ooooh hm...

i really like Lumiter - both of them kind of circling around each other and figuring out how they feel with Luz between them, both drawn together by her and also having her presence as kind of a buffer so they don't have to have feelings DIRECTLY about each other.

Love the idea of them like... experimenting with each other to see how it feels... or just kind of being horny and no one else is around so they wanna fool around.

I've also recently been considering a situation where they end up being like, traumabuddies with benefits - Hunter is super traumatized from being incested by his uncle and scared of doing sex, Amity has experienced her own Horrors, they end up talking about it and he mentions that he wants to try to do sex but is really freaked out by it, and she offers to help him explore if he wants - a thing where the lack of attraction is kind of the point, like, she's happy to have a fun time with him and let him explore, but she knows she's not gonna fall in love with him or anything, and the fact that she's not really invested in this beyond wanting to have some fun takes a ton of pressure off of him bc he doesn't feel like he's Disappointing His Partner By Not Wanting Them.

also very fond of ideas like "Willow sharing her submissive boytoy with her girl besties and Amity hesitantly deciding to try him out to be a good sport only to find out that, oh no, he's really good with his mouth/hands/whatever."

as far as less horny, more emotional stuff... i really like the potential these two have for bonding about their similar upbringings and trauma, and to support each other and talk to each other about the stuff the others don't get. i also love thinking about how they both see Luz, how they both care so much about her and want to protect her - they know she can take care of herself, but she shouldn't NEED to with them around, you know.

and sometimes they reassure each other... sometimes they push each other too, and encourage each other's bad habits and perfectionism... they're very competitive i imagine, especially if they're both involved in a relationship with the same person or people...

okay so!

here's the like, basic plot outline i had: the old head of the Bard Coven is old and/or unwell, so his retirement is known. Raine is being trained up as his successor, and starts shadowing him at the castle and during meetings like, pre-s1.

relatively early on in s1, they end up promoted to head of the Bard Coven, so that happens earlier in canon. they end up meeting Hunter, who they've seen here and there, and try to talk to him, when everybody else just ignores him. somebody (a fellow coven head or the old Bard Coven head) pulls them aside to tell them That's The Emperor's Pet Boy, leave him alone, it's better that way.

Raine ofc is both horrified and intrigued and does not leave it alone. they ask around about Hunter and also keep trying to talk to him to build up a rapport. their aim is twofold: they don't think it's right for Belos to have a teen sex slave, whether or not he's a construct, and they also want to see if they can use him. after all, he's VERY close to the Emperor, with unparalleled intimate access to his quarters and person, so he must know something useful, even if he doesn't know he knows. Raine wants to see if they can become allies, maybe offer Hunter a way out.

so begins a game of 5 dimensional spy chess. the more Raine talks to Hunter, the more they realize he's very loyal and very brainwashed. he's both flattered by their interest and eager to keep talking to them, because he's very lonely and they treat him like a person, and also suspicious - he tries to see if he can get them to incriminate themself, if they're Up To Something.

having grown up in this environment of domestic backstabbing and jockeying for power, Hunter's pretty familiar with how that goes, a lot more socially aware and adept than canon!Hunter because those are the skills he's had to learn, but he's still just a kid, and Raine is much better at it. so they recognize what he's doing and string him along, feeding him bits and pieces of not-QUITE-actionably-incriminating speech and rhetoric to see what they'll get in return.

at some point they end up getting some info out of him that they use to pull off some kind of Rebel Stunt - a jailbreak or an attack or something, i'm not sure - and it ends up getting traced back to them. this close to the DoU, Belos really doesn't want to train another coven head, and he doesn't want to be publicly embarrassed by revealing one of his own coven heads - recently promoted, no less! - is a traitor, so instead of executing them, he just invites them to stay in a suite of rooms in the castle where he can keep an eye on them, and uses some fucky sigil stuff to seal their magic away. he also assigns Hunter to watch over them and report back.

Hunter is mad about getting played, of course, because he thought HE was the one playing Raine, but he's also grudgingly admiring. they got the better of him, and he can respect the skill that took, plus no one's ever actually treated him like enough of a threat to manipulate or use that way. nobody really ever thinks about him one way or the other, most of the time. soooo he ends up with a bit of a crush, here, and it just keeps increasing the more time he spends with them.

