#close to being a headcanon anyway

[ochrepaints]

Not me thinking again about how the name “Irene” means peace, and the word “Adler” is literally just a play on “addle” which literally means “to make (someone) unable to think clearly; confuse” and Jamie Moriarty 100% knew this when she chose the name “Irene Adler", and how “Jamie” means “usurper” and “Moriarty” is very close to being a portmanteau of “morte” (death in French) and “art” and is very likely also not her real name.

[demigods-posts]

i have this headcanon that percy and annabeth are raging accidental flirts. but not with each other. like. they'll go to the coffee shop on fifteenth street. and compliment the barista on his hair and clothes and tip really well. but only for him. and they have no idea this boy is absolutely swooning over them. or. each time they to go the bakery downtown. they take the time to converse with the waitress at the counter as they eat her homemade muffins. and are incredibly vocal about how she's their favorite server. and how much they enjoy seeing her. and suddenly they're the only two customers that can get her services for free. except, they just think she's like that with everyone.

[sepia-stained-sunset]

All of Young Justice has a running joke where they address each other with the softest, mushiest terms of endearment (and totally mean them as well) and it stuns the fuck out of the Batfam that Tim, the guy who wouldn't talk to anyone for a day after calling Bruce 'dad' out loud, is so willing to proclaim Anita his soulmate and call Bart the love of his life whenever he introduces him to anyone

[turtleblogatlast]

I think a lot about Leo’s tendency to push his way into the spotlight despite clearly being a natural in the shadows. Hell, you could argue that his worst moments are when he’s forcing himself onstage, and his best are when he does things no one notices until it’s already been done.

[kanrix]

god you're so good at writing the interpersonal struggles of relationships between troubled and kind of shitty old men, i can't tell you how much of a refreshing breath of air reading your development/s and storylines for the characters you like are when all i see from other people is "oh they're so cute uwuwuwu" when like no there's more nuance and flavor to it than that!!!!!!!!!! god!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

wagh,, Thank you anon....

So far I haven't seen much of "that" but maybe that's because I've only been here one year, haha. Tho I guess I do tend to forget about a lot of the stuff I see since I always check the moral Orel tag when I'm barely awake.

[suitehearttts]

happy valentines parksborn nation, i have impulsively designed MCU Peter a Harry out of a pure love for post-NWH possiblities

[crescentfool]

having the hc that minato is ace is incredibly funny sometimes when you think about how ryoji is oh so very bi because it's like. "ah. death stole my ability to be attracted to people," in the same way that ryoji stole minato's eye color and energy level. like wow, thanks ryoji, you just keep finding things to steal from minato!

[roitaminnah]

on a date (they are not aware that it is a date)

[gabihime-jegulusseeker]

Marauders era Incorrect quotes, sirius and regulus normal conversation pt 3

Sirius: Remus is so stunning, like if he bent me over a desk and ploughed me I’d probably really enjoy myself.

Sirius: No homo though

Regulus: first of all, iugh, second of all. How powerful does your stupid ass think ‘no homo’ is?

[adrift-in-thyme]

Legend is a sympathetic crier

He hates it almost as much as he hates his bunny form (vulnerability his beloathed) but you’d better believe if someone’s crying near him, he’ll start tearing up too

[starculler]

strap in for this week's fic flavor: the failsafe episode of season one of the young justice cartoon except the simulation just won't. fuckin. end.

(fics that inspired this at the end)

If I ever did sit down to make my own fic, I'd split it in 3 parts:

The Simulation: bits and pieces of the 40 years Dick lives after most everyone he knows has died

The Return: the immediate aftermath and healing from the trauma of having not-quite-actually lived a whole life only to wake up and find out it was all fake. nothing traumatizing about that whatsoever.

The Unintended Consequence: aka the twist I'd love to add and would hint to in the second part - finding out the simulation, through martian mind fuckery, pulled from the real world (and in many cases, from real minds). Dick meets a bunch of people he didn't think were real outside the confines of his simulated life. A bunch of rowdy, heroism-inclined teens across the years get to meet the sibling/friend/mentor figure they all dreamed up one night.

(actual idea snippets under the cut)

.

Dick Grayson is 14 and most of the world's heroes have died. He planned a suicide mission that left him the sole survivor of a doomed team he helped found. The invasion may have been stopped, but is this really the price he wanted to pay?

The first face he sees in the infirmary is Roy's, and he has to close his eyes and just breathe for a few minutes because for one painful moment he'd thought it was Wally. But this isn't the world where his best friend miraculously survived alongside him. This is the one where he got his best friend killed and didn't even give him the courtesy of following behind him. Behind them.

