#destiny 2 meta

[ahamkara-apologist]

people gotta start thinking critically about destiny's conflicts. of course the vanguard is on the side of the 'good guys' a lot of the time due to the witness going "its shaping time" and witnessing all over the place but there's been a good many times it's just been a war. a bloody, painful war where two sides fought only for survival. both sides did pretty horrible things, because both sides believed the other had to be driven away or killed if there was any hope of survival. I wonder what things would have been like if the factions had come across golden age earth, though- maybe there would have been next to no fighting at all, and the eliksni would have been allies way earlier

no fr, people need to understand that the issue with the Eliksni-Human wars is that they were both about survival, rather than how the rest of the conflicts we experienced worked. With Ghaul, it was about conquest. With the Witness, it was about preventing the total extinction of the known universe. But with the Eliksni, it was always about survival. Raiding gangs hit human civilizations not because of pure malice, but because the Eliksni were just as starved for resources as we were after the collapse. This isn't to say that they didn't also kill out of cruelty, because of course many of them did, but killing human children because the alternative is starvation for your own hatchlings is not some great transgression like people paint it as. It's just life in a time of great scarcity. It's only a step above simple predation, and that does not account for the massive scope of retaliation that humankind did in return. As far as I'm concerned, we're equally matched in terms of awful shit being done to each other

I was just reading the Stolen Intelligence and it starts off with the account of a Hidden agent who was speaking about the need to prevent Eliksni unification, how the near-complete collapse of their society was a good thing for the goal of eradicating them from Sol, and which Eliksni in particular needed to be destroyed to prevent Eliksni reunification. Granted, this was from Season of the Drifter, so it's outdated, but even accounting for human-Eliksni aggression, its fucking horrifying to hear about a people who only came to Sol because of the near-complete annihilation of their home planet. Here are the excerpts.

The recent trending emergence of so-called "crime syndicates" (cf. report #004-FALLEN-SIV) is emblematic of the continuing destructuralization of Fallen society. Likely an artifact of multi-generational colonization of human strongholds, this agent believes that because these syndicates have no relation to indigenous Fallen culture, young Fallen are appropriating and imitating human mythology in absence of a strong cultural heritage of their own. Much like the dissolution of the Kell/Archon theology, this is positive news for those interested in the complete extirpation of invasive Fallen from the system.

This isn't about settling a war, this is about extermination of a species through cultural genocide. But wait, let's hear what this agent has to say about Misraaks. You know, our buddy Misraaks? Our best dude that we're working our asses off trying to save?

VIP #3987, another former confederate of the Awoken, is a lesser-known personality known as Mithrax. Scattered field reports suggest that like #1121, #3987 styles himself a Kell of the so-called "House Light," an otherwise unknown House apparently founded by #3987 himself. We have secondhand accounts that Mithrax has engaged in allied operations with Guardians in the field, though we have not as yet been able to corroborate these accounts with any degree of veracity. This agent is inclined to treat these reports with a healthy degree of skepticism until otherwise confirmed, as they may be propaganda from Fallen sympathizers in the Old Russian and Red War Guardian cohorts. We have requested intelligence records from the Awoken which may further clarify the matter. In addition, whatever the findings of said intelligence records may be, it should be stressed that one or two sympathetic outliers cannot be relied upon to erase the wrongs of past centuries, nor should their good-faith efforts to correct the sins of their forebears be taken as sufficient symbolic reparation.

Charming. This is bad enough, but listen to what they had to say about Eramis. Now try to tell me again that she's being a bitch for not trusting us, when this was how they were speaking about her barely a few years before she was captured by us in Revenant.

VIP #2029, a once-known personality known as Eramis, or Eramis, the Shipstealer. A House Devils Baroness incarcerated during the Wolf Wars, #2029 successfully fled the Prison of Elders during the mass escape orchestrated by #1121. #2029 is a classical Fallen pirate of the old ways: vicious, uncompromising, and possessing cunning of the highest degree. Field reports indicate that she is rallying violent dissidents to reconstruct House Devils from the ground up. This agent believes her to be the most viable candidate for universal Fallen reunification, and would urge the Vanguard and other interested leadership to aggressively prioritize her destruction. We have come too far to pull our punches now.

