I'm so sorry I didn't see this earlier! (For reference, I only get retrospring notifs when I'm on my laptop).

Honestly if you still want a plot suggestion, I'm not at all happy with how I've handled my "Philip and Luz go shoplift at Hot Topic" story - the story is 4k and mostly rewritten, but dsdfdfkj I dunno, I'm just not happy with it. So feel free to improve on that one, lol.

I've also been thinking of Belos suicide-baiting himself around Hunter to get a quick surge of sympathy, and him trying that on Luz leads to disastrous results because she hates him and doesn't care about how toxic he makes her act (even though part of her knows she should).

Hope you're feeling better <3

Considering the Titan said he's "the best of both" I have to assume it's a self-fertilizing thing like plants, so dick + titanussy. Either that or Titans are like those lesbian lizards that reproduce asexually via cloning, which is also a distinct possibility.

ACTUALLY, I just remembered an Assassin's Creed fanfic I found where every male in the guy's family can get mpregged by skin-touch and the main character doesn't realize until close to adulthood that all those times he's pissed blood after drinking his mom's special tea have been abortions. I'm /not/ saying that someone should write that fic. But I am saying that King accidentally [TRAIN GOES BY FOR FIVE SOLID MINUTES] and he ends up pissing spaghetti sauce is a fic someone could conceivably right.

Final note: I saw someone mention the other day that the reason Amity's abomination magic probably didn't work until she got to Old Gravesfield is probably that the Boiling Isles is a necropolis, aka Abomination material is made from corpses, aka do you think you could make an Abomination out of aborted fetuses? Maybe put that shit in a blender or something first?

No you're right. I keep seeing art of adult Luz with top surgery and I'm like [pog emoji]. I think she would start off binding as a way to wear men's clothing -- mhm, totally -- but being around people in the Boiling Isles makes her much more comfortable with actually going through with [magic] surgery. I don't see Luz ever fully giving up her connection to womanhood, but transmasc nonbinary fits her (/ occasionally him) really well.

Ironically, from my mutuals I see a lot more transfemme Caleb w/ transmasc Pip content. Vincent / @empgold1 and I had the great idea of Philip as MEGA stealth, fully on magic bottom surgery and everything, yet still seeing himself as a "mutilated woman" and absolutely seething at how being queer is accepted even of children in the Boiling Isles. He's super paranoid Luz can just "tell" somehow. Transmasc Caleb is interesting, though -- the parentification that comes with Elderest Daughter Syndrome and the fact that, even after Caleb socially transitions after their parents die, he still has to fulfill both the mother and father roles for Philip. Also a lot harder for Philip to argue that Caleb should come back to the Human Realm when doing so means getting cut off from the One accepting society he's ever known-- twisting the knife inside Philip because it's another reminder that he wasn't enough to make his brother happy.

LMAOOOO Caleb really like "your virginity is a sacrifice I'm willing to make."

I'm also not sure about that, since I see his attraction to Luz as so deeply founded in his thwarted attraction to Caleb. Even in my AUs, I see him forcing her and Hunter into those parentification/caregiver roles simply because Caleb isn't there to do it. If Luz and Philip got married, I think Luz would get annoyed by how Philip still prioritizes his brother (thinking of how wincest shippers point towards how Dean's relationships with women are somehow always thwarted by his devotion to his brother Sam) (if I'm recalling my incest meta posts correctly). Also, Luz and Caleb both prefer the Boiling Isles, which is not an L Philip would be willing to hold. It's interesting you bring up Caleb trying to set Philip up, though, not because I can't see him doing it but because part of my current wip is literally him seeing Philip hook up with another Bad Bitch with Autism and getting so upset he sabotages it. Lmao!

Counterpoint: he's insane. He clearly does think there's this special, innate bond that being human gives them, and to a degree he's right-- they're both displaced in the Isles (at least at first) and have to fight for every inch of progress they've made integrating themselves into this society. When the narratives be foiling (why is my microwave now on fire).

Luz can see it, too -- hence why in s3 she was torn up over the supposed similarities in her and Belos's motivations, despite telling him that she's not like him in King's Tide. Ironically, in her Titan form she was closer to him than ever, both changed physically by Titan magic. I noticed on my rewatch of KT last night that Belos's wrist-tats glow when he starts the petrification spell, so I have to wonder if it that was his attempt at controlling the curse and channeling the magic that consuming Palismen had given him (as he identifies them as the source of at least his shapeshifting in HM). What I'm getting at here is Bro Probably Cursed Himself, in a dark mirror to how Luz was told by the Titan that she had to choose herself in the In-Between.