.

Dick Grayson is 27 and has lived longer without Bruce than with him. The invasion's anniversary is always a tough day for him, but that morning seems especially harrowing. He'll get shit for it later, but can't resist stepping out onto the balcony of the manor's master bedroom (Bruce's old bedroom) for a smoke -- his first since he'd promised to quit if Jason, just 15 then, did too.

"Bad habits tend to pile up," he'd said, a rueful quirk to his tired grin. He'd tapped the cigarette twice on the railing and added, lower, "and this one's especially nasty, huh."

He inhales, watches the sun creep across the horizon, and lets acrid smoke burn through his lungs for a long moment before blowing it out in a small cloud. His eyes water, but he doesn't cough. It tastes just as bad as it did the first time he smoked one, not even a year after the invasion and treading water as Robin proved insufficient.

There hadn't been enough heroes to go around then, and Dick had been trained by one of the best. It hadn't been fair, but it had been his plan that had ultimately stopped the invasion. His shoulders everyone's expectations fell on.

He takes another drag, then smudges the lit end against the rail he's leaned on when he hears a boot scuff purposefully against the roofing above him.

"Todd and Pennyworth will be upset with you."

He doesn't turn around. Damian doesn't jump down to join him.

.

Dick Grayson is 54 and wakes up in a room full of ghosts. He hears his long-dead father-figure tell his long-dead team about a simulation they weren't meant to win. A training exercise gone wrong and only half a day spent under their mentors' careful, if slightly panicked, supervision.

He looks at his hands, watching the way his gloves crease when he flexes them in and out of tight fists. He looks at his team, their eyes a little haunted but shoulders slumped with relief even as they grumble. Batman's heavy, gloved hand settles on his shoulder and the weight of it is a nauseating mix of foreign-familiar.

He opens his mouth. Closes it.

Tears prick his eyes behind his domino mask, and he tells himself the suffocating, acidic void building in his chest is just some leftover side effect of the ordeal and not the grief-guilt of outliving yet another family (no matter that they hadn't been real in the end).

.

Dick Grayson is 16-going-on-56 and well used to the coincidences piling up between his simulated life and the real thing. Some of it -- missions and villains he remembers cropping up -- he's marked for Bruce to review and sort as he pleases. Some -- security for the cave, team building anecdotes, and training regimens -- he's shared with the team. And some he keeps only for himself.

Tim is one of those. He knows it's not fair to the kid (so much smaller now than he ever was when Dick lived his simulated life), but he can't help being selfish just for this. Tim is the one kid he's sure he didn't make up, and if Dick's taken to babysitting the kid just to be near at least one member of the family he built for himself in the wake of the worst days of his life .... Well, anyone who says shit about it can happily stand in line to have their teeth kicked in.

Despite this, it still catches him off-guard when he sees a familiar face pop up in one of Bruce's reports.

Jason Todd, caught boosting tires off the batmobile, is nearly the same age now as he was when Dick met him. He stares at the words, but none of them really sink in beyond the kid's name and address. He's moving before he's even made the decision.

He's used to the world kicking him when he's down - lived it for 40 frustrating years. But he has Bruce again. And things with Tim have been so good. And he's always been selfish when it comes to family. If he could just see Jason. If he could just meet him. If he could talk to him.

If if if if if--

.

Inspirations:

Circles in Shattered Mirrors by InfinityIllusion

Fine (But Not Okay) by CharlotteDaBookworm

Verisimilitude by mutemelody

[majorasnightmare]

Inevitable Gerudo Headcanon Posting

i spend too much time thinking about the gerudo like genuinely theyre one of my favorite recurring tribes in the zelda series, which as we all know is a form of suffering because god forbid nintendo stop relying on racist tropes and caricatures.

keeping in line with this nintendos portrayal of the gerudo tends to either be 1) why theyre bad, and/or 2) how a culture of all women has kids. like thats an oversimplification of ALLL the problems present in the gerudos portrayal but thats a different post for another time. in general i bring this up because it means, for me as well as any others interested and invested un the gerudo, that there is a kind of generalized lack of pre botw characterization or cultural concepts to work with, esp when compared to the other tribes of hyrule. (looks pointedly at how theres no gerudo in the gerudo desert but there is a prison slash execution site where their king was held. LOOKS AT WHO SURVIVED THE PROLOGUE CUTSCENE IN WINDWAKER)