This goes beyond simple warfare. The Eliksni did not hold any sufficient power to actually destroy the Last City since the Final Attempt. This Hidden agent wanted complete annihilation. This is talking about going around a beaten-down people that barely holds any more legitimate threats to the Last City and systematically wiping out any attempt for them to even reform their society on the minute basis that they might be able to mount an attack. This is calling for the utter annihilation of a society that suffered an apocalypse that was quite possibly worse than what we suffered in the Collapse, after they were already beaten.

Like, idk, maybe I'm just being extra sensitive bc I live in America, but family is Iranian, so I've been hearing our government talk about how they need to eradicate Middle Eastern threats before they ever come to fruition. But like. Holy fucking shit. We were not the good guys in this scenario. This doesn't make the Eliksni the saints, either, but it's very, very fucking clear that we weren't fighting for the greater good, either. There is no reason that military operations should ever go this far when the enemy is already as good as defeated. It's frankly a fuckin' miracle that any Eliksni are putting any faith in us at all, and it's really only because there's no other option at this point than to try to cozy up to our good side to avoid annihilation.

[therealtsk]

Destiny's Lore, and Why It Didn't Need The Witness

So, I know most of you follow me for Worm or DC stuff, so here's an admission of my tragic past: I used to be a big Destiny fan! I know, I know, i'm losing followers by the letter, but in my defense, I dropped out years ago, around Shadowkeep. I briefly checked the game out again during the Witch Queen but never actually finished the campaign since I didn't have any friends to play it with at the time and so I couldn't force myself back into it's goddawful grind. To be clear, I've never played Destiny for the gameplay. I'm one of those weirdos who actually really, really liked the setting's lore and world building. It was one of the most unique things I'd ever seen, this really engaging mix of high fantasy and sci-fi all at once. And you know what? Some of Destiny's lore books are honestly incredible! The writing is emotional, the prose evocative, so many alien perspectives expertly captured. The Books of Sorrow, Thorn, Truth to Power, Book of Unveiling, The Ahamkara gear...goddamn, they're so good. But I got caught up on Destiny lore a little bit ago, and...wow. Bungie did it. They killed the last thing I still loved about Destiny. And they killed it with the Witness.

Let's talk about the Witness for a bit. The Witness has taken the slot of the new Big Bad for the Destiny universe, previously held by The Darkness. Their backstory is that they used to be individuals of a race that was the first to be blessed by The Traveler, Destiny's slated Big Good. This race proceeded to have a golden age that lasted for eons, with them eventually running out of things to do, and thus asked the Traveler to tell them what their purpose is. Obviously, the Traveler didn't answer, and their entire civilization had a collective existential crisis so hard that they decided that if the universe didn't come pre-built with a purpose, they'd just kill everyone and reboot the universe so that it did. To accomplish this, they tracked down the Traveler's never-before mentioned Dark counterpart and all fused into a single being, seen here. And on the topic of the Witness's appearance, I'm sorry, but the visual design here is just...bad. It's just bad. It's almost painfully generic. They have a geometrically rippling long black coat with no defining features, a pale human-ish face, and their brain appears to be leaking other faces in a smokecloud constantly, which i think looked far cooler on paper then it did in a render. Compare this to Savathûn or even Oryx's visual designs and they don't hold a candle. Speaking of comparisons to the Hive Gods, this is where my rant truly begins, so buckle up.

