#i think he knew as a grimwalker they could only use glyph and palisman magic but hid it from them until they saw belos-

[oorevitcejda]

maybe, when luz and hunter had their truce to save the palisman from kikimora and he excitedly started talking about wild magic before he cuts himself off, the titan was watching him too. i mean why wouldnt he? he knew belos killed his brother in cold blood and made grimwalkers with his corpse, so maybe he knew that all the grimwalkers would eventually 'turn' on belos and did try to show them his glyphs after they left/fled/ tried to fight, but bc belos always got to them quickly the titan never had a chance to truly get them to realize the magic is right in front of them. maybe he also likes that luz not only taught the first real victim of Phillip how to use glyphs, but retaught the whole isles how to use glyphs (and then some! since all humans can use glyphs as long as theres a big enough titan around)

[weaselbeaselpants]

Final PhiliBelos observation for the night

A lot of people are pointing out how Philip's old coat is probably Caleb's, which Philip wore in trying to 'rescue' his brother from witchlovins. And, while I do think that's true I also personally headcanon that Philip had a parasocial bond with Caleb, i.e. he not only missed and idolized his bro, he was also deeply jealous of Caleb, just maybe not in ways he fully realizes because of course he doesn't.

One of my prequel comics had tiny!Philip declare he was going to have "80 kids" with a wife despite witchhunters not doing that, and that ties into said headcanon; Philip was the one who really never fit in and was always eager to impress in the human realm. Philip desperately wanted to be the cool kid, but if his adult self in Elsewhere and Elsewhen is anything to go by, he inevitably always fails because he's really a manipulative bastard jackass who's idea of freindship is actually just using people; His diaries show how dedicated he is to his main character-syndrome and how he really wants to be the distinguished-looking-down-on-others grand adventurer; Everything about PhilBelos is self-fufilling prophecy and work-upon work as he played such a long-con to get to where he was at the start of the series- but like all children's show villains, his fatal flaw is he doesn't consider others' feelings or capabilities, and so all his schemes actually end up falling apart because he only ever uses other people who then turn on him; it happened with Luz and Lilith= it happened with Kikimora - Collector - OG Caleb since he couldn't just accept Caleb's new life and happiness - and definitely with all of Caleb's grimwalkers up to Hunter, whom he literally disapatches every time they manage to escape him. Like all good villains, I love wehn Belos breaks down and shows weakness and he's always at his maddest when mofos are in his way or unravel all his "hard work". He, even more than most villains, craves success.

Caleb naturally got all Philip wanted. Caleb found

A place where he was accepted and otherwise fit in

A girlfriend and was also going to be a father. Till proven otherwise he was prolly accepted into Evelyn's family.

If the Clawthorne palisman trade did come from him, than that means Caleb was admired for his skills and interests.

Caleb did have an epic, real-life adventure because he didn't hate and only think of destroying the Demon Realm. ((I'd be so jazzed to find out Caleb knew some magic and glyphs of his own~))

and most importantly

Caleb got all these things without trying or bending over backwards to make it happen. Sure it didn't last, because Philip fucking murdered him, but regardless of how it ended Caleb led a happy, prosperous life. A life Philip could never have because Philip's own goals are really selfish despite what he thinks to the contrary.

I don't know. It's just a GAAAYYYMMe thEORRie. I find it fascinating. This would also explain why Philip wears his hear back as an adult where, if you go by the pics in his mindscape, he wore his hair down as a kid while Caleb had a ponytail.

tl;dr:

Philip Wittebane has issues: World Shocked

[mjrino]

Since Ao3 is down, I thought I'd post the single fanfic that I'd posted there. Basically, it's a ToH fic that I wrote immediately after Hollow Mind - basically one of the many Hunter fics which were posted after it. It's pretty cliché, but I thought I'd share it.

Tags (from what I remember): Hunter & Darius, Hunter & Raine, Hunter & Eberwolf, Flapjack & Hunter, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Hollow Mind.

This was written a while ago, so it isn't as good as my current writing.

Edit: In light of ao3 being back up, here's the link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/38601936

As soon as Hunter got his head around what happened, he knew he couldn’t go back. It didn’t take that long, he’d always been smart.

(That’s what his - Belos said, anyway.)