ANYWAYS. botw was really fun because, while it had plenty of its own issues with the gerudo, they were at least non hostile! so with that in mind, the headcanons and worldbuilding i write primarily apply to the wilds era gerudo, which spans the timeframe between ganondorfs reign as king to totk (suspending disbelief because that timeframe is. by all accounts. longer than recorded human history. friendly reminder ganondorf does All That before we even get sheikah wifi towers. christ.)

anyways. second verse same as the first, core assumptions and then a readmore

Some core assumptions:

The BotW branch of the timeline is chronologically set AFTER the previous timeline, ie the events of ToTKs ancient past is set AFTER the last event of the Hyrule Historia timeline. essentially they all come back together to form one line that makes up ToTKs ancient era

The biggest effect on Hyrules topography was the flooding in Wind Waker. after an unknown point, the flooding ocean receded leaving behind the ruins of ancient Hyrule. at some point after that, the zonai settled parts of it and made the buildings wed see as ruins by the time of BotW. slowly the various tribes of hyrule immigrated back

all peoples within the setting of hyrule are loosely grouped into categories called tribes. in this sense, tribe refers a collection of peoples with shared traits, without anything concretely set in stone (for example, hyrule includes the tribe of hylians, the tribe of gorons, the tribe of koroks, etc etc). the main six who show up repeatedly can be considered the sage tribes (gerudo, hylian, sheikah, rito, goron, zora), and the various types of enemies can be considered the monster tribes (the blin tribe of bokoblin, moblin, bulblin, etc)

so. starting at the beginning. near entirely headcanons

in ocarina of time, we see the spirit temple, where Nabooru awakens as a sage. this temple features a MASSIVE statue of a woman adorned with a snake and its primary mechanic centers around mirrors and reflected light. while the mirrors return, we dont really get that same kind of implied spiritual/religious focus again. so instead im going to make a mountain out of a molehill and position her as the primary spiritual figure here. im running low on name ideas tho so suggestions are much appreciated. for right now ill refer to her as the serpent goddess

the gerudo are culturally a people of function over form, practicality over whimsy, but when circumstances allow for it, are drawn like any other to arts and music and decoration. they have a long history of bloody, brutal battle, and while the war has long since ended, its kings buried and its warriors naught but ghosts, the desert remembers. its sands haunted by the bloodstains of conflict past, and echoes of ancient tragedies. the gerudo here in the era of wilds may have lost their records of their ancient history of conflict, but some aspects, preserved by the sands, have managed to survive the onslaught of time

surviving all this time is the ancient creation myth of the gerudo people. as legend tells it, long ago in the time before myth, there existed a goddess whos power was transformation. she was possessed of two forms, one a proud humanoid figure, the other a striking serpentine form twisting through the heavens with ease, her scales glittering with mirror sheen. to shift from serpent to human, she would shed her skin, and grow it back again to embrace her serpentine form anew

seven times she shed her skin, and from these shed skins rose the first gerudo, each embodying a key aspect of their sacred mother. the serpent goddess's scales are each a nascent soul of a gerudo, and when those scales are shed and fall to the land below, a new gerudo is born. likewise, when a gerudo dies, their soul returns to the scales of the serpent goddess, to await until they would descend again and reincarnate once more. the seven daughters of the serpent goddess led these gerudo as their guardians, leaders, and protectors. but, away from the seven heroines and their new people, the goddess shed her skin an eighth time. this daughter was born alone, and while her sisters embodies the strengths of spirit, flight, endurance, knowledge, motion, skill, and gentleness, the eighth was born with insatiable wanderlust. learning of this, the seven sisters cursed her name for leaving them and their people behind, and despite their shared ancestry, the eighth was forbidden to be spoken of. this suited her just fine, and the eighth was free to walk the land and learn all of its hidden paths

in time, war came to the gerudo, as it often does. though they were united, and strong, they were a small collection of people, and thus despite their proficiency were threatened nonetheless. it became clear at last that they could not stand and fight, and that to survive, they could not remain in place for long. but the enemy had pushed them deep into their home, and knew all the paths back. as hope seemed lost, as if summoned by call, the eighth sister at last wandered home. calling her seven sisters to her, she proclaimed that every hidden step was known to her, and while she lacked the power to guide them on her own, together they would escape unseen into the night, their enemy none the wiser. thus, skillfully guiding the skills of her sisters, the eighth heroine led the gerudo into safety, and the seven were humbled from their pettiness. seeking to apologize to the sister they had banished and forgotten, the seven sought to make amends, but the eighth was content merely to have a place of remembrance among them. to wander is not a sin, as long as one remembers where their home lies.

