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.
