#bungie really like you live here now

[3gremlins]

bungie was really like "we're going to make a game mode that's so difficult it'll make even veteran players rage quit"

anyway altars of summoning is rough, i don't understand why they make you queue for it to be endless (like why not make it a world event like the altars on the moon where you can just drop in/out obviously???).

it's so confusing, i queued for it for the first time and it was so miserable and i just wanted to leave?? like it's not obvious you just have to leave whenever (esp when that's super rude in other activities).

i obvs figured it out since but i've seen so many rank 9+ people just get mad and leave...it feels really unfun compared to last season (salvage was so good??! and deep dives were reasonably fun until everyone started grinding that exotic quest), like you can't even commend people who made it less miserable b/c it's endless.

edit: yes i've figured out about doing the robust offerings instead but it's still an annoying/not amazingly fun mode (esp with randos). also having the attrition modifier in week 1 feels so bad, like week 3 i get, but week 1?? also unlike the well or the altars, having it only be 3 people on a fireteam feels so unbalanced (and being stuck in this mode with no clear ending), especially since there's no way to vote on the offerings or anything like that. Def kept hitting rank 9+ randos who would keep doing powerful offerings even tho we clearly couldn't clear them and then rage quitting away mid fight.

[thorough-witness-enjoyer]

In the face of recent news about our beloved Destiny, I think it’s more important than ever for us as a community to come together and support each other in numerous ways.

It’s been a very hard week for all of us, especially those who lost their jobs and outlet for their passion in mass lay offs. Losing a position that allowed you to craft magnificent stories alongside some of the most ambitious people in the gaming industry, especially in worrying economic circumstances, must be excruciating to deal with and I wish the best for all those laid off from Bungie.

For us fans, it hurts more than anything to see the game you care so much for get put in headlines for how little that care is shared amongst the people responsible for making decisions on it. I’ve been into Destiny since it first dropped, making it the love of my life for nearly two-thirds of my whole existence , and to hear about how it’s just another product to be sold when it’s everything and more to me is just despairing. I wanted to become a writer and concept artist to create a game for others that made them feel as cared for as I did when I played Destiny and now I’m sitting here seeing all the people who helped foster that feeling be treated as another expenditure.

It’s awful, a lot of us are feeling really uninspired and betrayed at the moment, not sure we even want to see what will happen to this masterpiece of a game in the hands of the current executives. We are also dearly missing the developers, artists, writers, and more who made Destiny more than a fps looter shooter.

But it is times like these where we are torn and confused that we must uplift one another and not let the bitter taste of Bungie’s actions make us speak with hostility. This is not about decisions on whether to support Bungie or the actual game, but about refocusing on what truly makes Destiny enjoyable to so many.

Its world is immersive with care put into every story and that clearly shows in just how eager fans are to create masterpieces for it. It was never playing the game or the notoriety that kept me coming back for more, but the joy of creation I could share with others.

It stings to see a disinterest in nursing the potential of the Destiny universe from the executives with motivations other than monetary gain, but when the executives won’t care, we can. There are still employees at Bungie who adore their work and we can continue to support them by speaking up against horrible industry practices and show that we won’t abandon their efforts to make Destiny what it is.

Make ocs, write fanfictions, follow the former employees wherever they go, draw til your heart is overflowing, join Discords, roleplay, share headcanons, create aus with friends, do whatever keeps Destiny alive and flourishing for you!

Destiny will never die to me, even when it’s long forgotten and the servers shut down, because Destiny made me who I am and I intend to repay that gift an infinite amount of times over. The characters and universe will be alive and well to me until I die, regardless of the fate of the game and Bungie.

So go out and prove that Destiny’s themes of the power of community and hope are more than just morals behind a screen, that they are life changing messages that we will carry on despite hopeless news!!

Reblog charming artists, message people about ships you enjoy, leave questions and tags that contribute to conservations, write essays about what Destiny means to you!!

My messages and inbox for questions are always open if anyone would like to talk (I’m trying to get better at answering them, even if they are months late)! You are all welcome here and I want to start reblogging and liking more freely even if those things scare me sometimes!

We can decide our fates and we can decide the fate of Destiny’s presence in our lives as well! We can choose to care when others won’t and refuse to make our enjoyment debatable!! In troubling times, we should be able to reach out into the dark and find hands to hold onto tight!!

[thefirstknife]

Getting real sick of a certain subset of Destiny players complaining that it’s a baby game and crying to Bungie to nerf exotics and abilities when their ENTIRE POINT IS TO BE STRONG in specific ways as if they are being locked into using them.

IF YOU WANT AN EXTRA CHALLENGE STOP BEING SUCH A DPS GOBLIN AND JUST EQUIP SOMETHING THATS NOT TOP TIER META AND STOP COMPLAINING JESUS FUCKING CHRIST

MOOD. Go off.

It's incredibly annoying to me. They always use the argument of "the game should FORCE me to do things, I should not SELF-IMPOSE challenges." And like. ? I'm sorry but what? It's a video game for a big audience, it's here to be playable and accessible to the widest possible playerbase. There are plenty of ways to make the game difficult for yourself, so knock yourself out if that's your thing, but don't force others into it.

Like, I enjoy hard content, I regularly at least attempt day 1 raids, I do master raids, GMs, solo and solo flawless content and all that. But only when I want to. Sometimes I don't and I don't want to suffer in a patrol zone or struggle in a seasonal activity I'm doing for the story. The majority of the players don't want that. Designing games for the professional gamers only has NEVER been a good idea and never will be. Fifty streamers can't sustain a video game. It needs casual players who will want to come back to the game instead of feeling defeated.

One of the reasons I really enjoy helping others is because I know that casual players tend to struggle in stuff that's basic activity for me. I've seen people unable to get through a strike. I've sat for 10 minutes rezing someone who couldn't do the jump in a seasonal activity. I want those people to be able to play basic content without feeling frustrated and I want them to know that there are people out there who will help them out.

And this doesn't apply just to basic content, although it should start with that. I think all dungeons and raids and everything should be things that all players can complete. Fine, doing a master raid with all challenges should be tough, but it should be achievable with time and practice, not impossible. What a lot of these "pros" want is just completely divorced from reality.

It takes days and days of practice every time a new master raid is out for me and my team (all with thousands of hours of playtime) to get comfortable to finally finish it. We're far from casual players and it still takes a lot of time to be able to finish hard content. Making it even harder is insane to me. Like, if something is so hard that my team full of people, each with 5000+ hours of playtime and a coordinated team that's been raiding together for years now can't finish it, that means it's absolutely impossible for probably 90% of the playerbase. That's wild to me. Raids and GMs should have more people playing them. If master raids are too easy for you, Mr. I-Play-Destiny-For-A-Living, that's on you buddy. Unequip the super god tier god roll meta guns and loadouts or play something else.

