#but i just saw Deepsight and was like 'YOU-'

[mino-is-tired-snoork-mimimimi]

yooo this is kinda unrelated but I think I might have one of your dragon's great great grandchildren or smthn???

Drew one of my Skydancers

Here's his page:

[eosofspades]

so i'm seeing some ideas going around that this (horrifying) scene from the trailer -

- isn't our Ghost, but a Ghost, and i wanna talk about it.

i do think this is our (the player's) Ghost, for a couple of reasons! for starters, there's the obvious - the classic shell they use for The Guardian's Ghost in trailers, the Guardian being a Titan (also what Bungie tends to depict The Guardian as in trailers), the fact that in a trailer of this significance, it seems really unlikely that they'd be showing us something as intense as this with an unknown/unnamed character, etc.

but more importantly, a lot of people seem to be thinking that this Ghost and Guardian are... actually getting sliced up, which i don't think they are.

bear with me for a bit! while that's absolutely what looks like what is happening, i'm at least 80% certain this scene is going to be the Witness giving the Guardian a terrible vision/hallucination (similar to what happened in Shadowkeep where we encountered the Dark Guardian in the Black Garden.) and there are another couple of reasons for this!

(the rest under a read more - this one really got away from me.)

for one thing - purely from a technical standpoint - the Young Wolf and their Ghost just... straight-up can't die; at least not permanently, at least not yet. they're the player character; you're going to need them to actually continue playing the game.

(i've also seen people suggesting this can't be our Ghost from a technical standpoint because that would mean Bungie having to do the slicing animation for every single Ghost shell in the game, which, to be fair, is a completely valid assumption to make - but in my opinion, based on the sheer volume of detail within this game's scenery and animation, and the unbelievable attention to the smallest possible details that most players won't even notice - i would absolutely not put it past Bungie to put in that effort, and, moreover, i have another idea that goes hand-in-hand with the "this is a vision" thing; that they didn't have to animate every single shell - but i'll get to that in a bit.)

now, from an in-game perspective, it doesn't make sense to me to have this not be our Ghost, or to have it not be a vision. for one thing - if what the Witness is doing is actually slicing up all of these Ghosts and Guardians and ships, that's just… a little bit nonsense. yes, the Witness is unbelievably powerful and terrifyingly dangerous, but if it is actually capable of unmaking living, paracausal things with a single flick of its finger, that seems… unlikely in terms of power, at most, because if that’s the case there truly is no fight to be had. the Witness could obliterate the Guardian before we even had a chance to draw our gun. it just seems unrealistic that if the Witness was that overtly powerful, there could even be a compelling battle against it.

(it’s also worth mentioning that the Witness’ entire thing is visuals and appearances over actual physical confrontation. it doesn’t even appear in the flesh to Calus at all times - in fact, the trailer makes a point of showing that it speaks to him through a cracked mirror, and in the final Seraph cutscene that it appears to Eramis via a screen; there’s the fact that the Darkness is constantly waving around this motif of visuals and appearances (the Dark Guardian vision during Shadowkeep; Deepsight; the Nightmares on the Moon, etc.) and even that it’s name is the Witness - you get it.)

there’s also the matter of emotional impact. like, don’t get me wrong, this is fucking horrifying. actual, full-body dread and fear at this scene when i first saw it. but you cannot tell me you would be just as distressed and unsettled if it were a random Ghost paired with a random Guardian we’ve never seen before - our Ghost has been getting so much character insight and development in the last two DLCs (his fear -> reluctance -> hesitant acception of the Guardian using Stasis, his complicated feelings regarding his faith in the Traveler explored during Witch Queen or his hostility -> understanding towards Fynch, etc.), i can’t imagine Bungie is going to give us this close-up, visceral, nightmarish scene with a Ghost we don’t know and have no attachment to.

(also, i made a post about this already, but in this trailer alone i am seeing SO MANY parallels to The Red War campaign - the fact that the Ghost and Guardian are in the exact same position as we were during the Red War intro is not lost on me. this also ties back into my “only animating one Ghost shell” thing - if it is a vision, i think it’s possible that the reason the Titan in the trailer is in “older”-looking armor is because you’re seeing yourself and Ghost in what could be a potential callback to the Red War - hence having Ghost be in the Last City shell, and the Guardian in “older” armor; because what’s happening here is not what is real; it’s supposed to be the Witness getting into your head. (or, again, maybe the Titan is just in that armor for the trailer and Bungie did animate the Ghost shells! at the very least, i doubt that having a non-player’s Ghost be in the Last City shell is probably not going to happen, since that’s the shell we tend to associate with our Ghost.))