But the castle was his home, it had always been. His few things were there, most of the people he considered as friends were there. He had never known another home. But he couldn't go back. He would never be able to go back. His breathing sped up and his heart raced as he tried to put his thoughts into words.

So what could he do, then? Stay in the infamous Owl House? Maybe, but it would rely on them letting him. Sure, Luz had offered before, but he could never take anything that had been said at face value. Not even from Belos.

He’d thought he could, once. Now he knew better.

Hunter also hated the way they looked at him, like some stray palisman, pity in their eyes.

But what he hated even more was that he was deserving of it. Here he was, some - what was it that Belos had called him? - grimwalker, which was only made to serve him and be destroyed when he wanted to think for himself.

It was too much. It was all too much. He needed some air. His cloak felt heavy, the material too much against his skin. It felt like it was choking him, a symbol of what he was created to do.

He’d fled the house, and nobody tried to stop him, really. Luz chased after, but stopped. The Owl Lady and her… cat didn’t know what had happened, and as such were confused, and the bird tube was distracted.

So Hunter ran. He ran into the forest, far away from the stifling air of the Owl House, and the danger of the castle. There was one problem, though. He was injured.

He’d gotten it while escaping the grasps of the Emperor's subconscious, that horrible place which he had been pulled into.

He escaped, in time to save the Human, but at the cost of a blow to the abdomen. Light, by his standards, but still there.

It hurt every time he took a rapid gasp of air, and at every panicked movement he made. It would bruise for sure, and he didn’t have anything to help with that. He couldn't even make ice, because his mind was too messed up to do magic and his hands shook too much whenever he tried stopping to draw a glyph and they wouldn’t stop-

Hunter leaned against a tree, and found himself with too little energy to do anything other than sit, using it for balance. He finally managed to compute what the Owl Lady - Eda, had said earlier.

Breath.

So Hunter tried. He tried to slow his breathing and think. But it wasn’t that simple, because thinking meant coming to terms with the fact that he was made, he was a grimwalker and would never be a witch-

Tears started leaking out of his eyes, tears which he wasn’t able to stop. He’d grabbed his hair so tight it hurt, at some point. His breathing was coming in fitful breaths, the opposite of what he had previously tried to do. He could feel and hear everything, every dent in the bark, every sound a demon or animal made, every stitch of his clothing. And something unexpected; the flapping of wings.

Flapjack flew into Hunter’s blurry vision. They sat on Hunter’s shoulder, nuzzling into his cheek (right where the scar was). Breath, they reminded him, and Hunter slowly found his breathing evening out.

Then, at the sound of footsteps, all that progress was undone.

Hunter scrambled to his feet, eyes darting as he located the source of the noise. Sure enough, there were the figures who were planning on invading the Emperor’s mind earlier. By the looks of it, they hadn’t spotted him.

Are they here to kill me? What will they do? I have Flapjack, and physical prowess, but I won’t stand a chance. I’ve lost battles in better positions. As Hunter thought, his mind automatically went to analysing the situation and his chances of survival. It grew more and more hopeless as he weighed his odds, and found them far from in his favour.

A voice snapped him out of his thoughts. The people had spotted him. He was probably going to die, but his one comfort - if one could even call it that - would be that it wouldn’t be at Belos’ hands, as his predecessors’ deaths were.

“Hunter? Calm down, it’s just me.” Said a strangely familiar voice. Hunter realised it was the first time he’d heard one of the cloaked witches speak. He gasped softly as the figure lowered their hood, trying to regain control over his breath.

“Dar - Darius?” Hunter exclaimed with a wavering voice, not daring to say more. Was Darius actually committing treaso- working against the emperor, or was it a front? It was better to wait, and Hunter couldn’t trust himself to speak yet.

“Yes, yes, it’s me, little prince. What happened to you? You look like a mess. Ugh, have you been sitting on the ground?” Darius said. Hunter still didn’t know what side he was on. Hunter looked up.

“In all seriousness, what happened? You show up, out of nowhere, and then I find out you’re in the Emperor’ mi-” Darius said, processing the tears on Hunter’s face.

