#imagine he left it at deepnest

[czaneavecg]

opp looks like our friend here forgot to bring something important

[bluegekk0]

is Herrah proud of her daughter? or, at least was she before she died?

Oh absolutely. I think she loved her so much from the day Hornet was born, she was feisty even back then which made Herrah proud. And while they were never on the best terms, I think watching Vyrm have a similar response to seeing Hornet for the first time brought Herrah some peace. It seemed that Hornet would be in good hands even after Herrah is gone, and she was. Vyrm made sure to raise her as well as he could in spite of his own struggles, even if in the end things went south. But if Herrah was to meet Hornet again, she would definitely be proud. Despite the hardships Hornet survived and learned many valuable things on her own, and while it did have a negative effect on her, she's working on overcoming those issues. There is a lot to be proud of.

So it is a little sad that Hornet has so few memories of her. She barely remembers her, she left Deepnest quite early in her childhood so most of what she remembers is her father and the White Palace. And unfortunately Vyrm can't tell her much about Herrah either since they only interacted briefly (and while he loves Hornet dearly, the memory of her conception isn't one he likes to return to, which sours the topic of Herrah quite a lot). She doesn't remember her mother well but she always felt the absence of a second parent, a spot which was eventually filled by Grimm. But I like to imagine Hornet thinks about Herrah from time to time, especially wondering what she would think of her family. Would she want to be a part of it? Would Hornet want her to? I can see their potential interactions as very awkward, but not to the point Hornet wouldn't want them to happen, I think. At least, I think she would appreciate knowing that her mother is proud of her.

[nonuggetshere]

Hi girl, I've actually been thinking about things leading up to the vessel plan in FaaF

Personally I like to believe that PK got the idea from his foresight (literally haunted by the visions). It's been showing him void, so much suffocating, overwhelming void, and the brilliant, cold, pale white (yet faint) light containing it. His child, undeniably his child, sitting upon his throne - but they're wrong, twisted, a being of void. That's where he got the idea, how he realised he can make something stronger than a kingsmould to contain her.

It was a self-fulfilling prophecy.

And it ate him up alive. Can you imagine the horror he felt when he realised what he must do? Can you imagine what he felt when he had to tell his root?

She's wanted kids for so long, with him being on the fence, leaning towards no. He didn't believe he was going to be a good father, not now, it was never the right time, maybe in the future. But he could never promise her that and even though she so wanted to be a mother she never pushed it, having children was just not something to push and she didn't want her wyrm to force himself for her.

So asking her for her assistance felt...depraved and cruel, he hated to do this. She's always wanted children and he was now asking her to have them only to make hollow husks out of them, for no other reason but to treat them like tools. It twisted him up inside but it had to be done.

And when he came to her saying he had a solution she was initially happy and didn't understand why he looked so gloom. Wasn't this a good thing? He took her to his workshop and explained, not even being able to look her in the eyes.

And, although pained, her smile never left as she gently placed a hand on his cheek and made him look at her. She agreed readily, if it was what must be done then so be it. She was his wife and companion and she will follow him through this too.

Neither of them expected that having so many clutches would impact them this much. They knew the weight of the decision but in reality it was so much harder than what they've imagined.

It was hard for her to part with their first clutch. The rest would come easier with time, they were all loved but parting with them was a must, but the first one... She's gotten so attached, and it felt shameful to admit because she knew their purpose.

"Can't we keep at least one?"

"Oh, my root..."

"I know what you'll say, but..."

"A plague is not a time to raise a child," He looked at the pristine white egg in her hands and his heart ached, "...They would be a target..."

"...You agreed to assist the Deepnest queen. Won't that child be a target as well? A full-blooded child of gods would have even more resistant to the infection-"

"I know, my root, but they would not be immune, and there are many different ways to hurt a defenceless child. The situation with Herrah is an unique one, she knows the risks and is willing to take them, but if it were up to me-"

"They would not be defenceless with us-"

"My root."

"..."

"You know we can't. Not now. What life would that child have, constantly fearing for their life, constantly being cooped up by us, not being allowed the freedoms a healthy child should have...what kind of life is that?"

"...I know...I'm sorry, it's just-"

"Don't be. Don't ever apologise for something like this, my heart, I...I know... I understand..." He gently laid a hand on top of hers, "I'm sorry too..."

I think what Herrah asked of him felt like salt in the wound.

It pained him to ask her for her permission, after his last request no less. It almost felt like he was mocking her.

But she didn't see it that way, and she readily agreed again. She was always a close part in this, he wouldn't agree to anything else, she had to be a part of this arrangement or he wouldn't let it happen. She even promised him that if Herrah decided to make him a part of this child's life she will help him raise them and love them as if they were her own.

But it still felt so cruel.

I think, even though she agreed to it and assisted, seeing Herrah pregnant with his child would...hurt. She thought she was ready, she could handle it, and if that child was in his life she would help and love them as her own, but...it still hurt so deeply, in a way she could never describe. And he could feel it, that pang of hurt and jealousy when her eyes fell to the Deepnest queen's swollen stomach. Why could she bear his child, when theirs had to be doomed to this fate?

He'd find her once, crying in their room, and she'd tried to apologise but he hushed her. He understood, she needn't apologise. He should be the one begging for her forgiveness.

"...I don't hold it against you, or her, or that child, I just...I don't know why, I..."

"I understand my love. I'm so sorry, for everything, you don't deserve this..."

"Don't speak to me as if I had no hand in all of this, I knew what your plan entailed and I agreed wholeheartedly. I'm not some poor victim, my wyrm."

"...still, it..." He feel silent for a moment, "...Once it's all over, once the infection is gone..." He looked back up at her and stroked her cheek, "We can have ano- a child. We could-"

"My wyrm," Her voice was stern yet gentle in a way, "I don't want you forcing yourself into this."

"I'm not. I promise. I...I've been thinking about this for a long while. I want this child, I want to start a family with you. There is nothing I'd love more."

"My love..."

"Once it's safe we can try again, I promise. We'll have as many as your heart desires, a big lovely family."

She scooped him up and he wrapped his arms around her, pressing their foreheads together.

"And each of them will be loved more than anything in this world. I promise you that."

She couldn't help but smile, "Hmm, as many as my heart desires, you say~?"

"...Okay maybe a little less, lest you turn me into a breeding factory."

She couldn't help but laugh at that and pulled him in closer, "Oh, but how lovely you'd look..."

"My root please-"

"I'm just teasing, my love~"

The day he returned with the vessel was another hard one in their lives. She got so used to just feeling cold disappointment from him whenever he headed for the Abyss that when she felt this strong surge of emotions she instantly knew and her stomach twisted into knots.

Roughly an hour or two later he came to her, in her little recluse in the palace. It felt relieving when he finally showed up, she could hardly relax with that constant nagging feeling at the back of her head, the anticipation of seeing th- it.

"My root."

"I take it your search is complete? You found your pure vessel?"

"...Yes. I thought you should be the first one to see it."

"Well, let's see it then."

The king turned back towards the entrance, "Pure Vessel, to my side."

A tiny masked little thing peeked from behind the corner then made its way to stand beside the king, its movements a little clumsy which was to be expected from such small, stubby little thing. The lady kneeled in front of it, studying it close.

"It's smaller than I expected..."

