this idea that he’s being left behind as obsolete, he’s reclusive and retreated into his castle and doesn’t let others near him; He’s at the top, and it’s a lonely place! It’s the Eve of Christmas, Christmas is right around the corner, just as the Day of Unity is approaching, when;

          The next few lines invoke the image of Luz breaking into Belos’ castle/the conformatorium… And if you go by the idea that the Castle is a part of Belos, Luz and co. vandalizing the treasury as akin to vandalizing Belos’ own body! Not to mention the three stealing Belos’ relics… And of course, Luz ‘bashing in’ Belos’ face/mask with an ice spike! Only to realize that there’s clearly a LOT more body horror to Belos than she anticipated…! Realizing that Belos is linked to the very ground and earth she stands upon, and boy can he manipulate it!

           After that, the song ends with some repeat lyrics; But all-in-all, I would LOVE to see, someday, someone else (or maybe even myself) do an AMV of Emperor Belos, but with Cabinet Man by Lemon Demon! Compiled entirely of various clips that allude to the lyrics I mentioned earlier, that’d be a lot of fun and if I knew how to do video edits I could do it myself one day!