#hc.p

[wileds]

𝗵𝗰. 𝗱𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗺𝘀 & 𝗱𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗺 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗽𝗿𝗲𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻.  there is a categorization of dreams that i’ve borrowed from islamic tradition which distinguishes true dreams from bad dreams from the everyday, random dreams.  

true dreams can come true, though you won’t know this until it happens of course, or if a trustworthy person can interpret it.  they’re good dreams about the future!  you’re generally not supposed to obsess over making a dream come true or else things might go astray.  one hadith collected by al-Bukhaari states: The truthfulness of the dream is related to the sincerity of the dreamer. Those who have the most truthful dreams are those who are the most truthful in speech.  in islamic tradition true dreams are tied to prophethood too.

bad dreams are self-explanatory: nightmares, distressing dreams, warnings, forbidden things.  love cannot remember his dreams unless he makes a concerted effort to right after waking up, but what he does remember are mostly this type.

random dreams are insignificant.

love confesses that he’s wary about casual internet-search dream interpretations because in his clan there’s varied, vetted ways to interpret one’s dream.  interpretation through proverbs, names and metaphors, etc, alongside standard psychology.  he only talks about his dreams with loved ones or experts - which isn’t that unusual for the average person to do, but it’s more of a thing with him, to not tell dream contents at all beyond those wise or dear.  so he’s told friends before as well as therapists & psychiatrists!  i’ve mentioned love’s recurring dream that ends in him killing someone.  he has had a specific dream about killing his mother before and her asking him to kill her.  he’s also dreamed about arson, kidnappings & abductions, falls from great heights, theft, animal abuse, natural disasters (sometimes leans into fantasy here), and murders.  he’s not always the perpetrator.  since his dreams have practically always included distressing ones since his early teens, and with his semblance being what it is, he’s had on-and-off sessions with experts on whether his bad dreams are actually true dreams.  so far they think he’s fine!!!  none of his dreams have ever come true!!!

[wileds]

𝐡𝐜 : 𝐬𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 / 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐠𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬.  a year or so after the fall love starts using his semblance more.  he wears even lighter armor than before, often going without his gold armor belt or the lower half (vambrace + gauntlet) of his arm piece, essentially left with a pauldron and rerebrace above the elbow.  there are scars on both of his forearms now where in the past love always looked impressively free of visible scars.  slender, long, but relatively thin and well healed.  these are self-inflicted remnants of where he cut himself to trigger his blood affinity & gain blood empowerment.  the amount of marks gathered in such a relatively short period of time strikes one as unusual due to the healing properties of aura, but the crux of his affinity is needing contact with blood to maintain the boosts in power.  grimm don’t bleed and serious skirmishes against people are still rarer confrontations as a hunter-in-training, so he relies on himself as a source of blood letting, dropping his aura shielding and keeping it down for whatever duration he sees fit.  mixed with the side effects of his semblance, particularly after prolonged use, he often neglects or doesn’t care about healing up in time to prevent lasting marks.  there may be some other properties of his affinity in play too affecting the bleeding / healing process, but those kinds of details are held pretty close to chest.  love is still in the training process with everything.  he will rarely cut himself in the middle of a real fight because going unprotected, even while boosted with his semblance, greatly invites getting hit with serious damage.  receiving blunt trauma does absolutely nothing for him but damage.

he doesn’t give much indication of how he feels about all the new scarring on his body, whether it has marred his vision of himself or affected body confidence, although he will easily admit that they’re from his semblance and not from any unfortunate accidents!  in any case … his plentiful, wonderful, pretty wardrobe has not changed.  short sleeves & sleeveless outfits leave everything unabashedly uncovered.