"From my examination it seems they're a little over five years old, must have hatched only pretty recently."

"You already gave it a mask?"

"It's a bit clunky, but it'll do until I make it a pernament one."

She reached over and undid the straps holding the mask in place before pulling it away, the little vessel squinting visibly at her in her light.

"...It's quite photosensitive, I'm afraid."

"Unserstandable," She gently lifted their chin up to get a better look. Her heart ached, it looked so much like them... "Its birthplace isn't the brightest place in the kingdom, in all fairness." She put its mask back on, gently spinning the vessel around to fasten the straps back around its head.

She stood back up, almost amused at the fact that the vessel stayed in the exact same position as she left it in, turned away from her. She used one of her roots to gently turn it back around before looking back at her husband, her face falling.

"I appreciate the gesture, my wyrm, but this seed is not of me anymore. I've done my part in creating it, but I am not its mother, I do not wish to be a part in the rest of its training."

"...I understand, my root. Well, I— should better be going, I've called for the dreamers to meet us and they should be here any moment now."

"I'll see you later tonight, my love."

"I'll see you... Vessel, after me."

She sat back down, watching as the tiny thig stumbled after its fa-...king. Her heart ached as she looked away. It was going to be much harder than she expected.

[ashcoveredtraveler]

An approximation of what real life insects(or others) reflect Hollow Knight characters.

Let's start off the Dreamers:

Monomon(Crystal Jellyfish[right], Boxed Jellyfish [left]):

Of course I started off with the dreamer that wasn't a bug at all. It was difficult to find any jellyfish that resembled Monomon, but I chose these ones. Fun fact, the boxed jellyfish are one of the most poisonous Jellyfish.

(more under cut)

Lurien(Cinnabar Moth[right], Scarlet Tiger Moth[left]):

Based on this post by @dairyfreenugget . I like the thought of Lurien heavily contrasting the blue colors of the city. However I realized it's kinda pointless in my AU/Fic cause 1, he doesn't have his wings anymore, just stems of them and 2, he always wears his cloak so no one knows what bug he is. Though I bet you whoever is closest to him would appreciate the brightly colored stems they could occasionally see.

Herrah(wolf spider[left], Sapphire Gooty Tarantula[right])

Wolf spiders are known to hunt and are agile, and I imagine Herrah would probably be one of the best hunters in Deepnest. But they are not poisonous, we can sometimes just be allergic to them. However the Sapphire Gooty Tarantula, is one of the most venomous tarantulas. They look dope as all hell, and the colors kinda match Herrah. I might have to draw Herrah with purple fluff instead of brown.

[genderlesshades]

okokok so I know I meme on the radiance and the pale king a lot, but I'm also kinda going "god damn what a terrible situation to be in" at all parties. Mb its just cause I haven't read the lore in a hot minute, time span? I'm having 4 am thoughts don't mind me. This may not even make sense in the morning lmao. just enjoy the ramblings if ya want yall

anyways, To have an entire group of people completely abandon one god in favor of another in such a short timespan? well usually that happens cause of stuff like genocide or cultural genocide. And maybe I just happened to miss it, but I don't think that happened in hallownest. But maybe it did and maybe thats why radiance got so fuckin mad. Or maybe the moths just slowly drifted away towards PK, which can happen over generations. But it also sort of seems like. self destructive ig. Radi destroying the people of any neighboring kingdom because she's *furious* man. so upset, and angry, and lonely even. Like, imagine being a very powerful individual with a very loyal fan base only for some weird ass fork looking thing to steal that fan base away from you. Well, more like a kingdom but ig fanbase may be the online equivalent. But here comes some fuckoff weird fork lookin man, steals your look, steals your people, and then fucks off. AND. Also stole folk away from some other nearby local gods? the fucks up with that?? fuck you actually PK. I'm gonna idk, wipe out ur cities. that's pretty reasonable for a god's reaction right?

"hold on hades, she also targeted others who weren't aligned with PK. Why would radi target them? weren't they hurt by the PK's actions?" Yes great question invisible audience. But here's the thing, people don't react reasonably all the time. Radi basically lost everything. Her people started drifting away from her until there was one singular old moth left who still seemed to care about her still. And they were alone. Her and her singular moth follower were oh so painfully alone, with nothing but ghosts to keep them company.

So she lashes out. Ignoring the fact that causing a massive plague is generally extreme cause she's a god, we can still recognize that she is very deeply hurt, upset, and angry. And normal people when hurt, upset, and angry, don't usually think clearly. They tend to say things that hurt people, or sound agressive, or even be agressive. Some people may isolate even, though different people do different things. Radi's reaction was to lash out in a way that hurt anyone around them.

"ok, but what does this have to do with places like Greenpath or Deepnest?" GREAT question invisible audience. Sometimes people react to things that are associated with a certain topic with the same reaction as the certain topic. There are certain songs I disliked until I saw a really cool video go along with it, which made me like the song. The brain is weird like that, and likes to categorize things (even if we don't recognize it as categorizing). Add in a "me vs them" mentality and it only gets worse. That is likely what happened here. Radi gets pissed off at PK, and likely also at the white lady. Well, the white lady has control over greenpath now, unlike Unn, so fuck the greenpath too cause that's technically part of PK's domain. WELL he *also* has an alliance with the mantis tribe, and control over the mushroom tribe. So fuck them too.

Maybe Deepnest would have been safe if Herrah and PK didn't have their deal, but they did, and now Deepnest is terrible too for siding with PK. Maybe the hive or outer edges would have been safe, but the colluseum houses itself in a wyrm's body. And maybe at that point, radi was certain that it was her vs the world, so she *had* to protect herself/defend her honor.

"well didn't the PK deserve all that?" I mean, if you look at it from Radi's perspective sure! but what about PK's perspective? He starts up a pretty cool kingdom, has a lovely wife, is well loved by his subjects, and Radi's followers stsrt deciding to follow him. He can't control that, though he could certainly try to discourage it. He tried being friendly, though perhaps it is in his nature to want to consume all he can. To control as much as possible, to become the bigger enemy. Perhaps he and radi just fuckin. Poofed up at each other like chickens do and instead of anyone going "hey man, whats goin on? maybe we can figure this out with our words" they just keep poofing up at each other, mad at the other for different reasons.

So his people start getting sick with this religious disease caused by what's clearly a rival God. So he tries to figure out the source, and to find solutions with the least drastic measures. But it slowly builds to more and more desperate attempts until he discovers the void, something very opposite of what he and the radiance is. So he casts the children of him and WL into the void, and waits. Because *surely* this will work. a container to hold this fucker in. Trains up this container so they're really good at being a container. Well, the container is leaky and he doesn't realize until it's too late. The infection comes back, and he loses everything he once had, just like Radi did.

I think messing with the void might have led to his death, just like it does with Radi, just maybe less aggressively. Both were so desperate to try and maintain something that was never going to last, only to be consumed by what's nearly a literal definition of an end.

Maybe if they would've just talked, they would still be around with thriving communities. Maybe they would have been friends, or akin to siblings maybe. Perhaps PK and WL would have had children, and deepnest may have slowly crumbled apart from not having an heir of royal blood. Maybe Unn would regain their strength and join the other gods. Who knows what the possibilities could have been.

It's a shame, though, knowing such a connection could never happen.

