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bedesRating: T
Fandom: The Owl House
Characters: Hunter, Flapjack (mentioned), Emperor Belos (mentioned)
Words: 824
Content Warnings: Past child abuse, and descriptions of corpses, rotting, and related imagery
Tropes: Metaphor, Nonbinary Character (Hunter), Gender Dysphoria, Body Horror, Psychological Horror, Angst
Summary: What is a grimwalker? A warped imitation of a man, long dead?
(Hunter experiencing the body horror inherent to being a grimwalker as a metaphor for gender dysphoria. Labyrinth Runners-era.)
I use they/them for Hunter in this, because nonbinary Hunter makes me happy. That is all :]
How does one define a "grimwalker"?
Does it have a stone heart, and bones recycled from corpses? Is it a body that is nothing more than a dictator's memory, sealed with bruises and scars? It is something that is made over time - something that is treated as less than a witch, and thus becomes as much?
Is it the cold horror that hasn't left Hunter's bones?
What's a grimwalker?
Hunter tries to learn. Gathers old books with night's cloak to hide them, which they hide behind a stage curtain when they want to pretend to be ignorant again for a little while. They tell him that a grimwalker is a miserable pile of other creature's bones and magic. A grimwalker is a warped imitation of a man, long dead.
A grimwalker wants to sob and claw their body open to prove to themself that they're real.
Is a grimwalker real?
"Hunter" might not exist at all. All that exists in this body might be whoever Belos made them to be, whoever Belos killed. The "him" they look so much like, the "him" they were made to replace. Everything they feel right now... It's all what that unknowable "him" would feel, under the same circumstances. Every thought, every cry, every little quirk they thought was unique to them; it was all "his".
Even this sorrow is not their own.
Do grimwalkers belong nowhere?
Every piece of knowledge they could grasp with desperate fingers spoke in hypotheticals. 'If's. The authors speak intimately about Hunter, knowing more about them than they, themself, do, all without acknowledging that they are the one reading these words. These texts, they're for voyeurs. Hunter is not supposed to read them. Hunter is not supposed to exist.
Nothing is ever going to be the same. They know that now. They are never going to regain what they have lost. There is nothing left for them. They don't belong anywhere. Not even in their body.
(Especially not there.)
What is the body of a grimwalker?
They know this one. A grimwalker is made of wood, scales, and bones. But more so, they wonder - is that all it is? Can they truly call their body "theirs"?
They've never felt like their body is theirs. Whether that be a quiet discomfort with the way that it morphed and changed as they grew, or a hurried hiding of stuffed animals underneath their mattress because they need one thing, one thing to themself. They'd always felt the need to carve and curve their body into another shape. But it's one thing to feel it, in the most private and intimate corner of their heart, and another for it to be acknowledged. To be told there's a reason.
In the Paranoratorium, where they've hidden their body away from prying eyes, there's a mirror. Presumably for the witches here who need to see how they look, while dressing up as and mimicking someone else. Hunter sits in front of that mirror often these days, because they, too, are made to mimic someone else.
They stare at their reflection, and think they not at home in this body. And lately, they've been having this nightmare that this means that there is no life in this body, either. Skin melting off flesh. A revelation that the rolling feeling in their stomach from their reflection had been maggots all along. Witches fleeing from the stench of a rotting body, but Hunter had always been able to smell it.
They had always known that something was wrong.
What is a friend for a grimwalker? A comforting lie? No less false for being the only thing keeping them from falling apart?
They want to abstain from touching Flapjack. They don't; they can't bring themself to. It's their only comfort, and to refrain would drive them mad. And they can't bring themself to talk to him about what they learned about themself, either. (The word describing what they are tastes like bile in their mouth.)
After all, it's witches that have palismen. Not grimwalkers.
But, still, as Hunter holds their friend close with trembling hands, they fear that one of their shards of glass will wedge its way into Flapjack's small, fragile body. And they'd both be dead, then.
They are, they've discovered, made of broken glass. A shattered mirror, inherently empty. They are the way that a reflection abstracts when one squints.
Maybe that's what a grimwalker is.
Maybe a grimwalker is the kind smile Belos put on for him; or more specifically, the absence of that smile in his eyes. Maybe it's the absence of love where it should have existed. Maybe it's the absence of anyone to wipe the tears of a creature whose creator had beaten it until it couldn't hold back tears, crumbling to the floor in despair.
A grimwalker is the bones of a man. That is how Hunter began, and that is how he is going to end.
Shoutout to grimwalkers, GOTTA be one of my favorite trans metaphors.
