args based off page with default

Hello Everyone,

First off thanks for any help here. I am create a hero for my blog but it needs to have a few checks and balances and a fallback. I am just spinning my wheels on the best way to to this. Here is the situation.

On the blog page I need to pull the featured post (by tag) and then exclude it from the waterfall below.

On the Archive pages I need to pull the featured post (by tag) based on the category the user is current in.

If the category or home page doesn’t have a featured post it needs to the default to another post so there is always a hero image.

I have setup a hook in my header that I would like to create a function that I can hook into via function.php

I can help clarify more if needed.

Thanks again.