[ratcandy]

This is what I imagine how canon nosk would fit in cogr So uh the guy I imagined has so many things to talk about in my head so idk where to start Ghost nosk became a guard of the den for 16 years and was the most experienced soldier in the den. because of his military experience he became a strong hunter. However even though ghost nosk was a very strong hunter capable of so many things, He still lived the most miserable life with barely any vacations or any dayoffs. the guy is very hardworking and always minds his own business. He is suprisingly calm compared to other nosks and doesnt cause any fights and will only fight for self defense. the poor guy always did a good performance in his job but the superiors paid him a minimum wage and is always overworked and very a tired guy he is one of first nosks to hunt down one of the vessels in deepnest and introduced them to the den. He was one of the few nosks who refused to go down without a deadly battle, even whilst Infection conquered their mind. Despite everything, his loyalty remained true to their home. and him and the other soldiers fought amongst their brethren’s corpses. also about uh hornet nosk or you can call nosket got into a tragic accident with the infection and it completely took over her mind. She was one of the first nosks who gotten infected Nosket who gotten infected convinced ghost nosk to join the infection but failed. So Nosket attacked Ghost nosk. Ghost nosk successfully won the battle with high difficulty but is the last nosk currently alive in the den. He won the battle, however he lost the war He got an open wound from a battle it gotten infected and he was slowly suffering while being consumed by the infection. before getting infected he regrettably joined the army and work as a soldier because he didnt get to enjoy his life and he slowly getting infected and just awaits somebody to end his suffering While the infection slowly consumes his mind, He saw images of the GODDESS RADIANCE and is going insane with too much light. He kept hearing things from his head are such as "KILL THE EMPTY ONE" and "ANCIENT ENEMY" and is suddenly getting images of the knight. When the infection completely took over his mind, he transformed into the knight from what he visioned in his head And that is were it begins ( sorry but I really suck at making stories and my grammar is not that perfect ) This is what a imagine if ghost nosk gotten a role in COGR

I am in AWE you just busted ur ass off to write a whole backstory for the one (1) nosk left we see ingame and based if off my interpretation of nosk lore . U are getting a round of applause from me at any rate shdgKHJ

This dude man :( Deserved better ...

[transmogrified-in-the-void]

The more and more I think about the pale king from hollow knight, the more and more obsessed I get about him. Like. He’s a Wyrm who found a civilization of bugs without thought, created and looked after by the Radiance (a moth sun god), and decided to shed his Wyrm form into one more like those bugs without mind, and the Pale Light shed from his new form gave them mind and thought, and with it the bugs went from worshiping the Radiance to worshiping the Pale King. In part because he did give them a wondrous gift, and in part because he didn’t want them worshipping anything else. Not yet. And then he builds his Kingdom of Hallownest, and comes to care for his people. He marries the White Lady, a Root (tree) and Pale Being of fertility, and attempts peace with the other civilization, Deepnest. People are making pilgrimages to Hallownest, research is being done in the Kingdom, technology is advancing with the Trams and the Crystal Peaks and the buzz saws. Everything is thriving.

And then it happens. The Infection.

A disease spread by dreams, the Pale King is trying to find a reason, a way to stop it, and then it is revealed. The Radiance, the Old Light. A higher being of light and of dreams. A being with one failsafe rebuttal. Void. So he experiments. He makes the Kingsmolds and the Wingsmolds, but they aren’t strong enough. They can’t hold an Old God. And an idea strikes him. A horrible, gruesome idea. He tries everything he can to not use it, not attempt it, but nothing is working. His people are dying with his name on their tongues and in the end, there is nothing left to do.

He must finally have children. And he must throw them to the Abyss, to the Void, to die. And to get stronger. The children of Wyrm and Root would be strong, yes, but they would be exploited by a god driven by rage and powered through dreams. They could be nothing. And so they had to go.

But that wouldn’t be enough. He needed to protect this eventuality, this Vessel, from those Infected. People sent to Her realm, who could protect wherever his child this Vessel went. He could only think of three. The most loyal, Lurien the Watcher, the most resourceful, Monomon the Teacher, and the most vicious, Herrah the Beast.

When Herrah wanted a child, he said yes. What else could he do?

And so he waited. One child Vessel would arise, and follow. Proving themselves numb to the hell they were born into, and the anger they should feel at the reason why. Many saw him and lunged. Many nights he mourned those he watched fall off the edge. Many mornings he locked those nights away.

And then one just watched. It watched its own sibling dangle from the edge, and it followed as the doors shut soundly behind them.

And the Pale King tried to stay strong. For his people, for his Kingdom, he would not see this as his child. It is not. It will not be.

No mind to think

No will to break

No voice to cry suffering

(He tries to forget how they screamed when they fell)

One day, one day the Vessel stands aside him. It’s peaceful, and he looks at it. It looks back. A moment, just a moment, and the Pale King imagines if it was different. He looks away.

The Vessel grows, his and Herrah’s child is born (her name is Hornet, she likes to run around the castle), and now is the time.

It is sealed. He will not think of them if he can help it.

He sees Hornet. He is reminded of why she is here, how she is here. He knows he fails by her. He doesn’t know how to do it right.

And then he hears it. The screaming. And he cries

[howhow326]

So uh, I made a Hollow Knight oc two years ago and posted it on Pinterest. Then I posted on Reddit one year ago. So I guess I'll post it to Tumblr now:

(Writing on the Page)

Snail Shaman

Glowing eyebrows?

Staff has a tooth on it

Helix is a kind of rebel among the snail shamans; when he came of age he left Hollow Nest to become an adventurer and explore other kingdoms.

Unfortunately for Helix, apparently he was the only Snail Shaman that had more than two braincells because all of his family members are dead except the one guy (who's fate can become uncertain if you forget to unlock a door).

I imagined that Helix would be a type of recurring bossfight for Ghost, ala Hornet, that would attempt to gatekeep the Snail charms until you beat him. He is pretty much the only Snail Shaman that was decent at physical combat, although his magic is definitely his strong suit. He fights like those annoying teleporting spiders in the haunted tower.

More on Helix:

His father is the dead Snail Shaman located in Burial Grounds. He dosen't know who his mother is, but she probably was a cone snail like him.

Before he died, Helix's dad was basically the chief of the Snail Shaman tribe. After he died, which happened around the same time Helix left, the other Snail just kind of lost contact with each other because of how far away their homes were from one another.

Helix is way older than he looks.

One of the kingdoms he encountered was Pharloom from SilkSong. That place was worse than HollowNest, somehow.

More specifically, Helix is about the same age as Hornet

Helix blames the Pale King for everything bad happening in HollowNest.

Helix dosen't like Vessels. He thinks they are the Pale King's weird science expirement. He calls them "empty ones".

Helix blames the Moth tribe for the infection because "the dreamworld is their business".

He avoids Deepnest for the same reasons as everyone else.

Bigot

Helix has three skulls on his necklace. That mini drawing is wrong.

Bossfight time: Helix can use all of the same SOUL spells as Ghost. As mentioned before, he can teleport. He can only take about 5 hits from the tier 2 nail, which would make him just a mini boss. A scary mini boss.

[flame-shadow]

What was that about Deepnest society and Beasts?