Hunter swallowed, cutting him off. “Well, uh, after you left, I did accidentally enter Belo- the Empero- that place. It was, uh-” Hunter started to say, then stopped before he could finish the sentence. He didn’t, couldn’t describe what had happened. His breathing quickened again. Darius put his hand on Hunter’s shoulder, but it was just like Belos used to do, before he’d give an indirect warning. Hunter jerked back. Flapjack let out a small tweet.

Another rustling sound rang out.

“Darius? Where did you go? We were supposed to stick togeth- oh.” Another cloaked figure stepped out, the bard one who’d played the recorder. They rushed forward, their hood falling to reveal the Bard Coven Head, Raine.

“Darius, is that the Golden Guard? What are you doing-”

Hunter cut Raine off, “N-no, no I’m not the Gol- him anymore, I can’t, I just-” Hunter managed to stutter out. Raine’s face flashed in understanding. They took a step back.

“Darius, what exactly happened?” Raine said, their voice betraying urgency.

“Ugh, I don’t know, maybe the tyrant’s mind that he was trapped in!?” Darius replied. Wait. Was that the ‘Angry Blonde Kid’? Darius walked over to Raine.

“What do you want me to do? You know I’m not good with people!” Raine hissed. It was obvious that they were trying to be discreet, but Hunter couldn’t bring himself to care. He was still by the tree, breath catching and tears still leaking out of his eyes despite how much he’d tried to stop them.

Raine seemed to notice. “Um, ok, so I’m not very good at this, but I want you to try and breathe with me. In, hold, out…”

Hunter, following Raine’s instructions, found that it helped. He managed to regain control of his breathing (and his tears).

Suddenly, the third of the cloaked figures revealed themself. Their hood was already down, and there was- Eberwolf? Were all of the coven heads treasonous?

“Oh, finally, Eber, where were you?” Darius said. Eberwolf let out a series of sounds, which somehow Darius interpreted. Hunter still didn’t know how he did that. So did Flapjack, apparently, because they also gave some tweets, trills, and chirps in quick succession.

Eberwolf, apparently able to understand this, sat tentatively on Hunter’s lap. Huh. He didn’t remember sitting down. The contact felt grounding, and for the first time since seeing the masks of the dead Golden Guards, he felt completely in control.

Raine crouched beside him, while Darius looked on from where he was standing.

“Are you, uh, ok with saying what happened?” They asked, quietly. Hunter didn’t know how to respond. Technically, he could recall and state the events, but it might send him into a panic again.

“I don’t know yet. It - it was a lot.” Hunter said. His voice was steadier now, but still wavered every now and then.

“Ok. I, uh, just realised I don’t know your name. What is it?” Raine replied. Right, name. Hunter could do that.

“My name’s Hunter.” He said. Darius, Raine, and Eberwolf all looked at him. Hunter averted his gaze.

Darius blinked. “Wait, didn’t one of the children you tried to recruit call you Caleb?” He asked.

“Code name.” Hunter replied.

“I see. Anyway, can you stand? The boiling rain’s about to come in, and I don’t want to ruin my cloak.” Darius said, a small smile playing up on his face.

Raine seemed to realise something. “Hunter, do you have anywhere to go? We don’t want you to get caught in the boiling rain.” Hunter weighed his options. He could probably go with the coven heads, but only Darius didn’t live at the castle, and his house didn’t have the security to protect him from Belos.

The Owl Lady’s house did, however. And while he couldn’t trust anymore, Luz had never lied to him. Not yet, anyway.

“Uh, I think I can stand, and I might be able to stay at the Owl Lady’s house.” Hunter’s voice was getting progressively less shaky.

He didn’t miss the look that Raine gave Darius, or the pointed stare they received in return. Raine sighed. “Ok, but we’ll come with you, just in case.” Hunter stood up. His legs were shaking slightly, and at some point his injury had stopped hurting. Guess it wasn’t as big a deal as I thought. I really am weak.

They started to walk.

Darius decided to take the risk. “What happened in there? You don’t have to give any details, but I’d like to know.” The edge of his voice was gone now. Hunter managed to keep walking.

“We- There were- the other Golden Guards, they were all…” Hunter said, unsure of how to say exactly what he wanted to convey. “They were all clones. And- and when they would betray Belos, he would…” Hunter’s voice trailed off.

Darius’ eyebrows shot up in surprise. “So that’s why…” He muttered. “I see. If you can, is there anything else that happened?”