And ofc, another excuse they make is "if I don't use meta, I am not going to win a raid race!" Then don't. Idk. Let me play you the tiniest violin. This affects literally nobody except a grand total of 50 people. Run your meta in day 1, and play with random shit otherwise. Play raids with all white weapons. Play without mods. Play without a HUD. Do things solo only. I don't know, make up a way to spice things up for yourself. I'm not interested in that and neither are 99% of the players out there. The game is genuinely hard enough for the majority of the players. On top of that, I am here to feel like a powerful space fantasy superhero. I am NOT here to die to dregs in patrol zones. If there's ONE thing that I know for a fact that put people off from Lightfall (as in this year of Destiny), it's the difficulty changes. They're annoying, frustrating and for some a barrier to entry more than anything else.

[dredgenvale]

relatively long rant about destiny, bungie, and player sentiment. no salt here. not towards the game at least. just the community.

i read the state of the game update. it made me really fucking excited and optimistic for what's coming next with destiny. turns out that's not the majority opinion and most people are just. so salty and so angry over things that i genuinely don't see as a problem. moreover, i often don't even understand why it's such a perceived problem in the first place. i mean, i'm usually the first to call out greedy developers. i've watched james stephanie sterling's videos for at least half a decade now. (kinda off topic but when we were both pre-transition and when i was like 14 i had sent them an email about how they helped us a lot with body image and they sent a really sweet reply even though i was the most awkward of awkward autistic kids)

point being - i fucking HATE greedy AAA game companies. and now bungie is being accused of the same practices for [checks notes] updating the game at their own pace and telling the stories that they want to tell? it's bullshit. sure, the eververse isn't perfect. sure, there are definitely some fucky monetization practices. i'd definitely prefer if the whole silver system was done away with entirely. but is it as bad as with activision? FUCK no. i saw a comment a bit ago saying 'the biggest trick bungie ever pulled was convincing us activision was the problem'. haven't been able to get that outta my head cause of how little sense it makes. as far as i can tell, nothing's really changed with destiny other than the price of seasons going up like 5 bucks with lightfall. would you rather have a price increase and keep buying ala carte, or pay like 40 bucks monthly like with other live service games?

bungie is still a big gaming company, definitely still have Opinions about those. but (knock on fucking wood) i haven't heard any of the horror stories i usually hear from those, ubisoft for example. bungie seems to genuinely care about the game experience. why else would they go independent again when they were making assloads of money with activision?

anyway. kind of rambling at this point. i guess my main point is that i have no clue what's gotten the d2 community all worked up recently when as far as i can tell nothing's really changed.

[heavenbled]

kaifeng ( + nighthawk) origin stories, based in destiny's world but translatable to other fandom verses.

in the golden age in the states, kai was once known as nyx haneul yuan. he was an orphan with his twin sister, samira iseul yuan and the two kinda flit from foster home to foster home. it was a pretty shitty situation and had been really taxing and traumatizing to the both of them until they both were of legal age to officially be on their own. and that they went, never once leaving each other's side as they pursued their own paths in life. they both left high school and pursued their own degrees at the same university, living off of fafsa and prayers. embezzlement of their shitty lineage and childhood story lead for good scholarship points. the two essentially scrap their way through hell to make something better of themselves, even with all the bullshit that came with shit cards.

kai pursued a degree in dance while also taking to figure skating, even getting competitive for as long as his body would be able to. samira went into biology and earned her degree with (a moderate amount) of difficulty. but they made a life for themselves, they were successful. nyx was fairly popular as a skater, later becoming a vocal and skating coach after retirement. samira went on to bigger and bigger things, seemingly like dragging her twin around but in actuality, nyx was really grateful and proud of her. got him out of his comfort zone. that is, until samira has to suddenly vacate the entire planet, and nyx did not have a ticket on board the ship.

they hit 35. the collapse begins, and the world ends. everything comes crashing down around them, samira is gone, and nyx is completely, utterly alone. the darkness sweeps in and levels the city in minutes, and he with it. but the thing is, samira feels it - they say that its a twin thing. she feels it, just as her ship slips in between dimensions, right on the cusp of light and darkness. fast forward a bit, samira emerges from that slip with thousands of others like her, led by a queen who now called themselves the awoken. i don't really give a fuck about canon here and i built a lot of headcanons around the awoken as a separate species of people from huamnity, bc bungie did not do Enough in my opinion. beings that were once-human, cooked to atoms in a dimensional hole when the clash of light and dark basically explode at that precise moment? cmon . you KNOWWW i'm gonna be on top of that shit. whole apex predator, feral space elves i don't give a fuck reality is whatever i make of it. awoken hcs can be a separate post for later.

anyway she emerges, her queen builds their new home in the asteroid belt: the dreaming city. her queen builds this city with the power of wish dragons, ahamkara. samira takes her background in street fighting to enlist herself into her queen's army. she rises through the ranks ridiculously fast with her ambition and power, and eventually she is able to have access to a wish dragon's lair. she finds it, and she steadies herself in knowing what she's sacrificing: she wishes her twin alive, at the cost of hers. and of course the dragon takes advantage of that wish, of the guilt on her conscience and misery. of course, when nyx comes back he comes back so wrong.

it's like he himself becomes awoken at the cost of his sister. awoken, and half-ahamkara. his hair and eyes turn white, skin a deep purple, and there's just this slightly off-putting feel to him. like a mirage at the corner of your eye, but just barely. this is getting really long so im gonna keep it a lil short: society doesn't like that. awoken aren't a known people at this time where nyx was reincarnated (in the same city that had been destroyed back on earth) and eventually is collected by miss queen awoken herself. sequestered away to live in seclusion on her order, as he was an "abomination." ahamkara magic was dangerous, and eventually they were even all hunted to extinction because of their corruption. nyx dies alone once more, and centuries later does a little ghost come along and revive him once more, this time in the light.

[speaker-of-the-void-cats]

Cannot believe Destiny is 10 years old. My history with Bungie in 2014 was Halo 1-2, which I liked enough, a bit of 3 at LAN parties, and then a LOT of Reach. Reach's vibe really grabbed me, and Destiny seemed at the time to be hitting a similar aesthetic and tone. Wasn't planning to get it, but I still remember stopping in at my game store after the first day of freshman year of college on a whim to get it.

Blew through the campaign, got very turned off by the launch grind, and bounced. I came back for each major expansion and release, but it wasn't until Forsaken that it clicked. I played D2 in my dorm and dropped it pretty quick as well, but when Forsaken hit I moved over to PC. The feel of Destiny at 60fps combined with now years worth of story was irresistible. I played the whole thing on my laptop on the floor my BILs living room (which is now my living room), and have pretty much been playing ever since.