the eight heroines have long since passed and returned to their mothers scales, but the virtues they embody are cherished by the gerudo family they left behind, seeking to hold their memory close even as the years wear on

to the gerudo was bestowed the blessing of the element of Spirit, embodied by their iron wills and manifesting as crackling lightning. this spirit lightning is the gerudo's will made tangible, arcing out towards their target as an extension of their focus and sheer determination. to a gerudo, nothing is impossible until one has devoted themselves entirely to it, giving it their all, and only then may it be conceded

a long history of persecution has resulted in the gerudo being increasingly insular and isolationist. their admiration of the art of combat and how it can bring forth an individuals talents, achieving a perfect harmony between body and will as the weapon became an extension of ones limbs, was often perceived as aggression by outsiders, who would react as if to defend their own interests. the gerudo have suffered much at the hands of hyrule at large, and have pulled further and further away.

as the gerudo pulled away from hyrule, and hyrule from them, they devoted most of their attention to themselves. cooperation amongst themselves is seen as paramount to their survival, and familial affection often extends well past ones blood relations.

the gerudo value family, and loyalty, alongside independence and cooperation. everyone should have the opportunity to pursue their goals, but if someone is struggling, it is the responsibility of everyone to help. children are raised by as many people as are available, and even in the times of monarchy, the palace was less a formal dwelling place belonging to the gerudo ruler and more a public forum that the ruler simply happened to live in

most of the palaces amenities are fully public, a tradition that has carried on to riju's time. meals are communal and the kitchens open to all, and the palace has no strictly dedicated servants, merely a collection of amenities the gerudo people are free to use at will and often do so together. what this means is that there is no servant, for example, dedicated to preparing riju's meals but instead a collection of people willing to cook and willing to eat making meals riju partakes in, and this applies to most other menial tasks as well. the throne room is where the leader of the gerudo engages in their job as public servant, attending to the needs of the gerudo at large and responding to crises as they arise.

as nintendo is keen to point out, the gerudo are a people that are predominantly "all women", and thus spends plenty of time going over dialogue wherein people wonder how they have children and including a plethora of sidequests in the wilds era about acquiring partners. im ignoring all of that and instead going by lizard rules, in part because here theyre descended from a serpent dragon goddess, wherein a population of all female lizards were able to successfully maintain a stable population and have children without major issue. gerudo like ganondorf are the equivalent of a rare genetic mutation that flips some other genes on and has a different result, that really doesnt affect anything besides this one kid and doesnt have any major effects or differences in their life. two gerudo are perfectly capable of having kids together, having relationships as usual, and on the topic of "how do the gerudo have kids", thats all i really feel like exploring that topic

with an insular, isolationist culture that appeared for all intents and purposes to be all women, the gerudo were often a source of major culture shock when interacting with the other tribes of hyrule, most notably hylians

bonus hylian lore: hylians experience an even greater lack of sexual dimorphism than irl humans do, so gender presentation is near exclusively presentation based, with a heavy emphasis on clothing. showing skin is considered an act of emotional intimacy, and most hylians opt to cover as much as they can. the intensity of presentation scales upwards with their role in society, with the royal family having the most extreme form of gender presentation. gender is presented through clothing style and hair length, with ornamentation, jewelry, and piercings serving as a kind of intensifier, and hylian culture at large tends to operate on a sliding scale of masculine to feminine, with the middle androgynous zone being a weird gender spot for them

the gerudo, by contrast, never really developed a concept of masculinity versus femininity. gender pronouns in gerudo are based on personal proximity, occupation in society, and familiarity. these barely translate at all into hyrulean.

as the gerudo, by circumstance or by choice, interacted with hylians and the tribes of hyrule more and more often, some kind of understanding had to be reached with regards to translation. as relations were already terse, making an attempt to fully translate the gerudos understanding of gender to your average hylian was considered a fools errand, and thus translation was done in broad strokes, giving hylians the simplest root form of gender pronouns (and none of the increasingly specific declensions). loosely, the term vai is closer in concept to "us" and voe is closer to "not us" "foreigner" "outsider", and has taken on a connotation of " forbidden" or "taboo" (leading to wilds era gerudo secret clubs often imploying translatable Adult Puns regarding their catering to voe and the overall titillating atmosphere they tend to put on for customers). with regards to hylians, the feminine princesses and queens had more in common with the gerudo and were thus "vai", but the masculine kings and soldiers, who were often the main figures pushing aggressive efforts into conquering or otherwise absorbing the gerudo into hyrule, were "voe". this was then distributed in various guides to understanding the gerudo language as " vai" meaning "woman" and "voe" meaning man