The fact that the Witness has all but replaced the Darkness- newly released lore suggesting every time we thought a character was interacting with the Darkness itself, it was really them talking to this character- that the Darkness is now stated to be completely apathetic and unintelligent, nothing more then a power source to draw upon- not only runs directly counter to some of my favorite lore in the franchise but cheapens every other Darkness-affiliated plot line and character. Not only does the Witness not speak at all like The Darkness has in the past, making the claim of them being one and the same dubious to me, but it also results in all of the Witness' Disciples (their right-hand men) being shoehorned into storylines in ways that feel almost painfully lazy. Case in point: The Lore of the Hive. As mentioned above, The Books of Sorrow is some of my favorite sci-fantasy with fantastic horror elements and incredibly evocative bits of prose. It's a gripping narrative how in the face of utter annihilation, a group of siblings make a desperate bargain with unknowable creatures once kept buried beneath the earth...and how their once noble efforts to save their people from death turns into a bloody conquest across the stars. It's an excellent tale, showing us how the truest test of character is who you are when times are hard- will you let those hard times twist you into a foul shape, or will you endure in spite of them? It establishes the cosmology of Destiny, with the Hive and Worm Gods being established as some of the most powerful and important beings in the story, powerful disciples of The Deep. With the new retcons, Rhulk (a Disciple of the Wintess) shows up, basically tells the Worms to shut up and listen cause he's the real Disciple of the Darkness, not them, and they're going to fall in line now. Because now, instead of the syzygy being a real threat that did devastate the planet the Krill lived on, Bungie's saying that the entire thing was a lie created by the Witness and the Worm Gods. Which takes the aspect of "sometimes bad things just happen but it's up to us to choose how we will let those things change us" that's key to the narrative and completely removes it- which is so backwards from how this all works! Evil lives in all of us, waiting for when we're weak to tempt us into doing what's wrong in the name of survival or pleasure or whatever virtue it disguises itself as- it doesn't stroll up out of nowhere and create a twelve-step-point-plan to ensure that we become evil too! Putting aside that, as I admit it's a subjective criticism based on my own perspective on the nature of morality, I think it greatly cheapens multiple other stories. Now that the Darkness is completely amoral as a force and it's just the Witness who is corruptive, I guess Dredgen Yor, Jana-14 and all of the other guardians we've seen fall were all getting brain blasted by this one dude, instead of their falls being a result of being seduced by power they should have known better then to touch blindly. Now, I can already hear people saying "But what about Stasis!" And yeah, I have Thoughts on Stasis too. I don't entirely dislike it, but I do dislike how it's been executed. Sword Logic works- or worked- by basically asserting yourself above physical reality. "I am the strongest thing alive, and I prove it thus." You defeat a powerful enemy and take their strength for your own. That's something you can work as being doable without inherently corrupting you. After all, it's not considered evil to fight for your own survival or for the protection of others. It just so happens that constantly introducing your brain to the idea that killing other things will make you objectively better then them is bad for you even if those powers weren't sourced from a primordial consciousness that has and will try to influence you for it's own ends.

To use a metaphor, Sword Logic is akin to something like nuclear power- sure, it's got one hell of a kick, but if you let your guard down around it, not only will it fuck you up but it'll contaminate everything around you with the fallout. But now to say that "nope, the darkness is totally fine and not even alive and aware it's just the same thing as the light but different colors and this whole time it's just been this one guy who's been ruining it for everyone else" is so...god, it's so much less interesting. And I think ultimately, that's my problem with the Witness. As a whole, they are just so much less interesting then what we had before! I loved the Books of Sorrow and Unveiling so much because it was such a fascinating display of completely alien thought and genuine nuance. The Darkness doesn't do what it does because of any tired trope of "evil nihilist" or just might makes right, it's a living embodiment of a cosmic philosophy in a war with another, both of them arguing for how all of creation should work. Whether or not the only things in life that matter are the things that live, and that to live is to suffer so ergo only that which cannot break should live, so you must break everything until only the absolute strongest shapes remain- or if it is possible for creativity and diversity and soft things to exist and create a life that is worth living in spite of the inevitable pain we all go through. That is so much more interesting then a bunch of dudes who are ultimately just mad about the fact that there's no easy to find and read manual for our purpose in life! It's such a basic, not to mention human motivation in comparison to what The Darkness had when it was a character in it's own right. And so...yeah.