Hunter swallowed. “Uh, yes. The sigils- the coven marks, they…”

“...drain you of your magic.” Raine finished. But that wasn’t what Hunter wanted to say.

“No, no, it’s not that, they were made to-” Hunter’s voice dropped down to a whisper. “To kill people”

Eberwolf growled, Raine gasped, and Darius said nothing, but his face betrayed surprise.

“So what do we do?” Raine asked.

“I… don’t know.”

_______________________

And that's the fic! Hope you enjoyed. Little bit of trivia: this was originally supposed to be a longfic, but I gave up on it. Maybe I'll revisit it later, who knows. Anyway, thank you so much to all of the Ao3 volunteers who not only keep Ao3 running for free, but are also combating the DDOD attacks! Ao3 has been a staple in my life for so long, and I didn't even realise until it was gone.

[ofdreamsanddoodles]

i’ve seen some people in the past say stuff about wanting hunter to use his artificial staff again & i feel like thats. absolutely not going to happen bc hunter definitely sees that staff as a manifestation of everything he “owes” belos, which is especially cruel knowing that this was like. the absolute minimum help belos could have offered.

like, we see the glyph’s on belos’ arm glow when he uses magic in king’s tide. we hear hunter insist on learning more about wild magic because he thinks it’ll help with belos’ ‘curse.’ even if it’s hypocritical, there’s definitely a way to convince him that using glyphs is only okay if it’s him--because he’s the golden guard and he’s smart enough not to endanger himself like wild witch. he had 400 years of knowledge that he could offer hunter, and instead, all he did was give him an artificial staff and give hunter a complex about using it.

when hunter does magic with flapjack, it’s because flapjack offers to help out. he literally follows hunter around until hunter accepts him as a friend & finally understands him. but he says himself “didn’t think [he] could have a future” as a powerless witch, which means his entire career as the golden guard was entirely based on belos being “benevolent” enough to give him something that should have already been super common. like, if it wasn’t for belos, every witch would have a palisman! 

that’s also why i don’t really agree with the theory that grimwalkers have magic but hunter doesn’t. for one thing, that sounds like, super hard to manifest, but belos has always been just using what he had to make him seem better than everyone else. like, if hunter had a bile sack & could use spell circles, belos would still have found ways to position himself as a kindhearted, powerful leader bc thats what he does with everyone else. his biggest superpower is that he’s existed long enough that the playing field’s automatically skewed in his favor. he’s stronger than everyone because they don’t know what he knows. because they don’t know what the draining spell does, or because luz doesn’t know phillip & belos are the same person. he sees his knowledge as a sign of power & so he’s not going to share it. as long as belos knew more than him, he’d always have the upper hand over hunter, and considering he’d lived with a LOT of people who were made to be just like him, that’s something belos was always gonna have with or without magic

[noirandchocolate]

Here’s an Owl House theory.  THERE’S SPOILERS FOR THE LAST EPISODE IN IT.  I’m SURE others have come up with the same or similar, but I don’t go in fandom tags very much so please nobody think I ‘stole’ this.  I’m posting less to impress other Owl House fans and more as a record for my future self of what I thought was going on in the show at this point.

So we know that Luz came through the door between worlds, and that there’s a doppelganger back in Humanland who wrote to her mom from camp and is now living in her house.  We know that mom doesn’t think anything at all is ‘off’ about Faux Luz, so there must not be anything wildly different about her appearance-wise.

We also know Philip Wittebane sort of tripped and fell into Magicland accidentally, but we know he disappeared or went back home somehow (it seems like he made the portal door in the first place).  Now, we know what Emperor Belos looks like, and he looks and (when he’s not masked and trying to be echoey and intimidating) sounds very very much like Philip’s silhouette and voice in the diary. 

We also know that Hunter looks rather like, but not exactly like, Belos.  We’ve been shown that Belos performs magic in a way that looks quite different to any other Witch, and we’ve been told Hunter isn’t able to do magic on his own without a staff--and that with the unusual staff Belos gave him his magic has the same red aura as Belos’s, but with a ‘traditional’ staff with a palisman his magic is yellow or golden.  In the last episode we were also shown a page in a book displaying info on a creature called a ‘Grimwalker,’ and that creature apparently has jewel-y maroon eyes like Hunter’s--which do NOT match Belos’s blue eyes.  (Their ears also don’t match exactly.  They have the same notch in the left ear, but Hunter’s are more horizontally pointy like Witch ears are, while Belos’s do come to a point but they’re noticeably smaller and more vertical.)