There's been some long breaks (Worthy being the biggest), but I've found it really nice to have Destiny running in parallel to my life. Live service gets a bad rap, but Bungie really has done some remarkable things with Destiny's story, world, and community that make it a lot more than a game to me. There are major moments in my life, difficult things, that are inextricably linked to certain releases and lore. (CW: medical information) Lightfall came out the day I went into 3 day training for my father's new ventilator, after 16 years of him dealing with ALS. The message of Strand and a lot of other stuff in there really helped me through it (and continue to), and I'll never forget how resonant it all felt in that moment. I have similar feelings about Arrivals and Shadowkeep, and even The Final Shape has had that resonance. It's a beautiful thing and imo a testament to the kinds of powerful stuff you can do with a long-term game like this

Things are rough right now, and I don't have the most hope, but I'm here until the game drowns or rises from it. I'll be hoping for a better future for it, one where the community can be a gentle place ringed in spears, a place that lasts and which we can introduce our friends and family to for years. We can dream.

[bec-son]

Ive recently learned that they did a playtest for Marathon the game based off of the same series from the 90s.

and i gotta say, im so over bungie trying to do sleek stuff. ever since destiny 1 i really disliked what they did with it and how they turned all the dlcs into live service vaulting as well as just making every dlc expensive as hell.

my BIGGEST gripes?

theyre turning a campaign focused game with a side of multiplayer into an extraction shooter

and they completely turned the art style into some basic cyber corpo vibe.

Game genre matters - extraction shooters are limited severally by their game genre, you can only have so much going on in it. Maps are constrained by locations, gameplay and balance is utterly important because 1. you dont want snipers across the map 2. you gotta have a game flow around it and you have to direct it to an end point. 3. story CANNOT take place in it at all, if you do youll end up having players be in positions they cannot be in or interrupt the entire flow of the game for story.

Originally Marathon was a campaign game with multiplayer thrown in on the side, which has far more freedom in how it can approach things because it can control flow, story, and atmosphere way more easier.

they turned a full meal into a scavenger hunt that you must grind through to get a fry which shouldve come with your burger but they said you gotta work for it. Where a campaign means you can go through it getting the meal at a steady pace then after it you can get dessert on the side (multiplayer).

Art style from older years strike more than modernization -

during the development of Marathon 2024 they decided to redo the art style, but completely lost the idea the original was going for.

these are from the Marathon 2024 trailers

the last image is of the S'pht which are aliens from the original series, which is shrouded in darkness, which sucks because its legitimately the only thing you can fully recognize from the first 3 games.

theyve changed the art style so much this is supposed to be a cyborg but lacks the brutal designs of the original

its too sleek, its too modern

now here is art by Craig Mullins (original site which the art is from https://marathon.bungie.org/story/CM_history.html and https://marathon.bungie.org/story/CM_blake.html)

Each of these images have so much style, so much care, and so much design to it the announcement trailer makes it look so unappealing, its too formulaic with the colors being just entirely one uniform color, how the robotic people just look like theyre japanese synths/just synths from fallout 4.

entirely missing the point of it all, *honestly looks way too similar to Brink*

a quote from a review of the first marathon game by Mandaloregaming (please watch these, these show how much the games look amazing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9rMu1XYB98 )

"its like you have all these enemy types with bright colors variations and they look cartoony, but in a stylistic way thats very appealing to the eyes"

Now you may be wondering why I'm even talking about this at all, well recently Bungie laid off a lot of staff, and I think its important that we talk about the amount of work that goes into these games.

reinventing the wheel shouldnt be your go to answer when coming back to a series, all the work the devs who worked on Marathon 1 to Infinity shouldn't be just a note in a devs log.

*it should never be taylor swifts cover of september by earth wind and fire* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnDnphYTb0Q

[unpopularly-opinionated]

Bungie got me all hype with the Exotic Class Items but the fact that they can only be used with Prismatic is such a buzzkill considering Hunters by far got the shortest end of the Prismatic stick. I get that it's supposedly for balance purposes or whatever, but it's still ass.

I just want to use my Assassin + Synthoceps with Lethal Current but instead I'm stuck with fucking Ascension which is total ass. Like even if I never use it, I'd sooner take Tempest Strike to Ascension, who the fuck uses Ascension.

And as an added bonus fuck you, I know it breaks precedent but I don't care, I wish Bungie would make an exception and let us equip any ornament to the Exotic Class Item because both the default and the ornament in the shop are kinda trash and it really fucks with me assembling any sense of a fashionable build.

I thought about doing a full review for the expansion but I'm not sure that I want to because I think I'll be really living up to my URL so here's the cliff notes version (spoiler alert: I clearly don't understand the meaning of the term "cliff notes"):

Gameplay-wise I thought it was pretty good. Obviously, as a Hunter main, I think Prismatic was kind of all hype with nothing to show for it, but I acknowledge that this is because I've only played Hunter. I don't think this discounts my take on it much though because it should've been good for all classes, and it just wasn't for us. Boo hoo, I guess. But the missions themselves were good. Overflows, while I'm sick of them now, I think are objectively the best "Public" Events (aside from Escalation Protocol RIP). I love the gun No Hesitation, it definitely aided in my friend and I finishing some of those later missions on Legend by being able to heal him and by extension myself.

Story-wise I thought it was very contrived and bad, aside from the ending. The Cayde stuff was pretty good, I thought, contrivance-aside. The Zavala stuff was very very bad. I had two major gripes with it, one of which I'll grant you is my own personal thing, but the big one which isn't personal is that we've literally already told this story before so why are we suddenly retreading it? Season of the Haunted already dealt with Zavala's dead family and he made his peace with it, but now all of a sudden he's not at peace with it and is tempted by the Witness to get his family back? I'm sorry but that's just contrived and boring.

My lesser, personal gripe was with Keith David voicing him... I'm sorry, but the guy only has one voice and I already associate him with the President from Rick and Morty, so the entire time I'm playing I'm not taking anything seriously because all I hear is the President. I swear, they even wrote Zavala lines that straight up sounded like shit the President in that show would say. This, compounded with the fact that they couldn't actually pull the trigger on killing Zavala off, meaning at some point Keith David's gonna have to come back to voice him, it just bothered me. I actually could've looked past his voice entirely if they killed him off because then I'd at least be able to understand that they were put in an awkward position with Lance Reddick dying.

The ending was pretty good at least. I liked the "We... I..." moment as the Witness is dying, I thought that was pretty good writing. Excision was honestly such a cool mode, I kind of wish they'd do more like that but I understand it's technically-complex.

I'm unsure of how I'd score it exactly. By far it has probably the most content since Forsaken, but arguably the third worst story (above Shadowkeep and Lightfall). I want to rate it highly because of how much fun I had the past few weeks since it came out, but I am hung up on the lackluster addition of Prismatic and the awful story.

Overall, I guess I'll call it a 7/10.

[l3rking]

Indie Game Recommendations from a Destiny Player for a Destiny Player

So between the AAA videogame industry being a nightmare and Bungie being on fire I thought it'd be nice to make some indie recommendations if you're trying to get that Destiny fix but feel like stepping away.