what i think is actually happening here is one of two things: either the Witness giving the Guardian a horrifying “vision” in order to scare us/make us understand why it believes the Traveler heralds death and needs to be eliminated (i’m going to shamelessly plug in my obsession with Unveiling once again, but the Winnower explicitly explains to us at least couple of times that it believes existence is full of suffering and many things would be better off not existing at all to spare ourselves the torment. i can absolutely see the Witness trying to intimidate/terrorize us with a vision like this in order to get across its point that the Traveler will allow us to suffer and writhe and never be able to escape it.)

the other guess i have, which is unlikely but still something i think would be very very neat, is that - with the Witness’ whole shattered glass motif and the way its hands move, like it’s altering reality as it exists - it would be incredibly interesting if the Witness were actually “dismantling” us, so to speak - even if just for a moment, maybe before summoning us to the final confrontation of the campaign, just as a sheer power move. so when the Guardian gets there, they’re afraid and disoriented and unable to focus (this is, again, incredibly unlikely, probably, but i really really want to see some threats from enemies on an incredibly personal level. i have been dying for an enemy to get to us in an uncomfortably up-close and personal manner, or at least for the Guardian to have actual reactions to things. i would love to see another callback to the Red War, maybe, with the Guardian and Ghost collapsed and the Witness towering over them.)

obligatory disclaimer that i could always be wrong, of course, and if it turns out to be a random Ghost and Guardian getting ACTUALLY sliced up i’ll admit it and eat my words, but with what we’ve seen at this point in time, it really doesn’t make sense to me that it would be anything other than a vision being experienced by the player Guardian and our Ghost.

[kingstealer]

okay i’m losing my mind about this actually

(spoilers through season of plunder end cutscene)

god where do i even start--

darkness is memory and connection, that’s a decent spot. let’s start there.

memory and connection

those are cool good things! and yet they’re the domain of the Dark, the bad guys

one of the actual tangible powers we’ve seen from darkness, particularly the lunar pyramid (nezarec’s pyramid), are the Nightmares--and in season of the haunted we saw how those can go from nightmares (twisted contorted versions of someone, through the warped lens of perception and malice) to memories--just the person as they were, maybe colored by how whoever’s nightmare/memory it is remembers them (yeah still in a way twisting them, it’s the same kind of power, it just isn’t through a malicious lens, with the purpose specifically for hurting someone. arguably the memories are the other side of the nightmares, the kinder impulses, and if you put them together you’d get a full recollection, but that’s neither here nor there and also i drew that line just now so it’s entirely possible it’s nothing)

we’ve ALSO seen Deepsight: for purely memories. there was a thing and then it got forgotten or changed but you use the darkness to bring it back. now you know it again. or maybe it was someone else’s, and now you just know it full stop

the final one i think is cool and narratively interesting, particularly relating to that most recent cutscene, is Egregore. this is the one that’s connection. the egregore network, need i say more. make your brain into soup (affectionate) and can even do things like Make Calus Into His Ship

(i don’t actually know what stasis is supposed to be about except maybe as a dichotomy to solar, i have no idea what the light Themes are aside from starting over, i’m sure other people have had thoughts on the matter)

which is to say--on initial watch i didn’t think the cutscene was too interesting, it was neat to get The GaysTM confirmed for real in-game, it felt kind of odd that misraaks swept in and solved the darkness thing (which it still does tbh, that’s probably at this point foreshadowing), the tea felt like it came a bit out of left field for me too the first time i saw it

HOWEVER

memory and connection. if i was going to hazard a guess as to what a “mass of primal Darkness” looked like, it seems like memory and connection is a pretty good one!

pull osiris out of the goo he got stuck drowning in by losing his light and being possessed by a hive god (connection), and give him that hive god’s “thoughts and fears” (memory)!

who needs alters of reflection when you have a chipped teacup and your husband doing for you what you did for him a ways back

[tryingtimi]

Find The Word

Thank you so much for the tag @aschlindartroom!! It was a very fun one! I got all of these from IQRUS and actually from the same chapter, so I even arranged them in order lol. My words were: touch, target, took, time, teach and tough.

Open tag to everyone, but I'll also tag @bloodlessheirbyjacques @jess-p-edits @friendlyneighborhood-writer. No pressure tho, just saying hi and hoping all of your weekend is a blast! <3 But if you participate, here are the words: worn, wise, window, wreck and wildflower.

TOUGH

"Incredible," Eran's voice came through the nanophone. "I've never seen such flor before. At first, it looks like the ones closest to the sector, but if you pick one up, you can feel it's much more tougher, like a thousand times and it still bends easier compered to those at home. They stronger and weaker at the same time." Adran looked around once more to check that nothing had escaped his attention. He noticed only then, that a figure on the outskirts of the city, wearing a diving suit of their corp, had fallen headlong into a nest formed by the strange seaweed at the protrusion. Even through the bluish-purple view of his Deepsight, he could see the red color of his friend's suit.