[locrianking]

Lightfall & Aspect

hi destiny tumblr!

it’s me, your local lore geek. as we speak, i am working on a (long!) meta post about the connections between the lightfall campaign & the aspect lorebook. i haven’t really seen people talking about these ties so i wanted to do it myself.

in the time it takes me to write this, i really really encourage anyone confused about lightfall to read aspect! if nothing else, read it so you can rip my theories to shreds when i finish this meta. but seriously i can’t encourage it enough, go check out aspect please

[destiny2paladin]

The amount of fun one can have in destiny is inversely proportional to how effective the loadout would be in high-end content (raids, dungeons, etc.) Maximize the silly. Make that build around that niche exotic nobody uses. Make the hardest fit ever to go with it. Minmaxing is for nerds, just make the stats what you feel is right. Have fun, because it's all just a game.

[tacticalgrandma]

This bit keeps sticking with me, when it comes after the Witness's "We know pain. Our purpose is its end," which comes after Rohan's "Pain reminds us that we're alive, that we're still fighting." Lightfall starts off with the Witness being this unstoppable, untouchable force, that unmakes Ghosts and Guardians with a literal flick of its wrist. And then the rest of the expansion sets up why it just kind of sucks at what it's pretending to be.

Osiris defines the Light as being the physical, and doesn't just link the Darkness with the immaterial—he links it with thought, memory, emotion, soul. The Witness is a being of Darkness, and Darkness is the nature of being alive. Darkness is emotion, fear is Darkness, pain is Darkness. The Witness speaks and portrays itself as emotionless, above it all—but Calus makes it angry. Mara and Eramis see its sadistic wrath, turning Eramis's friends into Scorn in punishment. Rhulk's lore book shows it blatantly manipulating a deeply disturbed and unstable person, playing on his anger and pain. The Witness is not a deity, it is not a force of nature. It is a being of emotion that does not wish to be emotional, that sees emotion as weakness and vulnerability. It has all of existence at its fingertips and Calus is more creative, more imaginative than it, just because he lets himself want.

The Witness gave us Stasis, the element of control. It could not anticipate or defend against Strand. Calus, this narcissistic, hedonistic, failure hit on a weak point of the Witness. It can't accept, it has to control, and being alive means letting go sometimes. It is afraid of pain and failure and it sees that fear as failure. It fights the river.

[lenaellsi]

Some Crowley quotes:

(Excited about his star nurseries) "Most of the universe's stars will come pre-aged, but these ones are only starting out!"

(After being told that the universe is going to be destroyed in six thousand years) "But that's nothing! What's the point in creating an infinite universe with trillions of star systems if you're only going to let it run for a few thousand years?"

(After being told about the flood) "All of them? Not the kids, you can't kill kids."

(After Aziraphale reaffirms his loyalty to God) "Same God that wants me to whack the kids?"

(Realizing that Armageddon is about to happen) "No. Already?"

(Praying during Armageddon) "Don't test them to destruction. Not to the end of the world."

(Elspeth says, "People die.") "They do, don't they?"

(Wee Morag dies) "Too late."

(Speaking to Gabriel about Aziraphale being in danger) "It's always too late."

and,

("Nothing lasts forever.") "No. I don't suppose it does."

[a-driftamongopenstars]

a few thoughts I had about the whole symbology around the Light and the Darkness, and especially with the new trailer dropped.

i love how much shapes are being put to the front of it all.

not just the title, although this is a part of it.

shapes are the most basic thing, it's how we learn. we learn to create from shapes, the most simple ones, circles and spheres, triangles and pyramids, squares, and then we built these complex things, but at the heart of it all - it's made of basic shapes.

there is something so... thematic about them. it's like going back to the basics, to the start, where there is black and white, right and wrong.

but it isn't that easy.

and then we arrive to the final shape.

as if the witness is trying to make it all... simple. to unify all these complex shapes into something singular, understandable, palatable.

but it doesn't work like that.

i don't know yet what those cubes are going to be within the new dlc, but they also look so wrong against this amazing, varied, colourful landscape. beautiful and terrifying and wrong, because you so rarely find perfection out in the wild.

anyway, it's about the shapes!!

[lizzieraindrops]

Destiny is a story about shapes and grief.

I think I may have figured out Destiny. I don't think the primary conflict between the Light and the Darkness is the philosophical issue we thought it was.