hand in hand with learning how to control this method is renewed mentorship with a mentor modeled after 2019 ala/ddin’s hak/im, someone who has worked for and with the clarkias for a long time, seasoned, well into retirement already –— and a descendant of the bloodmad, the person last graced by their hereditary semblance who lived during the great war.  on weekends love will either go home or his mentor will go up to vacuo city, and they’ll do some concentrated sessions together exclusively on semblance training both physical and mental:  drills, meditation, lessons of family history and strategy.  the mentorship is not perfect since paltry few are still alive from when the previous inheritor of the tribe’s semblance was around, more than 80 years ago.  those that are alive don’t have the mind, desire, or able body for battle or mentorship.  a lot of what they do together is knowledge & exercises passed down through the generations to hone skills.  his mentor does have memories of the bloodmad but they’re pretty foggy, gained at a young age.  a few personal stories and even more tales that the entire tribe would know.  the rest of their training is progress made through collaborative trial-and-error.  despite imperfections, this focused study and love’s new willingness to shrug off his longtime distaste for this particular method of using his semblance is helping turn the lessons into a fruitful endeavor instead of something to dread. 

love’s prowess has always been remarked upon in the tribe, beginning with the incredibly young age that his power first awakened.  known to have natural hunting & combat skills ever since, someone eager to learn and prove himself better (or to receive praise and recognition for his achievements.  probably all of the above).  shown true at the vytal tournament as well.  with this new tool beginning to form, there is much hope & excitement that his potential will blossom into even greater heights as he loosens the retrains kept on his fighting.  it takes a lot for him to trip into bloodlust, but this is another facet that he will have to tackle so he can keep his head in battle and keep dangerous recklessness at bay.  it’s always been a known given that their hereditary semblance lends itself best to brutal fighting styles and even a measure of wildness.  his goal is definitely to turn his semblance from a crutch used only in dire situations to a tool that he feels in control of rather than controlling him.  getting to the point where he admits that using his semblance –— the strength, the violence –— feels  really good  will come one day.

fun fact : that very beautiful, ceremonial looking dagger in my dashcon is relevant!  love isn’t using his axes on himself, but a separate blade that has Symbolic And Historical Significance for the clarkias.

[wileds]

hc. telling.  saying “once upon a time...” “long ago...” and “there once was a...”  are all typical openings to fairy tales  &  fables.  for some stories that begin with a rich landscape description, love will open with:  “no people own their land like the vacuoans do; they make you feel it instantly!”  this scripted scene-setting will not be familiar to everyone since it is an introduction specific to the kingdom.  little speech patterns can clue an audience in to the kind of story he’s sharing.

love narrates with “we” and “you” more often for stories originating from his tribe;  for the genre of dreams / recounting personal dreams and for  some  teaching stories, he will almost exclusively use “you” throughout the whole story.  interjecting with sayings such as the well-known  “listen to the desert”  is common too when one wishes to throw in wisdom (but also if one wants to be wry by saying “listen to the desert” at the end of an absolutely terrible event.) 

he’s colorful when he talks.  he improvises from memory.  but he still abides by prescribed phrasings when it’s needed, showing that he’s following the rules laid out by previous writers and storytellers.  some of the most compelling poetry has the most formulaic composition, after all.

edit:  oh yeah, love opens with “they say” a lot too.

[wileds]

being aromantic, love is someone who only very very rarely wants to get into an actual relationship with someone.  and i’m saying that only because robin exists and because love will inevitable have to get married to someone acceptable one day.  

that duty and expectation of marriage grew into a genuine desire to have some kind of life partner one day, though his ideal of it is wholly nonromantic!  cuz he just knows!  in his heart of hearts he’d be kinda miserable without an enduring friendship / relationship like that.  of course qualified by the fact that love’s inability to consider anyone in an utterly singular way, especially in a one-and-only way, is at the crux of his aromanticism.  ( inability to understand at best, a catalyst for feeling romance repulsion at worst. )  he can point out how & why he thinks people are special.  but.  after a certain point there is a disconnect that he doesn’t fully understand or know how to articulate, but he knows it’s there.  

he doesn’t turn to labels much because it confuses more than clarifies.  there was some inner battling between whether he felt 100% aromantic or demiromantic and he might still be waiting for the answer to magically descend upon him one day because who knows could be, and his name is love, and romantic love is everywhere made the pinnacle.  even though he knows it’s not.  still.

being attached to someone does not squick him out so much as the keen discomfort he gets when he feels like there is no balance and no reciprocation, which there inherently will  not  be unless the other person is aro too or generally not looking for romance.  because he doesn’t do romance.  and all of performative language & friendliness & affection is not an invitation or a signal for it.  he’s just not a cold person, period.  since reciprocity makes him thrive in any relationship, the lack of it amplified by everything else often makes him flighty at the first clear signs of anyone developing a crush or serious feelings for him.  it happens with robin a decent amount of times and those two are  relatively dedicated  to giving dating a real go.