(You are giving the writer in me an absolute feast.)

oh boy. -rubs hands together- okay. warning that almost all of this is headcanon with, at best, vague inspiration taken from what i remember of in-game lore. once i made a beast character and had to figure out her backstory, i did a lot of thinking about things. here are some of the things [under the cut because it gets rambly]

Alrighty, let’s start with “beast” being a general term for anything native to the Deepnest. It refers to those who live in communities (one such community being the Distant Village which surely had a different name to the Beasts) and those who were more unruly (these would be the “wild” ones like dirtcarvers and garpedes and such). But assume for the rest of this post that when I say Beast (capital B), i mean the sentient ones. The beasts (lower case b) are wild and don’t have a society so much as instinctive interactions and such. The exception is the nosk species, but that’s a later thing. And if I forget in this post, remind me later.

Anyway.

Hardiness and ferocity and cunning are favored traits in the hunters and warriors. But they’re not the only valuable traits a Beast can have! To live in a dangerous place like the Deepnest, it’s important to have a strong, cohesive community. There are the hunters who bring food, and the warriors who defend the villages (because there are more than one village. c’mon. the game only takes place in a 2D space and deepnest is HUGE), but there also need to be builders and carers and healers and so on, each with their own traits that help the village. Community is very important - working together, taking care of each other, watching out for signs of infiltration via things digging in or someone acting odd. Even before the infection would’ve been an issue, the Beasts would’ve had to watch out for signs of a nosk trying to sneak its way in. 

Depending on where in the Deepnest a village was, who lived there and what materials the homes were made of varied. A village nearer the Gardens could have access to leaves and vines for building and crafting as well as thorns for weapons. That village could also have glowing mushrooms growing around the chamber as the main sources of light. A village deeper down might be more reliant on silk for building material. Maybe that chamber is usually dark as the bioluminescent things don’t thrive that far down (maybe the void is close enough that it consumes some of the light too), but these Beasts have captured/stolen some lumaflies which they keep in covered lanterns for when they need light. Building materials like planks and wood beams would be of limited use since the twisting maze of tunnels would limit how long anything could be while being transported, and you can only shorten a pole so many times before it becomes useless for the intended purpose.

Among the hunters and warriors, some would aim to be beast tamers. The example I like to use is a warrior-in-training sneaking into a garpede nest and taking an egg. They raise the baby garpede and hunt for it and care for it and ideally it bonds to that warrior, and they can train it to be useful in hunting or defending the village or, assuming it gets big enough and is still controllable, it can be used to deter another rampaging garpede. But, of course, a garpede can’t be easily stopped once it starts going, so if the warrior loses control of the armored beast, it could do A Lot of damage to the village before it’s felled or driven away. It’s a risk that the whole village takes.

An export of the Deepnest is spidersilk! That’s a game-established thing. You can see spools of it in the hidden station, and so so many spools in the weaver’s den. Spidersilk paper was used for recording things. Unfortunately, the ‘rain’ that eventually started to fall in the City ruined most of the spidersilk paper records. It’s mostly the tablets that remain. But... irl we see webs out in the rain with water drops beaded along the threads, so maybe it’s actually whatever ink was used on the silk that was ruined by the rain.

I also think Beasts with a skill in weaving (and I’m including both Weavers the species and weavers the other Beasts who can weave silk. like regular spiders) could contribute to the exports. Weaving clothes and decorations and such. I have no foundation for this, but what if all of the pale court’s robes were actually spidersilk? Pale and shiny. And remember, there were spools of the stuff in the hidden station, right next to where the white palace used to be. Although, I imagine the silk could also be dyed for selling to the more regular bugs of Hallownest. Fancy silks for the upper class bugs who wanted to show off.

Weavers specifically could weave spells. Seals and glyphs and such, using their silk as the conduit. 

When the Wyrm came along, the balance of power shifted. The Beasts didn’t have a god for PK to take issue with, but the Beasts themselves likely didn’t care for a new powerful entity staking his claim so close to the Deepnest. Ancient Basin is right next-door, after all. I actually think the Basin used to be part of the Deepnest but PK fought to claim that space. (I wonder if he picked that place to be near the entrance to the Abyss or if that was pure coincidence that he’d take advantage of later?)

I should probably address the general relationships of the denizens of deepnest with those in the bordering territories, huh? Let’s go back to before Hallownest was a thing, before the Wyrm came and gave mind to the pillbugs and beetles and such in the area.

-The Moth Tribe occupied the area in and around what would later be known as the Resting Grounds. No conflict with Beasts, too far away.

-The Hive kept to itself with the exception of expanding, which it was successful at, but it didn’t get greedy. The bees and the beasts likely had scuffles and encounters, but generally, they left each other alone, being evenly matched between power and numbers.

-The fungal folk... so what if some mushrooms get eaten. They share a mind and losing some of a body sometimes isn’t a huge deal.

-idk where the Flukes are in all this, but probably beasts hunt them sometimes. No attempt to gain the flukes’ territory (whatever it was before the Waterways were a thing).

-The Mosskin Tribe occupied what would eventually become the Queen’s Gardens. Maybe thorns were tended around and over all the entrances to the Deepnest that they could find. Sure, some beasts still came through, but it would be a decent deterrent.

-The Mantis Tribe. Ancient rivalry. The territory line shifted over the years, giving and taking, each side honing their skills to attack and defend against the other. The beasts had variety and strength and numbers on their side, but the mantids had skill and speed and discipline. When it came to a Beast warrior fighting a mantis warrior, they were more evenly matched.

Curious bugs that wander into the Deepnest are eaten. Some bugs are lured. We see multiple regular pillbugs in the nosk den. Also, there were plenty of infected ones/corpse creepers elsewhere in the Deepnest, so bugs came in, but didn’t come out. Tasty snacks.

The Beasts might’ve done some trading with the Hallownest bugs, but those bugs were not welcome in Beast territory. It was perilous to deal with Beasts and their home. (hmm.. Deepnest is the Australia of Hallownest)

Okay, I can feel my braincells disappearing, so this is where I’ll leave this. Have another cookie for reading all this.

[book-of-hallownest]

if u've got any dreamer hcs i am LOOKING

COMING RIGHT UP

Aight dreamer hcs, or in which they are all say; fuck the pale king.

Herrah

• okay first things first she’s married to Vespa. Sorry I don’t make the rules.

• Can absolutely beat the shit out of a nosk.

• The logical explanation for herrah’s bargain with the pk was for creating a heir for deepnest. But in reality, herrah just wanted a daughter.

• Seems like a stoic, no bullshit person at first glance, but she cares about those she loves a ton.

• herrah hates the pk. No questions asked. All of the dreamers had some idea where the vessels came from, and herrah hates having to stand by as children are being killed. But she still has bargain to fulfill.

• adopts the vessels if she wakes up, those are her kids now sorry.

• she gives them love and affection, but also knives

• bi, that’s all.

• she and the mantis lords have a friendly rivalry going on!!

• the only reason herrah let pk build a tramway at the end of deepnest,!through the basin and into the kingdom’s edge was because it led to to her the hive,, which is much more convinet.

• imagine the nail sly weilds, make a needle and make 2 of them. That’s what herrah uses in battle. When hornet is older she plans to give her one of them.

• The cloakish thing she wears over her head was intended to be red but all the dreamers decided to match.

• level headed of the two dreamers, she’s more accepted the fact she is probably gonna be killed by this vessel than the other two.