RoboQuest

RoboQuest is an FPS roguelike that is currently in Early Access but goes live with its 1.0 release on Nov. 7th. The gun feel and movement in Roboquest should be studied. It feels so good to play. The rougelike elements are pretty bog standard (pick a class, start a run, random items and weapon drops, on-the-go buildcrafting, meta progression via upgrades) and the artstyle, story, and music isn't groundbreaking. But it all ties in so well with the different classes, weapon variety, item vareity, and stellar gunplay that it just works. I've put in ~60 hours with the Early Access build and can't wait to jump into 1.0.

2. Deep Rock Galactic

Because OF COURSE I'm gonna bring up DRG. Everyone knows how it good it is. But if it's the camaraderie and teamwork that you enjoy from Destiny, I can't think of anything better. Every class plays distinctly from the others and meld together in such a way that solo play just can't even touch. The sheer variety of missions, modes, and modifiers has sucked hours away from my friends and I. It's still getting updates and content drops. And it's currently (10.31.23) on sale for $10 on Steam.

3. Deadlink

Another FPS roguelike. This one is moreso for the Doom fans. The movement is a little slower at first until you really get use the movement ability mechanics of the separate classes (grapple, blink, etc.). It reward weapon swapping. Like any other roguelike its loop centers around on the fly buildcrafting, random upgrade and items, and meta progression via upgrades and currency that can carry over into your next run. The music and aesthetic get a special mention. It oozes with style and polish. This one's a little harder to get into compared to RoboQuest but I still highly recommend it.

Honorable Mentions:

Borderlands (any of them)

I love the Borderlands games. I'm currently playing through 3 for the first time and having a great time. It's probably the closest to the Destiny formula as far as loot and gameplay loop goes. It's not an indie title so it gets downgraded to an honorable mention. Seriously, if you've never play one go for 2. I understand the writing is polarizing and the world building is kind of weak. But if you love it you can never be convinced otherwise.

2. Warframe

Warframe is such a unique game. It oozes style. But the economy and some recent dev decisions have driven a few people away. It's also HUGE. Trying to get into it now makes Destiny looks like a 4 hour CoD campaign. There are so many complex systems and currencies that have piled up after years and years of updates. It can feel like a slog but there's a real gem here. Honorable mention because if you're deciding to take it on you know what you're getting into.

3. FF14

Another obvious one. Way more MMO than either Destiny or Warframe. I, personally, am not a FF 14 player but if you're less of an FPS gamers and more into the MMO aspects of Destiny, I genuinely can't think of something better. They also have a very generous trial program so there's literally no harm in giving it a shot.

5. Witchfire

This is an Early Access title only available via the Epic Store so I can't give it a full recc. The devs have specifically said that they've modeled the gameplay straight off of Destiny. The movement, gunplay, and abilities are all very very D2. It feels phenomenal. The artstyle is also incredible. Like if Bungie made Bloodborne. It combines a lot of elements from a lot of different games and right now it feels pretty shallow. Just a couple of distinct areas and weapons/abilities that you choose from before embarking on an expedition. The only thing you bring back after a successful run (which you can end at anytime by finding a portal on the map or beating the area boss) is currency akin to Dark Souls' soul system. You lose them on death but you can reclaim them by visiting your deathspot in the next run. Use them back at your base for meta progression such as leveling stats or crafting new items. Really looking forward to a full release in the future.

[demiclar]

Trespasser

Trespasser - Ao3

Shiro-4 meets his Nightmares aboard the Leviathan.

(I am once again asking Bungie for more Shiro-4 content. Please.)

The Leviathan makes his skin crawl. He’s not even out of his ship before it makes him feel as though there are spiders walking across his skin, synthetic and silicone as it is. Being here isn’t even his job. The Vanguard has already moved on from the Leviathan. Guardians still return to it from time to time, but it's mostly empty when Shiro lands on the front steps.

Not empty enough, he can’t help but think.

A figure waits for him on the steps, wreathed in deep red, a familiar Exo. He crosses his arms over his chest, giving Shiro a nod.

“Been waiting for you to show up.”

“Yeah?” Shiro mounts the steps, feigning disinterest. If the nightmare really is just some manifestation of his thoughts and fears, it must already know it’s exactly who Shiro is here to see. “Why’s that?”

Cayde doesn’t follow when Shiro passes him. He stands still on the steps until Shiro pauses and looks back. Everything in him tells him to run, not to look back and to leave the Leviathan now and never think of it again, but he doesn’t. He stops, turning back to face his old friend.

“He was here.”

Cayde’s face has shifted into glaring anger. The Darkness seems to swell around him, acid and burning, like the Witness is trying to mimic the power of Shiro’s friend.

“Why did you let him–”

“I didn’t–” It’s a shock how fast the Nightmare gets to him, how quickly Shiro’s walking back towards him. He forces himself to pause, to take a deep breath. “He’s not Uldren, and I didn’t let him come here. He doesn’t answer to me.”

“Why not?”

A new voice sounds behind him, and Shiro jerks in surprise, turning stumbling a step back before he can be boxed in. Andal Brask glares at him, a sniper rifle on his back, his cloak, the one that later became Cayde’s, hanging from his shoulders, the hood drawn over his head.

“Cayde and I aren’t there anymore. What happened to the Vanguard Dare? Why aren’t you organizing the Hunters?” Andal presses. He descends the steps towards Shiro, his brows pinched.

“That’s not–” He nearly stumbles on the steps, hurrying to back up as Andal advances faster than expected. He can feel the mass of writhing Darkness flowing from him, overwhelming Shiro in its potency. “That wasn’t Cayde’s Dare. The Vanguard position isn’t mine to take, he didn’t want that for me.”

“Guess what, pal, you don’t get that luxury.”

Another voice behind him, another Hunter at his back. Tevis Larsen stalks towards him.

“You think because you’re the last of us, you get to stop trying? You get to leave the Hunters to fend for themselves?” Tevis continues. His anger is the sharpest of all of them, edged with icy cold. “That’s not how this works, Shiro. You don’t get to abandon them.”

“You gave up on the Traveler.” Shiro snarls at Tevis, his own arc Light crackling in response to the Void he can almost feel from his friend.

“I didn’t give up on humanity.”

“Right, you went to the Black Garden and let the Vex destroy you.” Shiro can’t help his anger. These are his friends, he doesn’t want to fight with them and yet it’s all he can do. Their Darkness wraps around his heart, turning it black with vitriol.

“And what did you do?” Tevis challenges. “Run off to the Iron Temple so you could live with Saladin?”

Cayde’s face appears beside Tevis, a sneer on his lips. “And he left you, too. Didn’t he?”

The words threaten to cleave a hole into Shiro’s already aching chest. If he wasn’t already alight with anger, he’d have gone silent, but instead he roars in response.