gerudo town, as the capital of their people and general hub, has a law banning the entrance of voe. at the time if its writing, this was a fairly obvious law, because most "people who are forbidden" are forbidden from entering. as time has passed, hostilities cooled, and relations warmed, this law has been the subject of a long struggle of interpretation. it doesnt translate well into nearly any other language, and thus who counts as "voe" and "vai" is subject to endless debate. the differences in gender perception are most clearly on display with the admittance of the gorons. one might assume that the gorons, being a monogendered people who typically use masculine terms of identity and endearment in hyrulean, to thus qualify as voe, but the gorons cooperative nature, near uniform monogendered culture, and emphasis on hard work and independence has enough in common with your average gerudo that considering them as vai is a no brainer

ganondorf thus is also, clearly, considered vai. the specific pronouns he uses in his native gerudo include declensions regarding his position as royalty (one that has since gone out of use and is fairly archaic now, only really being used as a kind of neo-pronoun by current era gerudo as a rebellious self identification thing), his relation as the only child of koume and kotake, and are conjugated based on relation between the speaker and him. in the ancient era, calling ganondorf voe would be so confusing as to not even read as an insult. if one really wanted to refer to ganondorf with a tone of insult, theyd substitute the declension of familiarity with one used for strangers

ganondorf achieved his position as king the old fashioned way: a gift from his moms. ancient era gerudo practiced typical monarchy with a line of succession, and koume and kotake named him as the next royal of the gerudo as their heir. the hyruleans, seeing a masculine gerudo of royal birth, referred to him as "king", and correcting a culture of people he had little respect for was just a waste of ganondorfs time. after ganondorfs sealing, the gerudo changed to the current system of chiefs, wherein the current chief names a successor, or by default passes it onto their living heir. a system is in place to democratically install a new chief if the current one passes without naming a child their heir, or naming a successor in their place, a system drafted and then used in ganondorfs absence. riju thus inherited the mantle from her mother, but could opt instead to force a vote, or have such a vote forced on her due to her age, leading to much of her insecurity seen in BotW. this system has proven to be relatively stable, especially coupled with the continued tradition of keeping the palace an open public forum

the first chief of the gerudo was nabooru, advised by the sage of lightning we see in totk, following ganondorfs sealing

the gerudo are very familiar with the souls of the dead. poes, souls lost and aimless, wander the desert after millennia of bloodshed. thus their funerary customs have persisted, even as the folklore behind them fades in and out of memory.

a person perceives reality through their body. they know the sky is above them both by craning their neck up, and by the sensation of ground beneath them. in death, one is bodiless, and sensation becomes a confusing, directionless onslaught. it is so easy for a spirit to become lost, unable to orient themselves. the gerudos funerary rites seeks to aid these souls in their journey towards returning to the serpent goddess, as without guidance they are liable to become poes. the body after death is merely an empty receptacle, and on a practical level is a potential draw for dangerous desert scavengers seeking an easy meal. the shifting sands and hard soil makes burial difficult to impossible, so instead the gerudo burn their dead. smoke is ephemeral and thus able to be seen by spirits, and even as the wind rushes, smoke will still travel upwards towards the heavens. a spirit will linger by its body for a time, and thus cremation helps provide guidance to the dead. unable to feel the earth beneath them, the dead can follow the trails of smoke to orient themselves upwards, and dispel lingering confusion

as the body is burned both to guide the departed's soul and to ward away scavengers, the gerudo inter their belongings into gravesites instead, usually one or a small collection of items that the deceased valued or were considered emblematic of them. having a proud history of warriors, many gerudo consider their weapons extensions of themselves, and thus many gravesites will consist of a single weapon.