Raine recognizes this and initially just ignores it, because this is an extremely traumatized child who doesn't know any way of relating to people outside of sex because he's been raised as a toy for his entire life. however... well, they're backed into a corner here. they're stuck in the castle, no magic, no way to contact the rebellion, no way to do anything, the DoU is approaching and they still don't know what's even going to happen... and here's this kid who is a great in to the Emperor, who could be used, and he's handing Raine one hell of a lever to move him with.

so they end up starting to flirt with Hunter, draw him in and earn his trust, try to see if they can get his guard down. he's SO lonely and desperate for attention and affection, and while he knows how to handle intrigue and backstabbing, he doesn't know how to handle genuine friendliness and kindness and being treated like a person. he's very vulnerable to it.

and basically they start playing chicken with him. they're trying to make it seem real without crossing too many lines, but of course they can't hold back too much or he'll get upset or suspicious... which is how they go from flirting back to canoodling to, oops, looks like they just fucked the Emperor's boytoy, which makes them feel absolutely terrible but also means they and Hunter are in a mutually assured destruction type of scenario now, and they can use that.

basically, Raine ends up realizing they can use Hunter's crush on them to manipulate him by playing along, and do so while fully knowing This Is Extremely Wrong but feeling like they have no other choice and that the chance of being able to stop the DoU is worth the damage it's going to do to Hunter.

oh thank you! Let Me Tell You About Kept Boy Hunter

so honestly this is an idea i came up with like, before s2 had even finished airing. the main focus of the whole story was actually supposed to be RAINE and Hunter - it's specifically an examination of how much of a bastard i think Raine is capable of being if they're pushed into a corner where the only options are "do something absolutely awful" or "die and let everyone else die too." i wanted to explore the idea of a deeply moral person intentionally doing something they know is wrong because they've decided that NOT doing it would cause even more harm. which is to say: Raine Fucks That Kid.

but i'm getting ahead of myself. the initial concept, which needs re-developing badly in light of the current trajectory of the series, is this: Belos was frustrated by the way his last grimwalker not only betrayed him but subtly worked against him, and decides to take his frustrations out on the new one. he makes Hunter just to be a pet, essentially, and doesn't expect him to last long, but it turns out that teaching a boy that he exists only to be a toy and that's the only value he has results in a boy who is very eager to be a good toy.

from the start, he tells Hunter (and everyone else) that he's a construct. he doesn't let slip that he's a grimwalker specifically, but Hunter grows up knowing that Belos made him. he views himself as an object, a thing that exists for whatever purposes his creator says it does, and everyone else kind of sees him that way as well - essentially as a very clever, witch-shaped abomination. it's just easier to pretend he's not a person.

so this version of Hunter grows up knowing that he exists only to be a toy for the Emperor and viewing that as his purpose. he doesn't go on missions, no. he never leaves the castle and he often doesn't leave the Emperor's rooms - he technically has free run of the place, but he's very agoraphobic, and a lot of the bigger rooms and hallways freak him out.

he's mostly a toy but also kind of in charge of the Emperor's domestic life - in the very narrow sphere of the Emperor's chambers, Hunter is king. he tells the castle staff what to do and coordinates cleaning, meals, etc etc. he also has some limited knowledge of potion-making, at least the parts that don't require natural magic, because he's responsible for seeing to the Emperor's health. he spends a lot of time reading up on curses and healing magic to try to figure out a way to help Belos.

nobody really likes him... he and Kikimora have a huge rivalry, because in most other areas she's Belos's admin person, but that means she has to coordinate with Hunter as concerns the Emperor's personal schedule, and she just hates him so much. he's barely more than a living doll, what right does he have to act as arrogant as he does?? he thinks it's funny to wind her up and make her mad.

he's very lonely and desperate for attention, and most people just act like he doesn't exist, so mostly he only gets attention from Belos or from making staff or coven heads mad at him. everyone else just does their best to ignore him. he spends a lot of his time drifting around dissociating and losing time and he tends to feel like he doesn't exist if he isn't interacting with someone. this boy has problems!

he's a very soft and pampered grimwalker, like physically speaking he's a lot less fit than the version of Hunter who's a soldier... he still does regular workouts to keep himself in shape (and flexible for the Emperor's pleasure) but he's much softer and has basically no combat knowledge or anything. he's very aware that he's just an interactive decorative toy and he's helpless without Belos, that the only thing that keeps him safe or gives him any authority is the fact that he's so favored by the Emperor.