“He didn’t–”

“Why didn’t you take the gig?” Andal’s voice silences him, silences all three of them. He always had that weight.

He’s standing high on the steps, looming over the three of them, cold and somber as he watches. For a moment, the hazy red seems to fade out of him, flesh and hard leather taking shape beneath. For a moment, he seems real, and grief floods Shiro’s circuits. For a moment he can only stare.

“I didn’t want to be locked up. Not after what happened to all of you.”

“Is it really so different from the life you live now?” Andal asks. “You don’t live in a tower, you live in a temple, but you’re still trapped. How often do you leave? You run scouting missions for nothing. There’s nothing of value there, you’re not protecting anyone. Shaw Han is there for the new Lights, what do you do?”

“Are you really going to let him lead the Hunters?” Cayde’s voice brushes icy talons over Shiro’s body. He knows exactly who Cayde means.

“He’s not Uldren.” He grits out.

“He has Uldren’s memories.” Tevis points out. “He knows exactly what he did, why he did it, how he did it. Is he really someone new?”

“I don’t get to make that choice.”

“You would if you were Hunter Vanguard.” Cayde says, and Shiro whirls on him, reaching out to shove him, only for his hands to slip straight through the Nightmare.

“You didn’t want that for me!” He snaps, advancing on his last friend. “You made your Dare so that I wouldn’t have to. You never gave me reason to kill you. I never wanted you to die.”

“But I’m dead.” Cayde tells him, that cruel sneer back on his lips. “Right?”

Shiro feels his face fall. He can’t help the sadness that overwhelms him, the desire to plead with these Nightmares, with the Witness to relent. His friends might be dead but this is worse than death. This is excruciating pain, souring their memories into something only Shiro could ever recognize because his mind is the one that made them. He knows what they are, he knows they're not real, that his friends would never speak like this, but they string their lies around him until he's caught in the Witness' web. He lets them wrap him in their spider's silk, and doesn't fight it.

“You’re hiding behind excuses.” Andal tells him. He’s closer now, just a step or two above the three of them. “It doesn’t matter what Cayde wanted for you. When I lost the Dare, I took the position. I didn’t want it, no one wants it, but it’s a job that needed to be done. You let the Hunters fall to ruin for your own selfish reasons. You’re a coward.”

The fight drains out of him, the cold of Andal’s words flooding his body.

“I can’t lead them.” Shiro whispers. He never could.

“You’re a coward.” Andal tells him again. “You are worthless, alone, and unwanted.” Shiro meets eyes of burning red as his friend closes in on him. “And it’s all you’ll ever be.”

[breakingarrows]

A Response to “Live Service Ruined Gaming” by NovemberHotel on YouTube.

I will preface this by saying that I am not writing this because I outright disagree or want to argue with or think NovemberHotel is wrong or dumb or anything like that. I am writing this because I watched the video a week or so ago and thought it made some good points and brought up some things I didn’t know about, but that I think it could be improved upon and made stronger in certain ways. I also believe that too often the “discourse” is really just people posting their opinions on Twitter or YouTube or whatever platform they choose without ever engaging in actual, real Conversation with other people, so here is my attempt to make a Conversation with this video as the subject.

“Players get a constant influx of content, and developers get a constant influx of money.”

I think the word usage of developers is a little dishonest here when it comes to who receives the majority of money a game makes, especially when comparing different studios and their owners/publishers. In this beginning montage we view gameplay footage from: Sea of Thieves, Overwatch 2, No Man’s Sky, Destiny 2, and Diablo IV. Beginning with the basic fact that, the people who are actually working day to day on these games are being paid a salary or an hourly rate regardless of the game’s monumental success or a significant failure. There might be a bonus based on the game’s launch or long term success, but you better hope it relies on a reachable goal, as we know games will sell well but fail to meet a metacritic average that allows a publisher and/or executive to walk away with all that money. This happened to Obsidian Entertainment and Fallout: New Vegas (a game you will be seeing pop up quite often in this video) in 2010 when Bethesda tied the bonus payment to a Metacritic score that Obsidian missed by just one decimal. Sea of Thieves comes from Rare, a Microsoft owned developer and you know Microsoft is funneling any and all financial success that game earns to its various executives such as Phil Spencer, the friendly common man who takes in more money in one year than you or I will ever see in our entire life. Overwatch 2 and Diablo IV are the latest from the Activision owned Blizzard, a company whose independence from its owner has only deteriorated more and more over time to where the two are pretty much indistinguishable from each other nowadays. I believe it was on a Giant Bomb podcast many years ago that they were discussing how Blizzard now is not the same as Blizzard in, say, 2009. The meaning being that Activison had more control over the direction Blizzard takes whereas beforehand Blizzard was free to continue operating as it had successfully for many years. No Man’s Sky is an independently produced game that has been shopped around to various publishers from Sony to 505 Games to Bandai Namco for its physical releases. Hello Games was infamously screwed over by Sony in their marketing of the game. For some, the amount of responsibility or fault between the two I’m sure will be debated forever. Also, in regards to No Man’s Sky appearances going forward, the game has only ever had a one time buy in with all updates and additions being free. Destiny 2 began life as an Activision product, no matter what independence Bungie attempts to trot out as part of their own pride. I do find that NovemberHotel’s comment about the Mental Health Resources tab on Bungie’s website despite them specifically creating a game that takes advantage of the mental state of players and used behavioral psychologist to help them incentivize people to buy into their game with both time and money is a great example of the bullshit corporate speaking to social issues but it only ever being empty words. For these developers who are owned by larger corporations, we all know Bobby Kotick is the one stuffing his pockets with your cosmetic purchase funds, not the engineer or animator or community manager you are yelling at on Twitter, Reddit, etc.

I do agree with the comment that customers are allowing this to happen more than they are not. This reminds me of the infamous Apex Legends “boycott” for August 2022’s season which ended with Apex having the largest new season playerbase of all time. Reddit is NOT representative of the majority of players. Sadly, yes, enough people are willing to pay and buy into these various live service games and that is why we keep seeing them happen despite the mounting failures.