the sage of lightnings temple served as the primary gravesite for many gerudo, and in its heyday was decorated with love and care as befitting its role. torches burned bright in its sconces and the walls painted with care in massive sweeping murals. here in the temple, a foreigners idea of the gerudo as austere and practical would fall away, as the halls shone with warmth and color, taken from their desert home

lost souls that become poes often end up becoming consumed by their regrets and despair at their inability to find their way back to reincarnation through the serpent goddess's scales, and from there turn to rage and aggression. the sunlight glinting off of the goddess's mirror scales will blind and disorient the dead who have lost their way, as they try in vain to rely on their half forgotten senses, and thus poes eschew the day in favor of the cover of night. though incorporeal, poes move as fast as the desert winds, and try all they can to cause mischief and havoc. usually the end result of their shenanigans is light injuries and scratches, but it isn't uncommon for a waylaid traveller or adrenaline seeking youngster to suffer fatal consequences. despite this, poe hunting tends to be the go-to act of rebellion for antsy teenagers with a taste for danger. in general, one of the only things fast enough to strike a poe is a fired arrow

as the sands grew and the desert expanded, it grew more and more difficult for the steeds of the gerudo to gallop across the dunes, and they were driven further and further back until the gerudo phased out their horseback traditions entirely

and as an AU specific trivia tidbit

after ganondorf's sealing, nabooru grieved the loss of her childhood friend by constructing a dedicated tomb to house ganondorf's gravesite. even though he wouldn't die, nabooru would never live to see him again, and in traditional gerudo fashion, his gravesite is marked by his signature trident, further imbued by nabooru's blessing of lighting (in a similar fashion to urbosa's fury, despite urbosa not being a sage).

[the-valiant-valkyrie]

aromantic spectrum awareness week? well, that makes perfect sense. i think agent phoenix (aromantic, romance repulsed) should absolutely be aware of solaris (demiromantic, romance neutral) rapidly approaching their location. to kill them. violently.

[babacontainsmultitudes]

glennry + cartoons ? :D

Oh cute!!!

Hm. I think that Henry likes cartoons in theory much more than in practice. He tends to appreciate the messages of a lot of kids cartoons (Henry thinks that most cartoons are intended for younger audiences), but when it comes down to it they're just... Not really his thing? Not from what he's been exposed to anyways. Glenn on the other hand, big cartoon guy. Anything Disney obviously, but also a lot of anime, he probably calls Nick "Nickelodeon" now and then, and though he isn't quiet about his dislikes I think he's basically always still willing to try something before he knocks it.

Post S1, Glenn spends a lot of time at the Oak-Garcia household. Unlike their dad, the twins LOVE cartoons (as a side note, cartoons were probably the one way they got to trick Henry into letting them watch stuff not made for kids lol), and at first it's not so much that the twins watch cartoons with Glenn, but more that he happens to be lying on the living room couch a lot when they put stuff on. With time, however, watching cartoons with uncle Glenn basically becomes a new favorite pasttime for Lark and Sparrow. They appreciate his snarky commentary and how much he enagages with the shows and with them, and on his end I think Glenn really likes bonding with the kids this way, something something it reminds him heavily of Nick and how they used to hang out. Glenn is also how the twins get introduced to anime (everyone else assumes that was from Nicky, but Lark and Sparrow know the truth loool). Henry catches on to all of this, and aside from it giving him (and Mercedes) a much appreciated break now and again, Henry also just finds it *very* cute, especially when the three of them are laughing together at whatever they're watching. Sometimes he joins them, though he generally finds himself paying less attention to the screen and more attention to how his heart feels when Glenn leans in to point out some obscur technical detail about the animation, or when there's a romantic scene and Glenn's face becomes soft in a way that Henry once would not have thought possible. All that to say... Henry eventually learns to like cartoons.

[sysig]

Okay but what if (Patreon)

[orbdotexe]

A new Lightbearer breathes his first panicked breaths, throwing the blanket off his resting place, and finds himself in a world that instead takes pity on him—Much to his displeasure. But he’s been having strange dreams, and everyone warns him away from some strange… person? As more time goes on, and the warnings compound—he’s less and less sure of that notion, or if they even exist.

The brainworms said "what about Crow pre-Vanguard?? he was never in Spider's 'employ' in TFE!" and so here's some Salty Crow and the start of him being determined to figure out who killed him!

Mind: the divide is a time skip, to when Crow is out of the Dreaming City-- and this is the armor I use for the YW, since I don't give much detail. Anyway, Crow's Rez, "Bury Me Shallow":

— — —

“Who was buried up there?”

“I’m sorry?”

“I mean- No offense. Just… he seemed important.”

“...You don’t know?” The Corsair eyes him, wary.

“Know what?”

She takes a moment to study his face, though it’s shadowed by his hood and the sharp light behind him. It feels like she’s trying to flip through torn out pages and looks like she cut her fingers open on the shreds— He resists drawing any further in on himself.

“...Nevermind.” She scans his disheveled outfit, “You’re a Guardian?”