——

Monomon

• she is a refuge form another kingdom,, and she brought all the jellyfish with her!

• she doesn’t have a face under her mask, she simply wears it to better fit in with the citizens of hallownest, her ‘face’ is just a core like the ooma and uoma have!

• *presses face to mic* she says trans rights and there is nothing you can do about it.

• quirrel is like her kid, and the only reason monomon hasn’t blew up hallownest with a experiment.

• Self project time as well; she tries to start a million projects at the same time, and feels bad when she can’t get to them all at once,

• a bastard, but in a professional way. Like the true facts series by zefrank1. This is litterally her change my mind

• probably really good friends with lurien! Mad scientist and the brain cell of the entire city,,

• Uumuu is her proudest projects!! They were originally meant as a bats base of sorts, but since the seals were place they were corrupted by the infection and now defends monomon,,

Lurien

• nb lurien,,

• I’m stuck between making them a dragonfly or a butterfly- something that flies.

• he’s actually the oldest of the dreamers; being one of the first bugs the pk tested his gift on.

• durring the creation of hallownest, he played a vital role in helping create a government and structure of the city, which got him the watcher title.

• hot take; they aren’t a pk simp. While they remain loyal to the pk, they question the pk’s actions a lot, and now resent him a lot because of the void experiments. His loyalty begins and ends with the city.

• He has one eye dude to a genetic mutation, he wears his mask all the time because he is self conscious about it.

• also, he does a bit of soul magic, while preferring not to resort to it.

• projection time; hot cocoa,, all day everyday. He’s expiermening to create the prefect cup of cocoa.

• honestly, he does not want to be here are much as you do.

• also he’s really passionate about paintings! He’s more of a hobbyist landscape painter, most of his works of the city,, but legends say he has a couple of fog canyon.

• he has some idea of the soul sanctum was doing, and in the latest hours of the knight, he watches the sanctum to try and gather proof of their wrongdoings. But he was never able to he was put to sleep.

• the watcher knights are his body guards, kinda being the governor of the city and all.

• a anxious introvert; their best friend is probably his best and only friend. He selects a corner in any social environment and stays there until he can leave.

• left handed,,

• lurien wishes for the seal to remain. If the pure vessel wasn’t hollow then this vessel certainly isn’t. He is also somewhat afraid, considering he cannot contorl what happens once he’s gone, and he doesn’t know where he will go once it’s over.

——

Their dynamic is like

Monomon; I can fit 50 tater tots can I fit in my mouth

Lurien; monomon please, you are a threat to society-

Herrah; and a coward, do 100.

Monomon; actually I cannot fit any! I don’t have a face.

Lurien; this is why you are a threat

Herrah; ....

[ganymedesclock]

More Dreamer headcanons? More Dreamer headcanons.

Lurien:

Was a painter in his youth but became a priest of the Pale King as he aged

Rose through the ranks pretty rapidly out of his devotion, piety, and diligence at his work (given the kinds of edicts PK was prone to, these qualities are interrelated) and served as the governor / chief magistrate of the City, dealt with a lot of things that weren’t important enough to formally hit PK’s desk

Doesn’t like the Soul Master but it’s more wariness than a grudge born of anger. He never was able to pin that scattered handful of missing person cases on the Sanctum, but he had his suspicions.

Three-eyed, or at least originally; when the plague spread, he ‘reduced his infection risk’ by removing his two main eyes. The third has far more limited vision, so after a point his paintings became... pretty blurry. After that, his personal assistant helped him get around.

Is a dragonfly

“I’m going to keep all of my feelings right here and then someday I’ll die”

Fought on fairly rare occasions (okay you try getting past the Watcher Knights) but when he did, carried a staff that had a sharpened staff on one end and PK’s holy symbol on the other. Knows a thing or two about magic but is not above just, y’know, going for the shins. There is relatively little piety to observe in a life-or-death battle. 

Maybe had feelings for PK but [the sound of two emotionally distant duty-and-labor-oriented people existing in the same space indefinitely and neither of them will talk about feelings ever]. There are fine lines between religious devotion and devotion of other kinds when your god is a physically present person. Lurien existed at more than a few intersections of those lines.

Monomon

Think if a calmer Miss Frizzle pupated into an eldritch abomination. 

Polite. Compassionate to those she worked with. Earnestly believed in the future of the world and the importance of knowledge. Talking to her for any span of time made it pretty clear she was translating everything into spoken language from a very different form of communication that involved transmission of electricity.

Fog Canyon wasn’t originally like that and was basically the subject of a lot of terraforming

She and her people came from Somewhere Else, and as much as she loves explaining it tends to be left as that because there are very few words that explain the Somewhere Else very well except that Fog Canyon is a much more modest, scaled-down version of it. The Somewhere Else had a strange relationship with space and gravity. It also, apparently, had flowers that did not survive being transplanted to Hallownest. 

Flowers are what Monomon calls them at least. Followers of Unn are fairly adamant that whatever those were, they weren’t flowers.

Tastes magic. At least ‘taste’ is probably the closest analogue to what she’s doing.

Capable of echolocation. Most of the time that’s what that clicking noise is. On rare occasions it’s her building an electric charge. People close enough to her know the difference but strangers don’t always. Needless to say if she clicks with a certain variety of purpose then some shit’s going down and you may not want to be holding a metal object at the time.

You’ve heard of feral scientists now imagine that but with court manners and a keen sense of how to wield them so you have basically no warning what’s cooking behind that pleasant atmosphere.

Liked PK decently enough. Wanted him to be right that the plague would stop due to the Dreamers’ and Hollow’s seal. Was completely prepared for him to be wrong and had no particular qualms working with or against PK however she felt best suited the situation.

Wielded no weapons because she didn’t need them. Preferred not to use lethal force against things if it could be avoided- removing life from the ecosystem always has consequences- but absolutely capable of bringing the pain via electrical discharge. Could also paralyze entities with barbs hidden in her tentacles.

Technically trans in that she was interested in more Hallownest-typical gender and presentation than her species’ typical attitudes there. 

Uumuu was more of her relative than a servant; their posted guard over her while she slept was entirely voluntary on their part.

Herrah

Stoic to such a fault that there were at least a few people who’d known her for years and in that time had caught her speaking a single sentence, once, and no more. Marginally chattier among her own people.

Tolerated Monomon decently. Had little to say to Lurien but given the previous point that’s only marginally a personal statement.

Capable of moving at a gallop that outstripped her worshipers’ top speeds. This could go up vertical surfaces.

The nature of her and PK’s deal went unknown to much of Hallownest, though all of Deepnest was aware of it.

Those who assumed she was dangerous on account of being a huge, physically powerful beast with a sharp needle were not wrong, but, were seriously underestimating the Beast regardless.

Very few people heard it but she could sing, with a combination of technical precision and impressive command of her breathing.

[grimmradiance]

The dreamers? 👀

Okay so here’s hoping there isn’t a secret character limit on ask responses because Hoo Boy, I Have Lost Control Of This Ask.

Monomon

A. realistic

Monomon is super hyperempathetic--that’s part of the reason the Foggy Canyon is the way it is.  She’s surrounded by other creatures that prefer to simply exist, who are fine with being left alone, but also don’t mind if she or that odd heavy bug she adopted gives them a little pat on the way past.  That’s also the reason Quirrel is so good with a nail--Monomon could channel the powers of lightning and/or explosions that other jelly creatures seem to have, but emotionally? imagine the toll.