Hunter told Luz that he was ‘found’ by Belos, and that others in his ‘family’ have been unable to do magic.  However Hunter didn’t necessarily say he knew anyone else in his family (I don’t think, someone correct me if I’m wrong), so it’s likely he only knows there have been others in his lineage without magic because Belos told him that.

Okay theory time, everything behind here is pure speculation:

Belos isn’t Philip Wittebane.  He’s the Faux Philip that Philip spontaneously, ‘magically’ generated in Humanland when he fell into Magicland.  When Philip made the portal door and went home, Faux Philip was swapped into Magicland.  Faux Philip couldn’t stay in Humanland while Philip was there; there can’t be two of the same person on the same plane of existence.  Once a human has moved between worlds, there always has to be one of them on one side and one of them on the other.  And Faux Philip, now known as Belos, who has seen Humanland and who remembers it as being so much cleaner, so much more peaceful and quiet, very much wants to go home.

So what is a Faux person made of?  Well, we’ve seen Belos go all goopy and we know he feels better after consuming palismen--and that palistrom wood is one of the Grimwalker ‘ingredients.’  So, I theorize that Belos, in the long years of trying to go back to Humanland, has done enough experimentation to find out what sustains him: very magical things, things basically ‘from the Titan’ and the Isles, such as palistrom wood, and possibly Titan’s blood or galdorstones if he could get them, etc.  He isn’t made of those things like a Grimwalker seems to be, but they keep him alive.  And he’s needed more and more over time, because the original Philip Wittebane is long dead.  Belos should be long dead as well, but has essentially refused to give up on going home to Humanland and is keeping himself going with magical stuff, which works because he is indeed a creature of flesh but also one that was magically generated.

I further theorize that Belos knows the truth of his origins.  He knows he’s Faux Philip (rather than thinking he’s just a human who was banished into Magicland suddenly one day) and has at least guessed that if he goes home, something will need to be left behind in Magicland.  But his own original is dead.  Belos has guessed or knows that he, already being a Faux person, won’t generate a doppelganger.  It’s possible he had the portal door at one point, but didn’t find it until after Philip died and so he knows it won’t work for him because there’s no person there to swap with.  It’s also possible Belos found the door even before Philip died, and discovered he couldn’t go through it at all because Philip, the ‘real person’ in this scenario, was the only one who could initiate a swap.  (Maybe only humans can, naturally.  Otherwise, there’s a doppelganger Eda and even a doppelganger Lilith somewhere in the human world right now because they’ve both gone through the portal door and come back to Magicland.)

Anyway I don’t think Faux Philip could see the door right when Philip used it to come back.  When Luz tumbled back through the door with Lilith, her own copy didn’t appear right on the other side of the door, at least that we could see, and Luz has no idea she exists.  However if my theory is correct, Luz’s copy was just for those few moments swapped into Magicland.  Maybe Faux Luz appeared at a distance from the door on the Magicland side equal to the distance she currently was from the door on the Humanland side?  If so, the same thing would’ve happened to Faux Philip.  So if that’s true, he just popped into Magicland at an equidistant point too and didn’t see the door.  But I do theorize he found the door later and tried it and it didn’t work--otherwise the rest of my theory below doesn’t make as much sense, because how would he know he couldn’t make or find only a door and have that work.  Still, I don’t have a theory on how he lost access to the portal door after that.  Eda found it not far from her home, and Eda’s mom said her great grandmother knew there was ‘a human’ who lived in the area (not necessarily that great granny knew the person but at least that she knew of him, and depending on Witch lifespans it may have been impossible she knew him personally) who turned out to be Philip, so there’s a potential link, but I don’t have a guess yet on why it was there and not with Belos.  Unless Belos left it there to hide it and Eda just kinda found it one day?  Belos didn’t seem to know Eda had the door, he just kind of assumed since another human appeared that that human may have used it.  So going after Eda would bring him Luz and thus info on the door?  Like I said I don’t have a full theory on this.