I'm not too sure how specific you want me to be, but my favorite characterization of them is as an incredibly mean-spirited sitcom -- she never falls in love with him and doesn't bother trying to hide it most of the time. Belos just has to pretend it doesn't bother him. Oh sweetheart, you set my bed on fire again <3 you're so considerate; you know how cold I get <3. On a certain level, Luz realizes the real way to win against him is not to play-- to just grey rock him entirely -- but it takes a long, long time for her to be able to do it both because of her own emotionality and also because of how he escalates.

One thing I thought about but didn't put into "the great war" was her teaching him more modern slang -- I like Belos would be a big fan of saying "large if factual" after Luz says something is "big if true." He DEFINITELY snoops on Luz's fanfic writing/reading habits (see my vore tweet). This is Belos on Reddit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfLCm24I83w

My spiciest philuz HC is that Luz does that zoomer "oh you're calling me a [insert slur]?" thing and Belos, not wanting to admit that he's playing with the Bigotry base game and hasn't gotten any of the expansions, just goes "sure."

If we're talking about her meeting him as Philip first, I think she'd be easy pickings -- thinking of Luz carving glyphs into her skin to impress him, because you know she'd at least try.

I doubt that'll happen but if it did it would be VERY funny. Would probably be either Hunter or Amity seeing her from afar/from the back and awkwardly starting to say "Belos" before she turns around and they correct themselves. Bet.

I think even without some direct confirmation like that, we can argue pretty convincingly that Belos is pedophile-coded and that his abuse of Hunter is meant to represent emotional incest. Given this, Dana's noted love of dark/horror-themed art, and just Having Eyes, we can reasonably infer that at least a few people on the crew know about Beluz. Despite animation Twitter being overrun with antis nowadays, my own experiences with Having Eyes tell me that most animators are into weird shit, and it's also kind of a trope in and of itself to have at least one antagonist who is into the main girl. Belos is honestly TOO pedophile-coded for me to believe otherwise.

I feel like with Amity (and tbh with Hunter, but especially with Amity), the creators knew they were going in this direction and got themselves more attached to post-"redemption" Amity, and so they just decided to make a beeline for that point. It's not the worst thing ever -- I definitely think it's overall been better to have Lumity become established and start working through real relationship issues rather than dancing around each other forever -- but I don't think I've had a moment where Amity's attraction to Luz fully "clicked" for me. Like, I know the reasons the show's given, and the reasons make sense, but whenever I think back over the show in my head it feels like there's a plot-beat missing, even though I still like lumity well enough.

I know we clown on Lily Orchard for a lot of reasons -- believe me, I can clown better than all of you -- but her wife made a good video pointing out that, despite the show critiquing Luz's initial approach to the Boiling Isles as her wish fulfillment playground, the show also rewards Luz for consistently approaching Amity as the Hectate to her Azura. When I think about it, I wonder if swapping the "you make me do stupid things" scene around so that it comes before Amity thinking of asking Luz to Grom would help, since Amity would have had to confront how Luz makes her feel out of control and then (unsuccessfully) seek to reestablish control-- and assert her own desires for once-- by asking her out. Hmm. I'm just thinking out loud here-- I need to go back and refresh my memory of season one before I make any firmer claims.

I know edoro has made a lot of posts about this on his tumblr and is probably the first truly Beluzpilled user. It's funny-- back when I was first getting into the show, a mutual would send me a lot of his meta posts about Belos being a pedofreak, as seeing the obvious Rape Coding while staying on the normal side of the TOH fandom was making me feel insane. I know most stuff revolves around empgold-- I called that shit months before I even watched the show-- but the moment that truly convinced me he was a freak for Luz to was the way he said "Luzura" in Hollow Mind. GET AWAY!!! FREAK!!! The rest of the scene is literally insane for obvious reasons.

Honestly, if Luz was a little older I think we would see a looooooot more Beluz content, similar to Darklina and other dark hero/villain YA ships. I'm sure there are a ton of people who pick up on this, though, and just don't feel comfortable saying it. Most of the show's fandom seems to have come from lumity, which is fine, but the prioritization of the canon wlw ship and the heavy presence of antis in this fandom makes consciously acknowledging these parts of the text difficult. If TOH were a YA fantasy book series there would 1000000000% be more explicit sexual tension between them, or at least an open acknowledgment that Belos wants to fuck her. No one argue with me because I'm right.