B. not realistic but hilarious

She has NO sense of scale whatsoever. None.  Most bugs in Hallownest measure things against their height, since a bug’s shell is rigid and generally about the same length all the time, but since Monomon is 70% jelly by volume, she tends to measure herself like a cat or a mouse would, by the amount of space she needs to fit into places.  This makes Quirrel’s life...unusual, to say the least.  She gets stuck places sometimes.

C. heart-wrenching

If she’s hyperempathetic, imagine how she fucking feels about Quirrel and the Hollow Knight. I can’t even go off on a three paragraph rant on this one it just makes me HURT.  Quirrel being sent to the Howling Cliffs for No Thoughts Crystalline Memories Empty treatment was probably her best attempt at mercy.  God. I’m never gonna be over these sad fucking bugs.

D. it’s my canon and I choose what parts of it matter

Monomon is a very, very clever conversationalist.  She knows how to talk in just such a way that you feel like you’re being heard and understood, until you suddenly realized you’ve said something aloud you really shouldn’t, and Monomon says “don’t worry, I won’t tell a soul.”

And then, of course, she tells Quirrel, because what is knowledge for if not to be shared?  The two of them could totally take down the structure of the White Palace if they were on the same page about how to go about it.

Herrah

A. realistic

This is more about Deepnest in general, but the Weavers prefer to be left to their own devices, and leave other groups of insects to theirs. I mean, look at the Weaverlings from the Weaver’s Song charm.  They’re the only companion charm that doesn’t actively target enemy bugs, they just sort of...wibble around.  And they’re a relic of the Weavers as they moved towards the heart of Deepnest.  The dangerous, heavily-trapped and hypervigilant Deepnest we see is a product of outside interference, presumably the Pale King being salty that the Weavers didn’t accept his rule.

B. not realistic but hilarious

Herrah didn’t just teach Hornet to be a persnickety little anarchist terror in the White Palace, oh no.  She tried to teach Quirrel to be a feral little gremlin too.  I mean, most of it didn’t stick, but she tried.

C. heart-wrenching

You know that one Tumblr post that’s basically “sorry, all the nice queers are gone, you killed them, so now it’s just us pissed-off cockroach motherfuckers left”?  That’s what happened to Deepnest.  What kind of peaceful or uninvolved society would need anything fucking like the Midwife or the Devouts? Well, they’re perfectly good to have around if peace is no longer an option.  Every once in a while I just lose it thinking about all the culture the Weavers probably had preserved through their tapestries, and how much of it must have gotten destroyed along the way.

Also bonus round for Sad And/Or Horrifying Implications regarding Hornet: most spiders lay hundreds or thousands of eggs at a time.  I don’t have the time to even START unpacking Hornet’s distinct lack of siblings (as in specifically not half-siblings).

D. it’s my canon and I choose what parts of it matter

slaps my little hands on the table.  Even as everything was going to shit, Vespa and Herrah were still good friends, and sent letters to each other over the Stagways.  She got to know a number of Vespa’s subjects very well, including the Hive Knight. Silksong better give us more lore on them.

Lurien

A. realistic

The Pale King loved having Lurien around because Lurien was half of TPK’s charisma.  TPK very much seems the type to get wound up in his own thoughts and image, constantly micromanaging it to get the best response from specific people. (Unrelated, but I think only the Hollow Knight knows what TPK is really like, since if TPK really did believe Hollow had no mind and no voice, why would he bother? People make that exact assumption all the time with disabled people anyways, I am sick of my peers realizing I have a disability and changing the way they act around me send tweet  This is a whole other post, maybe I’ll write it another time.)  So who better is there to have around than someone whose hobby and greatest skill is watching a situation and analyzing it?  Once the Dreamers were sealed, TPK’s public image was fucked, no doubt about it.

B. not realistic but hilarious

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned Autistic Lurien before but he is in my head, so branching off of my own experiences: this guy is the KING of Relatable Lapses Of Insight.  This man has drunk paint water before on accident.  This man has tried to sit on a stack of tablets and knocked himself over.  This man will spend three minutes explaining how light reflection works to try and convey the word he’s forgetting. (The word he’s forgetting is “mirror.”)  I care him so much.

C. heart-wrenching

I cannot overexaggerate how fucking brilliant of a meta-narrative choice the existence of Lurien’s butler is. I *cannot.*  I am perpetually in awe of how good Hollow Knight is with environmental storytelling, and how much material it leaves for people who love to dig way too far into things. 

Why do I bring this up here?  Lurien’s butler is a parallel to Hornet and Quirrel, who are, to Herrah and Monomon, their only concrete link to the present that isn’t at least partially painted over in the Pale King’s propaganda.  And he’s been Light-ridden for gods only know how long.  The popular fanon about Lurien having it bad for the Pale King always gets me thinking about this, because we have Lurien’s journal as our only source on him. A scarce few lines: his sleep is in service to King and kingdom.

I can’t help but wonder if Lurien chose those words especially deliberately, knowing they would be his last. “Though my gaze falls no longer on this city, I will act forever in its protection,” in a journal carefully hidden in a private building of the City of Tears.  Why hide something like that with so much care, unless there was something to be gleaned from it?  Well, whatever information we need to know about Lurien to contextualize anything outside of context clues and the King’s image of him would have been with someone who was loyal and trustworthy enough to watch over him. Someone who was loyal and trustworthy enough that that would be all that remained in their mind, even under the Light’s influence.

Basically, what I’m getting at here: I know for a fact there is something we don’t know about Lurien, and whatever that secret is, it died with his butler.

D. it’s my canon and I choose what parts of it matter

Lurien travels!  He is very good at making up academic or political excuses for it, but we all know why he’s really leaving the city: to paint.  He isn’t quite as skilled with natural features as the regular shapes you see in a city, but he enjoys himself so that’s what matters.

[bluegekk0]

lurien asks got me thinking. do you have any ideas for who assumed the roles of the dreamers post radiance. like who is the current watcher, king/queen of the spider tribe, etc

As mentioned in a previous ask, I'm toying with the idea of Lurien's butler becoming the current Watcher, as appointed by Lurien who now runs the City of Tears. Their role would be especially important now with all the criminals causing chaos in the city, and Lurien absolutely made sure that his successor is up to the task. And who better to do it than his most trusted bug, who stayed by his side the whole time, learning the Watcher secrets and responsibilities from him.

For Monomon, I really like the idea of Quirrel continuing her legacy in a way. He's a teacher for the Dirtmouth kids, granted, he's basically the equivalent of a preschool teacher, but that still means that Monomon's library and archives are put to a good use. I think she'd be happy to see that her work can help shape the future generations. Of course, Quirrel's not the youngest, so he can't do if forever, but I imagine he's going to eventually find a successor.

Now, Deepnest is for me the most problematic one. Technically, Hornet is supposed to be Herrah's heir and the queen of the Spider Tribe, but as you can see, she chose a different fate for herself. Besides, the Spider Tribe is in shambles, most of them perished due to the infection and Deepnest's dangerous beasts, and the Weaver have fled as well. There is no one left to rule, basically. It's possible that the remaining members of the tribe will one day get back on their feet and attempt to resurrect it, though I think it would be under its own ruler, seeing as Hornet doesn't seem interested in leading. I'll have to think of some possibilities.

