#I'm sorry this was supposed to be about Desmond's glove kink

[fanworldbuildingfun]

I doubt I can explain how much this is tickling me all the shades of pink

Not only it would cause an issue of Desmond being the only one to come across as local - but because of the implication that different branches of the Brotherhood have different ticks

Which technically, we can even observe in-game

Putting the rest under Read More, as it’s goin to involve some scenes relevant to Assassin/Hidden Ones initiation - which, as we know, involves removal of a finger

For example: in Valhalla, we have a good showing of Alamut Hidden Ones and their gesticulation. They aren’t particularly shy about showing off their bladed hand - the only thing that is hidden, really, is the blade itself. For reference, have the resting hand gesture both Basim and Hytham use

Hands up front, clasped/pressed in front of the body. And both use the position not just in front of Sigurd’s people / Ravensthorpe people, but also in front of Harald Fairhair’s people. And during althing in Norway. And in Basim’s case, random Christian priests/monks

Unfortunately, it’s harder to get the resting poses for Altaїr - most of the game art features him during or just before assassinations. But! You can still see some differences 

For one, Altaїr tends to keep his bladed hand closer to the body, and mostly articulates with his non-bladed hand. Overall for Levant, it almost makes it look like the assassins are constantly angled slighty to the back on the bladed hand side

Another curious thing I noted - it looks like Levantine branch (under Al Mualim) tended to amputate the finger much closer to the palm than the Hidden Ones of Alamut. 

Hidden Ones removed both distal and middle phalanx, but it looks like Levant went all the way down to removing proximal phalanx, too? There’s no bone in that fingerhole. That’s just leather (for reference: upper pic is Altaї, lower is Abbas)

(Abowe, a scene from Basim’s initiation ceremony)

Come to think of it, it may have had an impact. With Hidden Ones, it looks far less like a deliberate removal, compared to Masyaf assassins

But back to gesticulation

Interestingly enough, i feel like they went on with the Levantine angle for Ezio era, too. Which is a bit odd, considering the finger cutting tradition is no more, and there is no need to restrict one to single blae either

However, it looks like Ezio is prone to covering up the arm on which he wore his first blade, too:

However! This changes in Revelations, where we can see him resembling Basim/Hytham’s poses more! Which I find really interesting, considering Constantinople was under Alamut purview (in fact, Basim is mentioned to be leader of Constantinople bureau. And it’s specifically stated to be Byzantine branch, while initially Basim is part of Abbaside branch). Given all the trinkets they use (and teach Ezio to use) - it seems like they have lept more in line with the older iteration of Brotherhood

And the game has Ezio unconsciously mimiking the way they act. Kind of like you try and match the way of speech/accent when you are abroad

(Which delights me. A lot)

Anyway, I think I will pause here for a bit. Maybe at some point I will do some more spam to include later eras for a bit of evolutional comparison

To go with the glove kink ask... Imagine Desmond AND the team ending up in Altaїr's time. They do relatively well. But what gives them away at the end is Desmond winding down and defaulting to the general etiquette of someone who habitually wears a hidden blade. A peculiar hand movement there, a habitual gesture there... And neither Rebecca nor Shaun even realized that was a thing happening. Meanwhile Desmond: *is melting from joy of subconscious desire fulfilment*

The “Desmond has a glove kink” ask that influenced this.

And the one who noticed it is an old informant who works as a stall owner. Shaun loves the tea leaves he sells so Desmond gets to go and buy them regularly because Shaun and Rebecca are still trying to get a firm grasp on the languages during the 3rd Crusades (and there’s a lot) while Desmond is heavily relying on his Bleed of Altaïr.

And it’s because of this that the informant noticed his usual posture and a lot of his hand movements to specifically be of Levantine Brotherhood origin, down to the way he always liked to hide his left hand unless he was sure that no one would notice a missing ring finger (and the informant is always surprised to remember that he has all five of his fingers).

And that informant sends word to Masyaf because it’s too strange. A man with the mannerism of an Assassin but not an Assassin?

Something was off.

And who gets ordered to check this strange man?

Altaïr before that fateful year when he failed in saving Adha.

Altaïr before the attack on Masyaf where he singlehandedly saved Al Mualim.

Altaïr before he became a Master Assassin, just as curious but less arrogant than he would become years later.

Altaïr with a face that looked too much like Desmond's that it could not be counted as a coincidence.