[wileds]

hey.  it is surreal that it’s impossible for love to experience any harm that leads to shed blood in a normal way, on himself or on anyone else.  

it’s an extreme way to live with when you really think about it, being so sensitized & reactive to blood considering what he’s training to be.  conceptually he’s fundamentally unable to relate to “normal” registers or pain and self-preservation since blood letting empowers him instead of weakening him.  discomfort and pain are the first indicators of something being wrong with your body and this feedback is warped for him.  it goes beyond just having a high pain tolerance.  it’s hard to say what his tolerance is honestly like.  his power overrides it, his thresholds are skewed.  you can get a since of this dissonance sometimes?  i’ve mentioned how he will fall back on scripted behavior and language when coming off his semblance in a way that can feel autopilot-y until he regains normalcy.  it’s also in how he often doesn’t have large reactions to minor injuries.  the motherfucker will casually bleed out a little, a little.  perfunctory medical care at best, plain negligence at worst until he remembers to prioritize getting healed up.  he’s able to recognize when an injury is bad of course, but it’s easier to do so on others than on himself.  he will easily offer effusive care or worry to anyone who gets seriously injured, but has and will continue to shy away from being the person to directly apply that aid if there’s blood involved.  and personally when in the midst of an active semblance, his body just tells him that he can handle more & do more & it covets power.  it takes conscious effort to ignore that and do what he should do rather than what his body is telling him.  this is without any trenchant bloodlust either that can scramble even that practical voice of reason, although it takes a lot for that to kick in. 

like, it is not obvious how performative this aspect of his care is.  because he’s generous with it like he is with many other things, it doesn’t stand out.  his behavior  is  a giveaway but verbally you wouldn’t automatically recognize when or if he’s following a script.  which is the point, to make things easier on himself. 

he does have a process when engaging his blood affinity, but his relationship with it is definitely not at its best or healthiest.  he needs more training, less caution, and semblance specific mentoring.  his tribe did give him all this support on top of celebration.  while at shade, it’s spottier.  it was a lot to move from a community that knew of him and all the history of the family’s semblance to anonymity.  searching out that same level of comfort & support, people he’s willing to divest his trust to, sure isn’t a simple process.

[wileds]

asking for science is he comfortable with other pronouns?

he’s … not bothered by them?  pronouns are more ‘whatever’ to love than being called gendered words like boy, girl, man, woman, son, daughter, etc.  being squarely put in either binary has the potential to make him uncomfortable depending on context.  he’s fine with “gendered” compliments lol, eg. handsome, pretty.

if we’re talking words and titles, if there is no gender neutral option available then he is  broadly  more comfortable with feminine & female designations.  like, he is his parent’s daughter, but he’d call himself a huntsman before a huntress.  this is if “child” and “hunter” were for some reason not an option.  generally he is a lot more attached to feminine imagery, poetry, symbolism etc too, which ties into the above preference.  so it still changes depending on the words?  he’s nonbinary ( trans nb if ya wanna go there, but as always i’ll emphasize the labels he actually uses for himself which are just  nonbinary  and  queer. )  he doesn’t want to “pass” as a guy.  he doesn’t want to “pass” as a girl.  “passing” as a concept is … dumb and dangerous.  if someone sees him and 100% pins him as one or the other binary then it probably won’t upset him, he might not even recognize it in the moment / in casual conversation, but he will correct & clarify with people he knows & in situations that are significant for him.  because if someone knows his identity but disrespects it then he honestly wants nothing to do with them, which isn’t a topic that will appear on this blog much if at all i suspect, but know that love does not have time for that shit.

lastly:  he tends to have phases with his pronouns.  which is fine.  he had a period where he thought that wasn’t fine, but it is my sweet child….. so there’s times when he so heavily prefers a certain pronoun that he’ll use it pretty much exclusively.  right now it’s he/him.  it’s been he/him since he’s been at shade.  maybe a couple months or years from now he’ll be back to using she/her or try they/them, it doesn’t matter, he’ll do it if something else becomes most comfortable.