“Not sure what it means, but that seems to be the consensus,” he replies, mentally bristling at the judgmental tone. How can someone tell by just the clothing? Why would he be buried in this if it was that bad?

…Oh. Right. He was buried in it.

Well, maybe buried wasn’t the right word—There was just a blanket thrown over him, laying on some stone slab. 

Not much of a burial. Could just be how the dead are treated, though.

“You haven’t spoken to any of your… lot, yet, either?” The corsair asks, some disdain in her words. He’s been hearing that tone a lot on the subject of Guardians, though not at him. If he’s one of them, shouldn’t she be disgusted by him, as well?

“Ah… no. I’ve seen some around, but haven’t gotten to speak to any. They seem awfully busy.” It’s not exactly a lie, but he hasn’t exactly tried to speak to them at all.

The thought of approaching one makes him nervous.

She snorts, “Busy is one way to put it.” There’s that resentment again.

He doesn’t think he will ever understand why. It seems the Guardians are trying to help, so why does almost everyone he talks to seem to hate them? Well, there have been a few Corsairs that seemed more thankful for the help, but… Most aren’t.

In the ensuing awkward silence, the Corsair seems to get a call in her helmet, turning away from him and murmuring into nothing. He can’t pick any of it up, though it sounds urgent, and she shoulders her rifle.

He can’t help but sigh quietly, knowing that meant no real conversations for another week or so.

She huffs after a few more moments, and sighs. “Well, I hate to cut this short, but the Crows’ feather falls that there’s enemy movement around.” She pauses, mouth pulling into a grimace, before continuing, “Your… abilities, might be… useful.”

“Oh.” She’s asking for his help, isn’t she? Even the Corsairs who didn’t mind Guardians hadn’t asked him to. He… hasn’t done this before—Helped from afar, sure, but not in the thick of it. 

She eyes him, with some mix of anxiousness and detesting having asked. “Well, I’m… happy to help.” He smiles, despite the nervous knot in his gut. “Just lead the way.”

He swears there’s a glint of familiarity in her eyes as he says it, and she relaxes some before clearing her throat. “Let’s get going, then.”

— — —

“Sooo… Don’t remember nothin’?” The shadowed figure asks from the thick branch it’s laying on, a deep and modulated voice carrying just loud enough to reach him.

He has to crane his neck to see the ominous red glow of what he assumes is its eyes. “Uhm… no. Didn’t think I was meant to.”

“Yer Ghost tell you nothing, either?” The figure adjusts some, legs now dangling. Seems he’s interesting enough for its full attention.

“Was he supposed to?”

“...Guess not.” It drops down, not a sound leaving them as they right themself, and their face comes into view. Grey metal plates and red dots for eyes greet him. ”Any idea who ya are? Where ya woke up?”

“Looked like…a cathedral, I think.” He takes a half-step back, savouring his personal space, “He must’ve been highly respected. Did you know him?” The apparently metal man—not that he hasn’t heard of Exos (because he has, if only some), but hearing of and seeing are two different things—eyes him for a moment. 

“Not personally, but knew of ‘im. An’way, strict Vanguard policy n all, can’t tell ya much.” The exo turns on his heel and starts walking, waving a hand for him to follow.

“...Riight.” He peers around the trees and rocky terrain before deciding to go along with it. “Actually, what’s with that? A few people have told me that already.” 

“S’posedly, knowing obscures judgment… or som’thin along those lines. Never bothered to listen ver’ much. Got better things to do than listen to some raving mad Warlock’s lecture.”

“And… I’m supposed to be a… a Hunter?”

“Look it to me. Cape, dirty look,”—Dirty? Now that’s rude—“Things like that. Got that stature, too, and the slouch.” 

“Ah. You’re…”—Brutal—“forthcoming.”

“You asked. An’way, got a name for yerself yet? Like to keep track of who I meet.”

A name. His Ghost talked about those; he had seemed excited to pick them.

“...No, not yet.”

“Could give ya some suggestions, if ya like. Though, you’d prob’ly like to do that wit yer Ghost, rather than a stranger.”

“Yeah… he’s been nagging me about it. Seems important to him.”

“Might wanna get on wit it, then! Unhappy Ghost makes a’ unhappy Guardian, y’know. In the meantime, got a preference? Any topics in partic’ you like? Might wanna fly with ‘ose.”

He thinks for a moment, and the black feather on the Hunter’s hood catches his eye. “Well… What’s yours? Might give me some ideas,” he shrugs.