so basically he's just a prisoner in this castle kept here by carefully cultivated helplessness + brainwashed loyalty to his captor and abuser. and everybody else finds it very concerning and distasteful but nobody says anything because, well, who wants to get in the middle of THAT mess?

you can DM me on twitter to talk about it! i think they may have recently messed with the placement and visibility of the DM button, but anyone can send me a message request, so just message me letting me know you're interested in a commission, and we can talk about pricing, payment, and what kind of idea you have in mind.

as far as hard limits - kinkwise i do not like scat and wouldn't want to write that. outside of that, it's mostly just that i won't write for a fandom i'm not familiar with (but feel free to ask, i mostly talk about TOH on twitter but i'm familiar with other media!), or if i really dislike something about the idea or don't think i could do it justice. but feel free to ask, and if it doesn't work for me then i'll just let you know i don't think i can do that!

i do want to make a note that right now i have one pending commission i'm working on, one that someone offered me and has been waiting on me to finish the source material for it for a WHILE who i need to get back to about that, AND i have a job that eats up a ton of my free time and energy, so if you do commission me, your turn-around is going to be VERY SLOW and depending on how much it is, i will probably have you split your payments up into several installments. (i'm on certain benefits programs and can only make so much money in a month without losing them, unfortunately.)

but yeah, DM me on twitter and we can talk about it (don't be surprised if it takes a while to get a response, though - i work during the week, so i'm often busy, so if it takes me a few hours or a day or two to respond, don't worry, i'm not ignoring you, i'm just busy.)

yeah, honestly, i don't think you're wrong? similar overtones of like... Boscha and Philip are both kind of fragile people who have swaddled their delicate egos in a sense of righteousness and cruelty, and who refuse to engage with any of their more delicate or scarier emotions (fear, regret, etc.) they both have someone they're fixated on who they want to change to agree with them and who they refuse to let go because they've made this person's presence in their life and support of their actions into a huge part of their own self-concept, and rather than reevaluate, they just try to force that person back into the role they want them to play.

of course, Boscha is 14, so while it's fucked up, it's imo a bit more understandable that she's struggling to relate to others and form healthy relationships this way. hopefully she actually learns from this that she can't MAKE people be who she wants them to be, and she can either change with them or let them go, unlike Philip.

but yeah i definitely think there are parallels there.

ooough man i love it but there is so LITTLE of it in the fandom that i like. Actually Like lmao.

okay - well a big one that i really like is the idea of Belos getting to Luz first. like he snatches her up before Eda can and keeps her and plays into her main character syndrome and her tendency early on to view this all as one of her fantasy adventures. she's the honored guest of the noble witch emperor etc etc - i especially like him slowly grooming her and maybe trying to see if she and Hunter will play nice together and meanwhile Hunter knows exactly what is happening and is so mad and so jealous and so worried for her.

love when Hunter is the third player here, either because Belos wants to make his Barbies kiss or because he's playing them against each other.

i love the idea of like, time-travel Philuz too... that one fic of mine where Luz gets separated from him and Lilith and he tells her Lilith died and takes her in (keeps her in his nasty murder cave to groom and molest her) is a favorite concept... in this case i like Luz thinking she can fix him, admiring and looking up to him, maybe even seeing this as a sort of forbidden romance type of thing.

and of course there's my unwritten au where they both get thrown into another dimension together and have to cooperate to get out. i love enemies-to-reluctant-conspirators, when people are put in a survival situation together. the intimacy! i want them to have no one but each other to rely on, to be in each other's back pockets constantly, for her to be forced to get to know him as a person and not just her enemy.

i love her falling for his manipulation, especially when she thinks she's on the lookout for it. i also love him coercing her into stuff which she doesn't want to do but feels like she has no other choice - her sacrificing herself for the others is always good. love him having Hunter help 'train' her or 'break her in' and the two of them having a fucked up relationship because of that. i really love thinking about the ways Belos could manipulate Luz and play on her tendency to fantasize and daydream and see things in terms of stories where she's the main character in order to draw her deeper into his web, and the ways that she might fall back on that tendency to try and deal with the abuse she's experiencing from him as it escalates.

that's a good question! i'm sitting here like, have i even read or seen any empgold? what tropes ARE used in it? lmao.