[wileds]

hc. love & color symbolism, clothing, etc.  past headcanons have established that the decorated body makes up a part of his cultural background & identity.  that said, color symbolism doesn’t apply to all of the clothes or outfits that he wears as many of his style choices are just for style.  color symbolism applies mostly when he wears traditional clothing and formal / ceremonial clothing, which is often traditional for him or incorporates traditional elements.  in the clarkia tribe  light colors are said to resemble sunlight and include any hue of red and yellow.  greens and blacks (often replaced by blues or purples) are dark colors.  white represents morality and good fortune, reflected even in one of their sayings that someone who is good-natured and agreeable has a “white heart.”  if you go further white also has connections with piety, prayer, and such things especially in head coverings or modesty garments.  the colors in love’s wardrobe are eclectic and do not lean heavily in the light or dark spectrum but, significantly and intentionally, all of his tattoos - present and future - are done in red ink, a light color connected to sunlight.  if asked love will happily align himself with sunny metaphors and symbols over the moon as well, even though there are some standards of (feminine) beauty linked to the moon & moonlight which he also enjoys!

metals like silver and gold can grant anything extra dynamic energy, especially if it’s metallic sequins or some similar baubles that move and shimmer when one walks.

and fun fact:  green is one of the most heavily symbolic colors.  obvious ties to vegetation and fertility, but it also has religious significance and charisma.  you will see green in and around a lot of shrines and significant buildings, be it tiles or plants.

[wileds]

as a part of his education love knows A Lot of the family names of vacuoan elite, new and old.  for him, memory exercises began with learning the genealogy of his own family / tribe since bloodline is so important to them and the mnemonics used to trace the family tree were beneficial learning tools in general.  his  full name , love bint isa ibn munir al-clarkia al-akhdar al-vacuo, already links him to his father and grandfather right there, but he can recite several generations deeper straight from the top of his head from both the paternal and maternal sides of his family.  lineage was deemed extra important to learn because of his semblance.  love took a personal interest in hearing about past inheritors from decades & decades ago because it helped him feel closer to them and more comfortable with his power.  generally his tribe has a brilliant preservation of family history, oral and written.

once old enough love’s social education expanded to learning the most notable individuals, families, and groups in vacuo.  titles, alliances, tribes, tribal politics, drama, gossip.  the introduction was made easier by the fact that his mother’s father used to work for vacuo’s council & so made lasting connections in influential places.  as the chief’s child he had knowledge of tribal politics at hand.  by the time he started having formal decorum lessons, he’d already been more than familiar with key family friends; he was precocious enough to befriend a few of them beyond formality’s sake.  his parents also early on recognized how much of a social butterfly he was and used parties and gatherings as a practical way to educate him / grant him real experience, rather than focusing exclusively on hard lessons.  

a lot of the clarkia’s social circle remain relatively up there in political or socioeconomic status, although with their dust business failing and dying as it is, there has been a notable dip in people who want or care to pay his family much attention anymore.  regardless, all of this results in love having a pretty good catalogue to reference whenever he meets someone new.  if a certain surname is prominent or noteworthy for whatever reason then he will recognize it, even if he won’t know an individual’s face or can’t recall a significant amount of details.  he may know  way more  than expected, or he may only know someone as  “they’re from this family”  or  “that group has this reputation so i should act this or that way”  or  “oh, the __’s did have a son didn’t they?”

related to the dust industry at large, he also knows many big names and companies all around remnant.  although their business and financial prospects are facing irreversible troubles, his family’s  social capital  and  love’s own daring attitude towards taking social risks  are  real  pieces of leverage & power still.  he’s determined to use them to his advantage for long term goals.