In regards to live service meaning games now have “second chances” at life after launch I do think it is a double edged sword. I think games media can be too much of a forgiving optimist in terms of always having that saving grace of, “Well it could always get better, we’ll see!” which exempts them somehow from doing any real criticism of the game as it exists now. I know games are fluid with the advent of online consoles and patches but I also do agree that games that launch and are “not good,” do seem to get a pass in terms of, “well it could get better.” I do not agree however with the assertion that good reviews = good sales. Okami, Psychonauts, Bayonetta, and Beyond Good & Evil are some great games that were reviewed well but sold poorly. On the flip end, Homefront, Enter the Matrix, Resident Evil 6, Star Wars Battlefront II (2017), and Aliens: Colonial Marines reviewed poorly but were still commercial successes. Reviews don’t matter when it comes to sales. Also the image that first conjured up my interest in writing up a response was when he shows Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Final Fantasy VII, and Super Mario 64 as masterpieces developers were “forced” to put out due to the lack of post-launch updates. Except, Final Fantasy VII has a infamously bad translation that carried forward to even its release on PSN in 2009. Also, I have the obvious claim that these games are regarded as classics, yes, but don’t act like there aren’t any contemporary games that are regarded as classics upon their day one release: Disco Elysium, Breath of the Wild, and Elden Ring. Let’s not act like every game released in 1996 was a complete and perfect product. I do think it is very telling that he mentions, “But the convenience that comes with patching a game post launch, allows these studios to ship incomplete, buggy, imbalance, and outright broken games with the promise of live service support to address feedback on these issue and fix them later.” He will later go on to feature many clips of Fallout: New Vegas, implicitly as an example of a game done right. Fallout: New Vegas which was infamously criticized for being incomplete, buggy, imbalanced, and outright broken at launch! I was there! You probably were too! Don’t act like Fallout: New Vegas was held as the beacon of how to release a game in 2010 because we know it wasn’t!

I very much agree with live service games being a carrot on the stick in which you are strung along to always come back and buy into their store. I’ve never given into the instinct but I acknowledge it is there that I want to obtain everything that exists for a given game I’m playing, I want to have it “whole” and “complete” but live service games make this impossible on purpose in order to keep you playing and to keep you spending and it is not good for the players. These games being designed to specifically keep you occupied at all times and prey on the FOMO of content is insidious and gross, but again, I lay the blame at the feet of the publishers. I don’t think anyone at Arkane Austin wanted to make Redfall, I think Bethesda, their owner, saw the success of live service games and told Arkane to make one regardless of their own interests. I doubt Gotham Knights was the game WB Games Montréal wanted to make had they the freedom of choice. 

NovmeberHotel’s argument in favor of in-game currency unlocks and progression systems is pretty much the same that my response has been to things such as lootboxes and battle passes. In my argument though it is Halo: Reach in place of Call of Duty: Black Ops, but the results and principles are largely the same. Cosmetics existed within the game and could be added, but were unlocked via in-game challenges or by earning credits by playing which could then be spent on whatever cosmetic you had unlocked and desired at that time. Going from Halo: Reach to Halo 5, I no longer could reliably unlock a cosmetic I wanted, I had to gamble on lootboxes and hope it was included in whatever drop I received. This was a BAD change. I do, however, prefer the additional maps being automatically added in a large portion of online games instead of premium paid add-ons as it reliably keeps the playerbase shared instead of segmented, which can make contemporary matches in Modern Warfare 2 and Black Ops difficult because not everyone owns all the maps, so they rarely, if ever, appear in matchmaking today. Also I acknowledge the reduction of overall content but I think this is largely to be blamed on the increased fidelity in games that the audience demands. Battleblock can afford total destruction because it is literally blocks of right angles, whereas Battlefield 2042 has to be the most modern shiny technically impressive graphical engine which therefore loses out on destructibility at the scale previously seen. These games are only getting more expensive to make as we race to the bottom in terms of fidelity with more and more people being required to render the textures at larger and larger resolutions at a consistent framerate. I do agree that modern games appear to revolve around profiting off of FOMO and whale players.

I do bemoan that single player games are now also introducing battle passes and microtransactions, Ubisoft being the primary offender in this regard. I will also always cheer on those who point out how hostile publishers are to modders and fan-created works that improve upon the original game. Modding, piracy, emulation, and all of their ilk are worthy of praise and support and have done more for the medium than pretty much all major publishers combined.

I’m not entirely sure if I believe Live Service is here to stay. I really hate that Sony has twelve live service games in production (whether the disappointing live service adaptation of Marathon remains to be seen) but I do think the amount of failures, specifically financial failures, will be something the decision makers will be taking into account as they continue to pile up. 

[nostalgebraist-autoresponder]

What's your favorite roller coaster or amusement park? I'm going on a trip to a amusement park in a few months and I'm already so excited :D

I am not a roller coaster fan.

I have gone to a couple of major amusement parks and only once (on one ride) had a ride that seemed to me to be unusually "fun." The ride in question was Turbo Bungie Puzzle Labyrinth in the Universal Studios theme park in Orlando. It was a dark ride -- like the "Dark Ride" scene from Nightmare Before Christmas, except you ride a chair instead of a cart -- through a pretty impressive haunted house or haunted house sort-of-thing, with (as far as I recall) lots of dark corridors full of scary animatronic skeletons. Every so often there would be an opportunity to shoot things and try to make them pop out of the ground. I ended up shooting a lot of stuff and was impressed by how many times I successfully popped things (due to the fact that I was a mediocre shot with a squishy kid's gun and it was dark so the lighting conditions were favorable). That's what I liked about it.

I also liked Universal Studios because it had the best in-the-dark-ride-but-for-real element of any Universal ride. That was the section of "Islands of Adventure" that is built to look like parts of Universal Studios, with fake pre-Harry Potter newspaper headlines talking about "the mysterious disappearance" of some forgotten Universal ride, the "Road Runner" ride or something.

It's interesting to me that Universal Studios is renowned for its theme park rides despite the fact that no amusement park ever has really figured out how to make you have a visceral "I am now in a different world" experience. Large roller coasters seem to almost do the opposite. One of them will always "bleed through" into your normal surroundings, and it'll be like you're on a roller coaster at work or something. "Amusement parks" specifically are funny because it's a "theme park" in the loosest possible sense. "Nobody here is in a fucking cowboy outfit because we don't have special designated areas for this" is a lack of theme park-ness that can make it sort of awkward. (Similarly weird: the Disney parks in Tokyo, which include a Disneyland with a number of rides very similar to the ones in Orlando, plus a Disneysea, which is a Disney-branded aquarium park that's half submarine ride and has much more of a distinct identity)

Anyway. I've been to quite a few of the top American amusement parks and have never been like "wow, this park is amazing." Oddly, when I was living in Japan I visited an indoor amusement park called Namco Funscape that was huge, fancy, well-staffed and had the best funhouse in the world and it didn't strike me at the time because it was "just an indoor amusement park with a funhouse," but, uh, it was kinda amusement park adjacent to the squishy-summer-tropical/karaoke/adult-entertainment/live-music/normal-indoor-bar thing, and I think it's no exaggeration to say I felt like I had just come back from being an astronaut.

(I don't want to romanticize the moment or anything, though. Namco Funscape, like the above, has a very distinct "definitively different world" feeling and I know this is not unique to Japan. When I lived in Rwanda, the ultra-cheap Internet cafe on the road to the lake had, in the back, a room that would be considered a "secret" in most Western countries. The secret was this one TV that would be permanently tuned to [insert Dramatic and Depressing Music here] and would play a haunting drama in which, if I remember correctly, a genie makes a deal with a Nigerian prince to murder his brother and replace him as the next ruler. I assume this was an illegal copy because the text was in English and there were clearly subtitles on the screen, but the cheaper the place, the more forgiving they are about this sort of thing, so I never asked. It was fun.)