Fandom: The Owl House
Characters: Hunter, Flapjack (mentioned), Emperor Belos (mentioned)
Words: 824
Content Warnings: Past child abuse, and descriptions of corpses, rotting, and related imagery
Tropes: Metaphor, Nonbinary Character (Hunter), Gender Dysphoria, Body Horror, Psychological Horror, Angst
Summary: What is a grimwalker? A warped imitation of a man, long dead?
(Hunter experiencing the body horror inherent to being a grimwalker as a metaphor for gender dysphoria. Labyrinth Runners-era.)
I use they/them for Hunter in this, because nonbinary Hunter makes me happy. That is all :]
How does one define a "grimwalker"?
Does it have a stone heart, and bones recycled from corpses? Is it a body that is nothing more than a dictator's memory, sealed with bruises and scars? It is something that is made over time - something that is treated as less than a witch, and thus becomes as much?
Is it the cold horror that hasn't left Hunter's bones?
What's a grimwalker?
Hunter tries to learn. Gathers old books with night's cloak to hide them, which they hide behind a stage curtain when they want to pretend to be ignorant again for a little while. They tell him that a grimwalker is a miserable pile of other creature's bones and magic. A grimwalker is a warped imitation of a man, long dead.
A grimwalker wants to sob and claw their body open to prove to themself that they're real.
Is a grimwalker real?
"Hunter" might not exist at all. All that exists in this body might be whoever Belos made them to be, whoever Belos killed. The "him" they look so much like, the "him" they were made to replace. Everything they feel right now... It's all what that unknowable "him" would feel, under the same circumstances. Every thought, every cry, every little quirk they thought was unique to them; it was all "his".
Even this sorrow is not their own.
Do grimwalkers belong nowhere?
Every piece of knowledge they could grasp with desperate fingers spoke in hypotheticals. 'If's. The authors speak intimately about Hunter, knowing more about them than they, themself, do, all without acknowledging that they are the one reading these words. These texts, they're for voyeurs. Hunter is not supposed to read them. Hunter is not supposed to exist.
Nothing is ever going to be the same. They know that now. They are never going to regain what they have lost. There is nothing left for them. They don't belong anywhere. Not even in their body.
(Especially not there.)
What is the body of a grimwalker?
They know this one. A grimwalker is made of wood, scales, and bones. But more so, they wonder - is that all it is? Can they truly call their body "theirs"?
They've never felt like their body is theirs. Whether that be a quiet discomfort with the way that it morphed and changed as they grew, or a hurried hiding of stuffed animals underneath their mattress because they need one thing, one thing to themself. They'd always felt the need to carve and curve their body into another shape. But it's one thing to feel it, in the most private and intimate corner of their heart, and another for it to be acknowledged. To be told there's a reason.
In the Paranoratorium, where they've hidden their body away from prying eyes, there's a mirror. Presumably for the witches here who need to see how they look, while dressing up as and mimicking someone else. Hunter sits in front of that mirror often these days, because they, too, are made to mimic someone else.
They stare at their reflection, and think they not at home in this body. And lately, they've been having this nightmare that this means that there is no life in this body, either. Skin melting off flesh. A revelation that the rolling feeling in their stomach from their reflection had been maggots all along. Witches fleeing from the stench of a rotting body, but Hunter had always been able to smell it.
They had always known that something was wrong.
What is a friend for a grimwalker? A comforting lie? No less false for being the only thing keeping them from falling apart?
They want to abstain from touching Flapjack. They don't; they can't bring themself to. It's their only comfort, and to refrain would drive them mad. And they can't bring themself to talk to him about what they learned about themself, either. (The word describing what they are tastes like bile in their mouth.)
After all, it's witches that have palismen. Not grimwalkers.
But, still, as Hunter holds their friend close with trembling hands, they fear that one of their shards of glass will wedge its way into Flapjack's small, fragile body. And they'd both be dead, then.
They are, they've discovered, made of broken glass. A shattered mirror, inherently empty. They are the way that a reflection abstracts when one squints.
Maybe that's what a grimwalker is.
Maybe a grimwalker is the kind smile Belos put on for him; or more specifically, the absence of that smile in his eyes. Maybe it's the absence of love where it should have existed. Maybe it's the absence of anyone to wipe the tears of a creature whose creator had beaten it until it couldn't hold back tears, crumbling to the floor in despair.
A grimwalker is the bones of a man. That is how Hunter began, and that is how he is going to end.
Shoutout to grimwalkers, GOTTA be one of my favorite trans metaphors.