TOUCH

A faint outline of another figure emerged in the center of the city before Adran's eyes. Thaddeus' massive size was still noticable despite the distance, as he slipped out of the broken window of a once convenience store's ruins. His shoulders almost thouched the frame. However, it were the glowing locks on the boxes swimming behind him that widened the smile on Adran's lips. They shone only when they were packed half-full.

TEACH

Adran got no response, but he could see as Eran began to pick up some florun for sample, still mesmerized by the strange, glowing seaweed. New discoveries may have easily distracted him, but experience was an affective teacher, however little someone had. Adran did not need to remind him of the dire consequences they might can suffer.

TARGET

"Movements nearby. Origin: unknown." A small, round crosshair appeared in front of Adran's eyes, after the robotic voice in his ear died out. The sign jumped straight into the right corner of his sight. He swam aside, instantly reaching for his laserblade attached to his back. Reflexes. It was good to have them. Hilt in his grip, he finally glanced at where Zynx – the assisting AI – was pointing. The veteran saw nothing. The endless, dark depth of the ocean hid nothing notable. At least that's what his ordinary, human senses would have made him to believe. Adran began to swim towards the target. He didn't have to go too far, since it was still on the highest platform above the ruined, sunken city. Zynx pointed behind a little mountain of a rock, so he got around that, while he lightly squeezed his eyes to turn on the Frost-Vision in his Deepsight. His view turned bluish, so the thing still functioned well. The veteran's hand tightened around the hilt of his weapon as he finally reached the target and got a glimps of the "unknown origin".

TOOK

It took Adran a solid minute to get his sight back and fully comprehend what just happened. The nest exploded. The city rumbled beneath him as the stone of the cliff cracked everywhere and began to destroy everything that left of it. All the floruns were gone and Eran was nowhere to be seen. But there was no body either. Good sign.

[mantleoflight]

Snow rustled over her feet as she gazed upon the jagged landscape of Europa, a hazy tower, a lab somewhere on the frozen moon. It pulled her, something inside her drawn to it like metal to a magnet, and she almost moved when she felt a sharp, burning pain. She gasped, doubling over as both hands rushed to press against the burning wounds now creeping up both sides of her back.

"Ah!" she cried and tried to see what was stabbing her, what was burning her. It felt like Void Light from a crucible or gambit match. But as she pulled her hand away, she stopped and gaped in horror. Where her hand had touched her burn was glowing, segmenting, like a Vex circuit before slowly vanishing like deleted pixels.

Echo let out a silent yell, looking each way for someone to help. Then she saw it-- the Crypt! That could help her! Whatever was inside, powers, secrets or what have you, it could help! With desperation pounding in her heart, she ran. Ran with all she had toward the Deep Stone Crypt, praying she'd get there before the rest of her disappeared...

Echo shifted, her expression tightening with a whimper as she curled beneath the blanket draped over her shoulders. With a soft puff of sparks, Whisper appeared and gazed down at her hunter. She scanned the exo before drifting down and nudging her cheek until Echo calmed and settled in her sleep.

Whisper gave a sigh and drifted up again, still watching her turquoise hunter. Echo didn't want to acknowledge it, but this week had been hard. Headaches, old acquaintances, and old wounds fixing to open up again. Old wounds the gilded ghost shared with her hunter and further deepsight would reveal similar Void scars etched on Whisper, specifically her right side where it appeared to have been marked by a thorn or blade tip. With a blink of her optic, Whisper turned and looked over at Rhulk's towering figure.

"Thank you," she said, just loud enough to be heard but not enough to wake her hunter. "She can be a pest sometimes but I appreciate you looking out for her." The ghost paused and gazed down at her hunter. "Traveler knows she needs it."

While mist probably would have jumped down from the high shelf already, it seems Echo has made herself comfortable, and is even taking a nap. Seems the hunter was just sleepy and cranky from grays. — @mantleoflight

Rhulk sighs softly. The little Hunter had so many burdens, didn't she? Too many. Sleeping minds opened up, eager to be searched. He didn't normally indulge, but just ambiently, he could feel something...wrong. The mind may forget, but the body always remembers. Vex-like radiolaria, from a once-organic, was his first hint that the troubles ran deeper than he thought. He glanced over her body with deepsight. He recognised those burns, only via similarity. His eyes widened just slightly. Who would dare hurt her...?

He would have woken her up, but she seemed...peaceful enough. She needed the rest. He quietly laid a blanket over her, then sat down to return to his restoration work. Miush would make something for her when she woke up. She was welcome to stay as long as she liked. He didn't reflect on why he felt a protective streak rise for too long.