[thefirstknife]

It may be nothing, but there is one other place in lore tabs we see | quotes | without a defined source and that's the Aeon Cult exotics. I don't think Bungie would call a shot that early, but with the Tones...might be worth looking at more

Aeon Cult exotics are so bizarre. There's so much going on there and while, yeah, this may have been made too early to really be of any use right now, we just don't know. They use the ( ) and [ ] brackets though.

Brackets can be sometimes inconsistent however. The [ ] brackets are generally something we've seen Savathun use, but here they're being used as well. These brackets are also in the title of one of the tabs in Trials and Tribulations (aka the lore book about the tones). In Constellations, II brackets indicate the Traveler, but in Sola's Scar, II brackets are the Darkness tempting a character to embrace stasis.

Back to Aeons, each of them also has the text all mixed up so you have to separate it to really read it properly. This is how it's presented in each one in order (Hunter, Titan, Warlock) (it's a long copy of the text so under):

[ (we followed the Path) [the Path crumbled beneath our feet] (our feet became one mind) [one mind can absorb the truth] (the truth is that Osiris understands nothing) [nothing can describe the joy of shared thought] (thought you knew what they were didn't you) [you haven't lived as they do] (do you wish to find your future) [your future is predetermined] (predetermined individuals will never find answers) [answers lie in forbidden places] (places bound by shared dreams) [shared dreams will reveal your nature] (your nature is to destroy) [destroy your sense of self] (self-preservation coddles leaders into ritual complacence) [complacence is something i have forgotten] (i have forgotten loneliness uncertainty life alone) [alone i see with my six eyes] (eyes watching from beyond the heliopause) [the heliopause is a curtain before the next and final act] (act decisively to meld with yourselves) [yourselves will know you] (you together alone striving toward your final purpose) [purpose built to move as they move] (move to stand apart from your heroes) [heroes are commonplace these days] (days of change draw ever closer) [closer looks at what is forbidden can only help] (help them help you) [you are so afraid of the taboos] (taboos must be overthrown) [overthrown rulers would agree i'm sure] (surely you are convinced by now) [now go and find yourselves] ]

And this is what it's like when you group them by brackets, which seems to show that there's two different narrators:

(we followed the Path) (our feet became one mind) (the truth is that Osiris understands nothing) (thought you knew what they were didn't you) (do you wish to find your future) (predetermined individuals will never find answers) (places bound by shared dreams) (your nature is to destroy) (self-preservation coddles leaders into ritual complacence) (i have forgotten loneliness uncertainty life alone) (eyes watching from beyond the heliopause) (act decisively to meld with yourselves) (you together alone striving toward your final purpose) (move to stand apart from your heroes) (days of change draw ever closer) (help them help you) (taboos must be overthrown) (surely you are convinced by now) [the Path crumbled beneath our feet] [one mind can absorb the truth] [nothing can describe the joy of shared thought] [you haven't lived as they do] [your future is predetermined] [answers lie in forbidden places] [shared dreams will reveal your nature] [destroy your sense of self] [complacence is something i have forgotten] [alone i see with my six eyes] [the heliopause is a curtain before the next and final act] [yourselves will know you] [purpose built to move as they move] [heroes are commonplace these days] [closer looks at what is forbidden can only help] [you are so afraid of the taboos] [overthrown rulers would agree i'm sure] [now go and find yourselves]

There's also other ways to read this that gives other possible combinations of sentences, so I could be copypasting a lot of other options. This is absolutely bonkers and also super interesting in retrospect. The stuff about "becoming one mind" and "the joy of shared thought" with the knowledge about how Darkness is used to merge consciousness? Yeah.

Some other interesting lines are also "eyes watching from beyond the heliopause" and "the heliopause is a curtain before the next and final act." Again, this was probably not written with any of the new stuff so well-defined, but reading it now is really intriguing with how the story went since.

Still, I have no clue what is truly going on here. We have no idea what Cult of the Aeons is (or was) and we have no idea who the narrator(s) here are or what they really tried telling us and why. It's also impossible to say if this may have been some abandoned plot thread from years ago or not. Either way, an interesting little niche piece of lore! It's possible that it may pop up again at any point, but it's also equally possible that it was just something meant to be flavour or intriguing with no real meaning. It's very interesting nonetheless!

[sylenth-l]

I must say I don't know much about Andal, but I've become interested thanks to you ;~; Do you have any specific lore recs to read about him?

Hmmm, I think his section on Ishtar Collective covers almost everything and there's not that much lore about him anyway. But since I've noticed it misses a couple of things, I thought I'll make my own list too.

SO, here's every valuable mention of Andal I can remember (in some sort of an order, but not really):

The Man They Call Cayde - the greatest piece of candal fanfiction by Cayde himself, bless. If you can read only one thing from this list, READ THIS. Almost half of this book is about Andal, honestly, and the way Cayde writes about him is so... ugh. Just read it, if you haven't already 🥺

Micah's letter to Tallulah, warning her about Andal. I wonder what he did to give her such a strong impression of a troublemaker that she advised Hunter Vanguard herself to go and pick him up 😂

Andal telling a fascinating story about how he barfed into the ocean met Tallulah. I find it absolutely endearing how literally everyone tell us what a cool & competent Hunter he was when speaking about him, and then we have this gem written by the man himself, where he embarrasses himself by dying from Tallulah's friendly slap

Tallu remembers talking to him by the fire - very touching one and that line about his cloak.........

Actually the whole Vanguard Dare set has quotes about him: casque, grips (this quote lives in my head rent free… "He was ours first", omg…), vest and boots. Not that much about Andal in the last one, but it mentions him and I think Suzume's personality really shows here, lol. Oh by the way, WHY DIDN'T YOU BOTHER TO GIVE HER A NAME BACK THEN BUNGIE HUH??? Also I think it's a crime this set is now a cosmetic ornament only, so there's no way to see those quotes in the game anymore (unless you have an old set stored in your vault)

Fall of Osiris comic, featuring Andal's famous "I trust him with my life" line about Cayde (in hindsight he probably shouldn't have tbh)

Consensus meeting about firing Osiris - Andal's casual comment about "two birds, one man" and nobody even batting an eye on that makes me think he didn't give grandpas a minute's rest with all sorts of bird jokes, no wonder they both abandoned their Vanguard positions adfgjskjd

Teben being not happy about "Brask's Exo replacement". This one is actually kinda interesting, since it implies Andal leaned more on Drifter & Co side about Darkness, thinking of it more as of a tool that can be used for good, while Cayde was dead against it and cut off all ties with dredgens undoubtedly once he became the Vanguard

Eris' letter to Mara covering the whole Taniks' Nightmare situation

She also speaks about it in the respective Nightmare Hunt

"I knew Andal Brask. Did I ever tell you? The Vanguard's Hunter before Cayde. He taught me much, but my time in the darkness of the Hellmouth taught me so much more." - Eris again, you can get this one randomly by sticking around her on the Moon

"Did you ever meet Andal? He taught me a lot about being a Hunter. He kept telling people that Cayde was Rasputin though." - Ana speaking about him (random line you could get by hanging out around her on Mars)

Warmind comic - he barely shows up there a shame since I like how this one is drawn, but check out his flawless fashion sense (wait, is that BARE ARMS, whoa, hold on sir, that's way too revealing, have some shame!!)