[nonuggetshere]

Oh hey imagine if the radiance doesn't let go of hollow out of spite so she speaks through them occasionally pretending to be them in pain and full of hate towards pk. How would he know which one it is, he doesn't know his child well enough. And also hollownest rots bc while it's not her main focus, there are no preventative measures put in place before pk fucks off to be with his child. So the epidemic is much slower but just as devastating. Good news though, it doesn't reach deepnest because with pale king out of hollownest radi isn't trying to expand her plague anymore. So hornet is fine! And herrah and the devout just need to bunker down and watch everyone else die extremely slowly. It provides time for herrah to find a way to tell hornet that her dad left her without checking she'd be okay.

HOW DARE YOU HURT ME WITH MY OWN IDEA /lh

[storytellersys]

Operation Alarm Clock

Hornet here. Upon realizing that, in theory, we could access any location and time within Hallownest’s history—so long as we didn’t visibly fuck up the timeline so events that needed to happen—I immediately pushed for saving my mom. Long post, the rest is under the cut.

(One of my moms, anyway, Spidermom. Although saving Beemom might also be very possible with some well-placed illusion magic... and she might not be the only one. This needs more thought later but if I’m right, we might be making Ze’mer very, very happy.) 

Of course, we still had to get a portal working. Our current ones are bright pink and can only be maintained by someone currently within the headspace, and we’ve got a room above our “control room” (think a basement room with a big couch, a TV screen showing whatever the current fronter is looking at, and a tiny lightbulb with a chain up top to complete the aesthetic) that we’ve designated our “portal room” just to keep things out of the way.

(We’ll actually try to make up a floor plan/description of what our headspace is like at some point. But if I do that now, I’m never going to write this out.)

...hold that thought, kitten just got up onto a shelf I didn’t think she could get to. Really should have known better. I’m, collectively, about 1/5 of her mom. She learned from the best.

Okay, kitten has been somewhat dissuaded for now, where was I?

Right. Portals. By the time we got one properly working to Hallownest, Pyrrha had already showed up in the middle of the night and had somewhat adjusted to Life in the System. I think our first attempts were directed to Tamriel, and Ayrenn’ll give more details on her shenanigans there at some point.

Eventually, though? We got to Hallownest. Specifically, we wanted to portal to Monomon, some time before the Dreamers were sealed away, because I knew she had been instrumental in crafting the sealing spell, and if anyone could A) make it so that the Dreamers didn’t just instantly die when their seal was broken and B) slip it past a certain bastard bug of a king, it would be Monomon.

Contacting Monomon, however, had its own problems. Specifically, that we couldn’t let her know too much about the future (though we knew better than to think she wouldn’t figure some shit out on her own) and that we’d need something to offer her.

Figuring out what to offer Monomon was easy. Simply by virtue of being a system in this world, where metric fucktons of other worlds are seen as fictional, we could offer her information on absolutely anything this world has to offer. Also, preventing her own death is always a good incentive.

The other issue was how much she could know. I’m still our only bug (barring Holly, and they started visiting after this operation’s conclusion) so unless we really wanted to try disguising someone else, I was the one who had to reach out. I knew better than to think she wouldn’t figure out who I was sooner or later, and given some of the things she got up to in her Archives without anyone knowing until after she was gone, she could clearly lie well.

We settled on answering her questions if she asked them, but making it abundantly clear that absolutely no one could know any of this. And so, we opened our first portal to Hallownest, and I stepped into a side room of the Teacher’s Archives. Tubes upon tubes of acid adorned the room, all undoubtedly holding valuable information. In the middle, with her back to me, was Monomon herself. Very much alive, and very much not asleep.

I admit I may have given her a bit of a scare to start off. I will not apologize for that because it was funny as hell.

Our plan was to tell her what she needed to know (specifically: what we could do, what she needed to do, and what we could offer her in return) and offer more if she asked, after we (I) made it abundantly clear that this was not to be shared with anyone, and especially not PK. 

She figured out almost immediately who I was, because I apparently act a lot like Spidermom (shocker) and Monomon knew what Spidermom had asked for in return for being a Dreamer. Seeing me all grown up made it clear that I was a time traveler as well. Technically speaking.

I only got about twenty minutes there, compared to an hour here. Time in my version of Hallownest goes one hour for every three hours in this world (which was an unwelcome surprise when compared with the three hours in Ayrenn’s Tamriel for every one hour in this world) but I did manage to get her curious enough to hear me out. We did some more experimentation to make sure Hallownest’s end of things would work out, I unintentionally gained a fourth mom (thanks Monomom), and finally we hit upon our master plan.

We would bring Monomon over first of the Dreamers, because she already knew what was going on and certainly wasn’t averse to spending some time in our headspace while we figured other shit out. Specifically, we’d aim for right after Ghost whacked them several times with their nail, but before Ghost woke up.

You see, Monomom modified the spell so that it wouldn’t just kill the Dreamers upon the Seals breaking, it would just wake them up... possibly not immediately, so we were prepared to grab and yeet bugs into headspace if necessary. (Monomom was quite certain that Lurien would be the easiest yeet. She was eventually correct.)

(Monomom also shared some rather disturbing things involving PK that even I didn’t know, such as that she attempted to rescue some of the vessels stuck in the Abyss and may have actually been responsible for Ghost’s eventual escape, and that PK had been oddly insistent on making sure that the sealing spell did not allow for any possibility of the Dreamers’ survival, should it be broken. More reasons to hate my shitty, shitty dad. More reasons to appreciate R’s.)

After some incidents including but not limited to me nearly walking right into past PK, and quite a lot of testing to make sure it would work (or be as sure as we could,) it was finally time. We opened a portal to the exact moment Ghost broke the seal. Pyrrha used her semblance to yeet a maybe half-awake Monomon through the portal, I threw a letter Monomon had previously written at Quirrel as well as a headspace-made device we’ve rather imaginatively dubbed a notification stick, and we bounced.

(In retrospect, that was why Quirrel was still around in my memories. He knew Monomon was coming back, and he knew not to let anything on to my past self. His job was one of the most important: to press the button on the notification stick about a day after past Hornet left for Silksong adventures so we’d know when to drop the Dreamers back off.)

Monomon was in here for about a day, and fronted for a little over an hour. She had a great time, I’m pretty sure, though she’s yet to return or front again. I assume because she’s pretty busy, which is understandable and also a big fucking mood.

With Monomon a resounding success, next on the list was Spidermom, Herrah the Beast. She was a bit more difficult, given that I had to actually talk to my past self.

It worked out, well enough. Barring the fact that I had no memory of that conversation from the other side, but we can attribute that to system weirdness.

We grabbed Lurien shortly after, and then opened up one final portal. Previously, we’d been using our notification sticks merely as signals that we should head over to x world as soon as possible. What we homed in on, however, was the action of Quirrel heading outside Dirtmouth, and pressing the button.

After that, it was out of our hands. But I’m told Lurien gathered some things from his spire and moved into Dirtmouth, Spidermom is working on rebuilding Deepnest now that the Infection is gone, and Monomom is, unsurprisingly, experimenting away in Fog Canyon.