At any rate, I hypothesize that Belos very much knows what he is and knows he can’t go through any door between realms unless something will ‘swap’ with him.  So he’s been trying not only to find or make a door and key BUT ALSO to make a ‘Faux Faux’ Philip he can use to be his doppelganger in Magicland so the door will even let him through.  (In other words he thinks he could technically become an ‘original’ by making another copy being, and that that being could then be swapped around for him like he was for Philip.)

So he knows what keeps him alive, and he’s been in Magicland long enough to know how to make ‘magic’ without being a Witch himself.  Eda, who’s been a virtually magicless Witch for a little while, still knows how to make potions.  Luz figured out the glyphs, which apparently figured into how Witches did magic before they evolved bile sacs and could do it naturally.  How much more could someone who’s been living in Magicland for literally centuries figure out how to do?  I suggest that over the years, Belos learned how to make constructs he called Grimwalkers.  After all it looks like a Grimwalker is basically a list of potion ingredients that somehow makes a walking talking person.  Abominations are goopy constructs too, so constructs are an existing type of magic.  But those potion ingredients--one of which is also a known thing that keeps Belos himself alive--are rare and difficult to find.  So it takes quite a bit of time and effort to make a Grimwalker.

Anyway long story short Hunter is the latest Grimwalker Belos has made, and Belos hopes to use him as a Faux Faux Philip who can take his place in Magicland when he returns to Humanland.  Possibly Belos made a baby him and left him with someone else to raise him, and he was abandoned or later ~found~ by Belos who declared him a ‘nephew’ and ‘took him in’ at the growth stage or moment in time when he’d become potentially useful?  The other members of his ‘family’ who couldn’t do magic were other Grimwalkers, and Hunter never knew them, Belos just told him about them.  Oh Hunter, you’re different from other Witches, but you’re not the only one of your kind!  Here, have a special kind of staff I made that helps members of our family make magic!  You’re very special, Hunter, the Titan has big plans for you, but also, don’t fail me or you’ll be (just as) useless (as the others).

So the previous Grimwalkers ‘failed’ in some way.  Maybe they didn’t master Belos’s style of ‘artificial’ magic sufficiently to his liking.  Maybe like I said, Belos had the door for a while, and he tried to get through and leave a Grimwalker behind but it didn’t work, and then he didn’t give up on the idea but just decided that particular Grimwalker was a failure.  Maybe the previous Grimwalkers just weren’t stable and broke down before he could even try to use them.  At any rate it would be so troublesome to have to replace Hunter who is skilled and stable (so far), and the Day of Unity is coming and the door is nearly complete and a key might soon be made or found, so Hunter had better stay put and not do any more missions.  Just like Amity misunderstood Luz’s texts, Hunter is misunderstanding Belos right now.  It’s not that Belos is worried he’ll fail at any further little missions or tasks, it’s that he doesn’t want him to be lost or to fail at his ultimate function.

And that’s what I think so far!

Anyway I also think that if all that is correct, it’s going to be interesting if/when Luz finds out what Belos really is and what he’s really trying to do, because that will mean finding out about Faux Luz.  Who’s ‘just like poor Faux Philip/Belos, who’s just been trying to get home all this time.’  Luz has already been having trouble deciding what she wants to do.  Be a witch, or go home to Humanland where magic is impossible?  Never see her mother again, or never see her Boiling Isles Found Family again?  Try to live between worlds somehow? 

So, finding out that if she goes home and stays home there will be a creature swapped into Magicland who might feel just as banished and abandoned as Belos...  Thinking that if she goes home and stays home her Found Family might take in the Faux Luz which would be nice because Faux Luz would be less sad, but that Found Family might also consider Faux Luz a Replacement (which Luz could think means they don’t care if it’s Really Luz so long as there’s A Luz--that she’s replaceable and not special)...  Finding out that her mom didn’t even notice the Luz that wrote home from camp and came back after a few months wasn’t really her (and is Faux Luz less boisterous and more practical like mom hoped? is Faux Luz the Luz mom Always Wanted Instead?)...  So thinking that if she stays in Magicland she might not be as missed as she assumed...

Oh boy!  Possible feelings and angst!  If I’m right anyway!