i just read a really good empgold cockwarming fic so i'm thinking about that. i've seen it here and there but i do think it's really good. and all of my FAVORITE empgold fics focus in on how normalized it is to Hunter, which is a thing i really like - there are plenty of fics of him hating it and being forced, and plenty of fics of him being groomed into liking it, but i really like the ones where it's not even something he puts much of a judgment on at all. It Just Happens, it's just part of his life, it's as completely unremarkable as standing guard in the throne room or reporting the progress of his studies. i just love Hunter being so incredibly groomed and isolated he genuinely does not even realize there's any reason to hide it or keep it secret.

as far as kinks go... i'd like to see more empgold pissfic. there's like, one other than the one i wrote, but... also i'm an eternal fan of Belos getting Hunter pregnant and all the various ways THAT could go so i'd love to see it more. also i'm still holding out hope that one day someone is going to write a good omegaverse fic that i actually like and i'd love some empgold omegaverse stuff, especially if having an alpha/beta/omega designation is a witch thing and NOT a human thing.

oh, also: needs to be more empgold chastity stuff. Belos is a literal puritan and i am sure that in his twisted mind he thinks the problem is that Caleb fell prey to the temptations of the flesh and lived in lust and sin with that horrible witch, so, what if he just made his grimwalkers Chronically Unable To Fuck?

ooh let me think... i like lots of things but often tend to forget stuff i don't have an intense, enduring interest in.

so lately i've been very into the Locked Tomb series. i also really love the Murderbot series. i've read two good stand-alone gothic horror novels recently, Mexican Gothic and Leech. i'm a big fan of Terry Pratchett and have read a ton of his books. also regrettably a fan of Stephen King. ASOIAF too, i'm still waiting on The Winds of Winter, and i have OPINIONS about Emmy-award winning television series Game of Thrones (derogatory.)

as far as shows go... cartoons-wise, i've watched some Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and really liked it! i was in Gravity Falls fandom for a bit of time right after the show ended too. i have an enduring love for my personal favorite shitty copaganda show, White Collar. i still miss The Get-Down every day. i loved Breaking Bad and started Better Call Saul and loved it but haven't continued because it's just very heavy, every episode takes a while to digest. i had a huge anime phase as a kid and teenager so i was very into Yu Yu Hakusho, Naruto, and FMA - those are probably my personal big three. i've been watching original flavor Trigun recently and i'm almost done and like it a lot! Wolfwood and Vash and Knives are all soooo molested holy shit.

i was in The Magnus Archives fandom before i got into TOH, but i don't really listen to many other podcasts.

i also really like video games! i tend to collect and never finish them, but i've played a bit of a lot of them. right now i'm playing My Time At Portia, Disco Elysium, and the Steam release of Dwarf Fortress, a game i've been poking at since the 20teens, back when you had to download tilesets yourself if you didn't want ASCII graphics. Sid Meier's Civilization series is a favorite; i started playing 5 and have been absolutely obsessed with 6 since it came out, although i have yet to actually finish a game, lmao. i think i have over 1k hours in 6 in steam. Humankind is also a very good Civ-like 4x. Masters of Orion is an old-school scifi 4x that i love. i also really like Blizzard's Diablo series, 2 and 3, but i can't play 3 because my computer always thinks the Blizzard launcher is spyware and freaks out when i try to install it. :o( sad about that. Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale and Long Live The Queen are also very fun ones. a friend got me to try out Morrowind but i keep forgetting to keep up with it. i have also played Pokemon since the first generation came out on gameboy color (my first was Blue version) and my fave generation is Ruby and Sapphire! i have a playthrough of White version currently on hold right before i challenge the Elite Four.

as far as consoles go, the Switch is the most recent one i have. i played The World Ends With You on DS and loved it, also an enduring obsession, so when TWEWY 2 came out i snapped that shit up so fast, but i haven't finished it yet either. ACNH, of course. before it broke my ps2 was my favorite console - i loved the .hack games and have played all of them except number 4. loved the Fatal Frame games, played but never finished Persona 3. one of my favorite weird little games is this one called Baroque where you have to go down this tower and it's kind of a roguelike? never finished that one but it was cool.

also, i like some webcomics! i was into Homestuck during its heyday, and right now my favorite one is called Unsounded, which i would recommend for people who like dark stuff, gorgeously rendered gore, political machinations, and complex characters who are often shitty people.

and uhhh... that's all i can really think of off the top of my head!