This mission was a resounding success. (And this is honestly the abridged version of it, but it proved that we could in fact fix some things in any of our worlds.)

Hornet out.

[vynnyal]

dumping my random thoughts, comic ideas, and wildly misinformed theories abt hk onto my victims: part 2!!! p clear what I was doing in some of these, lmao

btw if you have any input im very, super interested please feel free 2 share

"So who's the mother?" Grimm: "Mother? No, there was no mother." "Then how--?" grimm: "Mitosis, obviously." Cut to two panels of the person dissociating over what they imagine the process to be.

FUCKIN... ASEXUAL PRIDE GRIMM

Hornet yelling shaw instead of yeet or koby.

Hornet yelling git gud at inappropriate times in place of like... Actual Advice. Alt: jdghghf or when she gets nervous, as a distraction.

Her thinking of something cool to say while waiting outside the black egg temple. alt: her thinking so hard she almost misses her cue, making her flub; aka the reason she says somn more like "geddun" in-game. alt alt: thk and ghost sharing a blank look (mid-battle) and thinking "she flubbed" in disbelief.

Hornet and something with the "spidersilk paper" lemm mentioned, maybe using it to """document""" her day when she has time to spare. She insists it's not a diary, so don't even try.

Hornet grieving the little weavers.

(speedrun) "You wanna fight? Huh? Huh? Well I dont, bye"

Zote "I only saved you for the money" joke.

Quirrel pretending not to understand modern slang.

Quirrel... Dad jokes... Holy shit

FUCKIN... DAD BOD???

conifer appearing in increasingly absurd locations.

Quirrel playfully commenting on the uh... "information"... The tablets display. alt: he can actually read it just fine, but is coy abt telling ghost what it says.

rather than just appearing, Quirrel and ghost walk through the archives together, the mood bittersweet.

Hollow knight passing the time in the black egg lightheartedly.

Wyrm and root trying to argue but the height difference just makes them both laugh.

ghost appearing before Root, expectant, only for them to slowly realize she doesn't actually... care about them. or any of the vessels, really. she expects them to do their duty, her claims of shame apparently not deterring her away from the fate they were created for. alt: she acts like that not out of any kind of malevolence, but out of pure ignorance. It doesn't occur to her how much it costs the little vessels... Or that they even have anything to lose, at all.

Cut to the future after the bad end, as yet another fragile vessel appears before the queen, far too late to save anyone now.

Godmaster traitor lord battle, ghost walks in looking very nervous. Traitor looks smug, asking if they're afraid (of him), only for the next panel to show ghost sweating profusely as they have Fragile Flower Flashbacks. alt, they're imagining/being pressured by the ghost girlfriends glaring at them/wailing "WAIIII" in tendem.

Ghost asks how thk got so big, only for them to reveal their body is still the same size, and they're just controlling a big suit of armor like false knight. Jdbfjfgjr

its been pointed out the bee knight doesnt... actually have any wings to buzz with. the noises are entirely vocalized. The reason buzzy baby makes buzz noises is because he felt left out when he was a kid; the queen, seeking to comfort him, explains how he can create his very own buzz sounds using an alternative method, instead. Despite his battle prowess, his mind never matured, continuing up to his very last moments to make the habitual noises of his childhood.

(godmaster) having soul left over and fuckin SCREAMING in the faces of the nail masters just before the bench.

Defeating bee boy by one mask, relaxing for a sec, before realizing the bees are stILL COMING ACTUALLY,,,,

The aftermath of the sheo fight, ghost just DRIPPING with rainbow-colored paint.

ze'mer and her lover meeting in their dreams.

flower lesbos hanging out with the thorn husbos (nailmaster/sheo hfshh)

Team cherry hid the gays behind some of the hardest missions because, let's be honest, no homophobe would put that much effort into anything.

Quirrel saying "I've only had ghost for a day, but if anything happened to them I'd -" Cuts to ghost, shade over their body Quirrel: "..."

Messing with the hot springs... geysers? Idk 3 heads things. whats in there? How were they made? By the ancient civilization, maybe pale king? alt: finding quirrel relaxing casually inside one of the eyesockets instead of in the spring, lmao.

"I'd sure like to be a shade, like heck- they can fly, they can do that weird teleport thing, and they have-", turns to it, "- ALL MY MONEY!!!"

Ngl I still don't fully understand the relationship between ghost, their shell, and their shade, and should prolly read up before blabbing, but what is it that separates ghost's body from their shade? Or their shade from ghost, themself? We see in the dnm ending they can very much "control" their shade, as they voluntarily rip off their shell to release it. Or... Oh shit am I dumb? Did ghost kill themselves right then? Oh fuck did ghost die to let their shade kill the radience. Please tell me I'm wrong I'm really upset now yfjfihrufhgi

Gonna be honest the previous one was me trying to contextualize the concept of ghost being able to fly like shades do but now I'm just thinking abt ghost, fuck. Still. Imagine ghost n thk just, like, hovering towards people with their funky tentacle legs. Or better, no tentacles, they can just Do That. Establish your dominance, little vessels.

Ghost doing the superman "ripping off your shirt to shift into super-mode" thing except they just tear apart their shell. Alt: hornet: "that looks painful"

Broken vessel was stuck. Out of all the dead vessels we see- the one in greenpath, those hung in nosk's den, the floor of the abyss, even ghost themself- not one retained their body after death. Except, that is, for broken vessel. Something, somehow, was anchoring their shade to their shattered shell and keeping it there, unable to seep away and reunite with their siblings below. They weren't just another corpse. That was ghost's sibling.

Just what is a vessel's coak? From what I've seen of the sprites, it's clearly attached to their shells; some in nosk's den are even hung from them, with their shells dangling below it. It seems biological- by which I mean, not some sort of clothing or ambiguously god-based substance- which makes its selective decay rather odd. On one hand, in greenpath, nosk's den, and some specific corpses within the abyss, their cloaks have stayed firmly attached. On the other, we have countless shells left naked all over the place- even ghost's shell is like this. Of course we have to keep in mind ari prolly just didn't wanna animate that, but that's no fun. I don't really have a prompt or theory here, as nothing I come up with quite fits the bill... Just more of a thinkpiece, I suppose.

Nyooming past quirrel at blue lake, freeze frame of ghost and q sharing a startled look.

Ghost distracting sheo by making him gush over his artwork. alt, "winning" the battle by showing him something they made, and/or just having a paint-off. Ghost wins no matter what, obviously.

Ohhh... Ghost learning to express themselves through art...

Lurien secretly has multiple eyes, fit neatly in the one socket.

Appreciating the genius of the mimic grub room (the real grub's location is hard-coded. im still mad)

Hearing Hornet say "get down" instead of "git gud" and the connotations of that. alt: hearing "git gud" when she's actually saying "get down", being offended or otherwise reacting to that, before being promptly smacked in the face by whatever she was warning them abt.

Hornet doing weird, obscure spider things.

Ghost: WHAT is THAT?? uumuu: uumuu emoji face

Where does the shade get its sword? Is it a void-sword? Did they scavange it? Did they make it???

The actual guttural horror of falling into the centipedes in deepnest.

The irony of feeling incredibly sad and hurt at thk's pain, but absolute bloodlust for pure knight.

What was written upon the journal found with the corpse in ash at hollownest’s edge. Alt: h. how did ash even get up there.