have some permadeath hunter au sketches from 7 months ago, caused by accidentally getting way too invested and emotional while discussing "what if hunter hadn't woken up in ttt" scenarios with friends.
in which, uh, hunter wakes up in the inbetween realm instead of back at the old gravesfield cemetery...
had another life series thought in the car. can't figure out how to translate it into a fic idea that i actually like. anyway, there's something to be said for the fact i've LONG headcanoned traffic!joel as a coyote, and gem is given deer imagery. and they're both frequently portrayed as the bloodthirsty ones, as the dangerous ones, as the wild ones. not quite the outcasts, mind, but certainly not safe. and then about the fact that the coyote and the white-tailed deer--well, they're both "nuisance animals", aren't they? like, if you live in a city where they're common, they're normally seen as a pain in the ass. as wild things encroaching on human space that makes things a bit worse for the humans there. too numerous and too wild for the city. ...too used to the city, now, to ever leave, though. too used to people to ever be driven off. creatures of the woods, sure, but of the domestic sort of woods.
two bloodthirsty, dangerous people. not quite outcasts--you can't drive gem or joel off enough to make them outcasts, especially since they know how to run in a (herd/pack) group. but dangerous to have around for everyone involved.
nuisance animals.
(but isn't that all just in how other people see them, anyway? a coyote needs to eat, after all, and it's not the deer's fault there aren't that many predators left that can kill it. they aren't the ones that made them like this. they're just the best animals at adapting to it.)