“Rancher!” The other Hunter announces, wholly confident.

“Rancher,” he deadpans back, deciding that whatever he picked would have to be better than that.

“Yuep.” He opts not to question how the Exo popped the P without lips. “M’ Ghost, Iridant, wouldn’t let me jus’ keep Hunter.”

“You were going to name yourself Hunter?”

“Well, it was before I knew ‘bout the Vanguard an’ their classes thing! Iri took ‘er sweet time telling me, an’ I knew I liked huntin’, so…” 

The first statement gives him pause.

Are there… are there Guardians outside of the Vanguard? Well, are not all Ghosts with the Vanguard, at least? 

“Huh.”

So it’s not just him, then. Maybe Rancher’s Ghost kept him away from the Vanguard for awhile for the same reason his Ghost does… Whatever that reason is, anyway.

As the pair come up on an uphill, littered with stone piles and boulders, Rancher kicks some gravel rocks aside. “Soo, heh, how long ‘ave you been up ‘n about?” 

He eyes the patch of gravel for a moment, watching them resettle, “Not too long. Spent some months in the Dreaming City, but only been out here for a few weeks, I think.”

“Ahh, so yer a new Newlight, then! Yeah. Yeah! I imagine those Awoken’re a bit weird, ey?” A barking, modulated laugh brings his gaze back up, finding Rancher to be stood at the top of some larger boulder at the top of the hill now, “How’s that place, an’way? ‘aven’t had the chance to go quite yet.”

Weird was one way to put the Corsairs. So much disdain for Guardians, and yet they seemed fine with him—among other things. “Well, it’s… It’s pretty, when you aren’t under fire.” He could paint pictures of that sky, but… What were the pale things called? Scorn? “The uh… the ones with crossbows were trouble.”

Rancher laughs, again—now more entertained, rather than antagonistic, “Ooooh, big man too good for Taken? The ozone smell don’t bother you? Might jus’ be a’ Exo thing, that, but I ‘ear it makes some a bit nauseous.”

The memory of spinning around, mid combat, to be met with a Taken Knight towering over him moments before waking up—with a few Corsairs gathered around him—springs to the front of his mind. He opts to hum in agreement rather than debate it, climbing up on another slab across from the other Hunter.

The hill below drops-off into what looks to be a patched together base of sorts, old enough to have a dusting of moss and vines over it, but recently lived in and the vines cut back over computer panels and exits. 

He catches Rancher stretching (though, he doubts Exos have any need to do so) out the corner of his eye as the other Hunter sighs, “Ahhh, ‘ere’s my stop.”

“Your… stop?” Despite the lived-in look to the base, he can’t see any proof of the occupants anywhere nearby. Or was Rancher here to reclaim it? He had heard Hunters were largely meant to be scouts. Supposedly.

“Yuep!” The Exo pops the end, again. “Got an op to run out ‘ere. That base down there? ‘posed to hold some pests, an’ I’m on exterminator duty!”

And there goes the scout theory. If he went to the Vanguard, would he be put on these missions, too?

“Ooh,” Rancher stops and turns back, “‘fore I go—Careful if you see a Hunter in red an—ahh, no, that’s… That’s not specific at all. Hm.”

He’s heard this warning before. No one ever tells him why, or what that Hunter did, just to stay far away. Every. Time. Other than the vague warnings, he’s not even sure what he’s looking out for.

And it doesn’t help that “red and black Hunter” is a good seventy percent of Hunters he’s seen.

“Why? What did they do?” He tries to put force into his voice, but Rancher skips over the question.

“Just- ah. Complicated. I’ll send yer Ghost a picture, heh?” Rancher’s Ghost—a foil-textured, pink colored, and green eyed… mini Servitor?—appeared with a series of trills. “You’ll want to avoid–” The Ghost projected an image, “–that one.”

He could barely study the figure before there was a blast followed by the sound of Pikes somewhere nearby, to which both Rancher and his Ghost snapped to attention, projection fading. 

“Ah!” Rancher sounded excited as his Ghost dematerialized, “That’s my que! Pleasure t’ meet ya, blueberry, but I gotta run.”

“Wh- Blue–? Hold on, what does that—” but the other Hunter is already plowing through the woods on a still-materializing sparrow, giving him one last wave, “—mean…”

He sighs, but can’t help but stare, dumbfounded, after Rancher, yet—

One thing stuck in his mind; That single, holographic, orange eye. 

The same one in his dreams.

What happened to his past life?