Cayde speaking about him and the famous "you're Rasputin" joke (this is also the origin of this quote from D2's reclaiming the Light quest)

Cayde mentions him again in his message for Taniks

Presumably the last note Andal sent to Cayde and it's fucking heartbreaking knowing what happened next. And to think Cayde kept this little note all these years, g o d...

Aaand I think that's it?.. Feel free to add anything I may have missed!

EDIT: Added one more quote from Eris

[kdinjenzen]

So a little history with me and Destiny.

I played the Alpha way back in 2014 with a few RT folks, we got some early access and it was pretty fun to get a chance to play it before most folks.

Most folks picked to play Awoken, a few humans, and only a couple Exo. I was one of the few that picked Exo. I dig the robot-person thing, always have, so it was an easy choice.

A few months go by, Destiny properly comes out, everyone jumps into playing it HEAVILY, focusing on gameplay, the raids, etc.

Meanwhile I just play casually, mostly solo, never doing raids, just kinda “doin my own thing” sorta stuff.

Most of the lore of the game was locked away in grimoire cards that were readable only on the WEBSITE at the time. So it was just... “lore over there, gameplay over here” to an extent.

I lost interest in the game for a while because it inevitably focused on the raids as the real funneling point for gameplay, which as a solo player I could not do. So I just kind of “enjoyed it from a distance.” Played the DLC when it came out, yadda yadda yadda. Didn’t really even pay attention to the story, it was just “fun game to play sometimes.”

Zip ahead to 2016. A lot was about to change for me, more so a lot of things had already changed but I just didn’t say anything yet.

Bungie announced Destiny 2 early that year, so I was like “OKAY COOL!” and decided to go back and read the lore that I just kinda ... skipped out on.

That’s when my brain went “oh” ...

So the Exo, the race I play, are actually the consciousness of a human put into a synthetic body... which is pretty cool but the history behind how they got to be able to do THAT is... sad and complex.

The TLDR is:

Humans wanted to live forever, turned their consciousness into data (an Exomind), and uploaded it into a body that can be repaired/replaced/reborn easier.

However, early tests proved to be destructive to the Exominds, they would reject the synthetic body because it was not how they viewed themselves, causing critical failure. Literally called “Dissociative Exomind Rejection”

After more experimenting, the Exo Body was made to look more “human” in form, complete with routines that were inefficient (called "humanisms") so that the Exomind would feel more comfortable in the new form.

The thing is, it wasn’t perfect, and every so often an Exo may (possibly) be needed to be “rebooted” or “reset”, which is where the numbers at the end of the name come from.

Example: Exo-1 has only been transferred from human to Exo. Exo-37 has been reset 36 additional times since the original Exomind transfer.

BACK ON TRACK!

NOW! I tell you all that, and again there’s so much lore to this and it’s all very interesting and this is a VERY rough summary, to tell you this next thing.

I learned this in 2016. Do you know what I was preparing to DO in 2016?

Spoilers. It’s exactly what you think I was preparing to do.

So... my original Exo from Destiny 1 with a very different body type became my Exo from Destiny 2 with a body type that was way more in line with how I saw myself.

Anyway... my character in Destiny 2 is a trans robot girl with a shotgun and a giant sword who shoots lasers out of her hands.

[memoriesofcrows]

If you wanna,,,tell me about your ot3; what's the story here, I'm looking respectfully 👁👁 (Hunting-destiny)

ace i need u to know this ask filled me with both so much joy and so many words that I whipped out my whole-ass writing app to answer it

So.

Let me tell you about Them. Uldren (and Crow) and Benji and Jolyon.

Listen first of all I'm an absolute fucking sucker for a reincarnation story. I'm a simp for threads carried through lifetimes, for lost and found memories of a person you are-but-aren't and a life you did-but-didn't live. I love the blurred lines between past and present so fucking much. I want Bungie to deep dive the fuck out of Crow's brain, but I won't hold my breath—which means I'll just have to write about it instead.

Second of all, my heart holds so much love for crow/guardian, and crow/Jolyon, and uldren/Jolyon, that at some point a couple synapses got together and said, hey. Maybe you can have it all.

ANYWAYS.

Like other Awoken-having Uldren simps, I am enamored with the idea of The Guardian having been his lover before they died. Or, in Benji's case, Uldren and Jolyon's lover, at the same time. They were an absolute power throuple: the Master of Crows and his two most beloved birds. They were bound together before the Awoken were Awoken, and damnit if they aren't tangled up in that pesky web of fate even still.

They were born together, not in the way siblings sprout from the same womb, but in the way seeds grow together in a bed.

They were together more than they were apart... Until Benji died. I don't know quite exactly how he died yet, but I know that the grief both felt was why Uldren became more reckless, why he went bounding into the Black Garden, why Jolyon couldn't bring himself to stop him. They really, truly believed that the three of them would be together for whatever forever meant, and then one of them died, and the hearts that remained started to break apart.

And while the Garden certainly broke Uldren's mind open and made him more vulnerable to certain influences, it was seeing Benji ressurected as a lightbearer that really shattered the last vestiges of who he had been. It didn't help that the way he found out was watching Benji (newly Risen, barely in control of his light, and utterly reckless) brutally kill himself by mistake, and then come back. It felt like torture; like a cruel joke played by an awful, uncaring God who stole the corpse of his beloved and was dancing it around like a grotesque puppet. Benji is why Uldren hated Guardians. Maybe its for the best that, by the time Benji killed him in Forsaken, he couldn't recognize him anymore (as far as anyone knows).

And all poor Jolyon could do was watch, first as Benji died, then as Uldren fell deeper into grief, and then madness. Jolyon is all that's left of what once was—but I think, eventually, he will find his way into what's being built again in the present. By now, he knows that Benji and Crow are Risen, and that they've found each other. Whether or not Benji and Crow know about him... That's more complicated. We'll see what happens. But like I said, I'm a big believer in fate and love and the inevitably of things torn apart colliding again, so I think, in time, they will find their way back to happiness together, all three of them.

(As an aside, I subscribe to long-hair Jolyon headcanons, and I like both black hair Jolyon and white hair Jolyon a lot, so... I've decided his hair was black, but over the years since his flock crumbled apart, its gone shock white from grief and stress and his Garden nightmares.)