I got thinking about it after all this talking, with many others but especially @jazzhandsmcleg, about the way all of The Witch Queen DLC and its 4 seasons have had overarching narratives surrounding trauma and cycles of violence and grief, and the way the Darkness and the Light are characterized by their different approaches to it.

In TWQ, Savathûn is given a true second chance for her species in the Light. But as Ikora points out, she struggles to break free of the learned patterns of the Darkness, continuing the pattern of deception and violence.

Same with Season of the Risen - it’s the Warlords and Dark Ages all over again, but this time it’s the Hive. It forces once again to ask: what does it mean to be given a second chance if this is what you do with it? Temper this with Saladin’s story about the girl from the Dark Ages who he protected, but who became a cruel mortal Warlord in her own right. Crow objects to the mental torture of the Hive Lightbearers and he tries to break from the cycle of interspecies violence, but unintentionally ends up continuing it by killing the Psion and heightening tensions between humans and the Uluran.

Season of the Haunted!!! Literally, the entire thing is about confronting your traumas and greatest fears and the worst parts about yourself and beginning to heal them, making something better from them. Completely changing the game by turning Nightmares that torment into Memories that guide you. Crow with the memory of Uldren, Zavala with that of Safiyah, Caiatl that of Ghaul - and most importantly, resolution focuses on how they, specifically have been held back from healing by their self-incriminating Nightmares. It challenges the cycle of continuing violence on a very personal level. Eris even has patrol dialogue describing the a Nightmare as a thing of pain craving only more pain: "Such is the cycle."

Season of Plunder brings up the very same questions on a much higher organizational level. It gives us Eido and Eramis taking very different jaded vs. new-hope approaches to the legacy of the Whirlwind, asking: can we change? Are we defined by generational trauma forever? Can we continue to grow and change for the better even though it can never be undone? Though Eido is clearly young and naïve, we're clearly given the opportunity and narrative nudge to sympathize with her desire and hope for growth and redemption, both for the Eliksni overall, and for Eramis in particular.

And we're not even done with Season of the Seraph, but it already goes incredibly hard asking the same questions, again from a more personal angle. How far, and through how many generations is trauma transmitted? From the Bray family to Rasputin, to Felwinter to Osiris to Ikora – how do we fix this? How do we fix this? How do you defeat an enemy who IS war itself? What can you do to end an endless cosmic cycle of violence?

Go back and back and back in Destiny's lore even back to D1, and the majority of conflicts seem driven by this cycle of grief and revenge and violence. The entire line of humanity's war with the Hive goes back through Oryx's grief for Crota and the First Crota Fireteam and Eriana-3's grief for her wife Wei Ning. Even the Hive siblings' pact with the Worm Gods, though manipulated by Rhulk, was driven by the pain and grief they endured for themselves and their people, and wanting to escape that cruel pattern. The entire predicament of the Eliksni and their conflict with humans is driven by the trauma and grief and loss of the Whirlwind. Even Caiatl's empire, a conquering force that would be highly regarded by the sword logic, now must reckon with the same kind of loss in the Fall of Torobatl.

How do you escape this cycle and stay free of it?

I think, this year, we are finally seeing the beginnings of an answer.

I can't highly enough recommend the TWQ Collector's Edition lorebook (page scans & transcript) and The Hidden Dossier (page scans & transcript) that immediately follows it. What I've been calling Ikora's theory of "memory and grace" that she develops through the course of these two lore books is a balanced philosophy of memory/Darkness and grace/Light (which honestly deserves an entire post of its own). I think it clearly points toward the final resolution the story of the conflict between the Darkness and the Light.

In light of this, something in the Calus part of the new Lightfall CE lorebook (images, transcript) really jumped out at me.

“The doomed and the damned left the record of their downfall in the OXA. Your star got its name from the oldest myths in that archive. And when your mother told your father that story…the star became your name. A prayer that all will go as it must…and the way it must go is struggle.” “Aiat.” Not a word in Ulurant or any other Cabal tongue. “But Caiatl means something else..” “Yes. ‘It may not always go as it needs to go.’ A good name for a soldier." "A strange name for a daughter," I say. "Your father chose it for your mother's sake. Out of love."

And because the parallel is so overwhelmingly striking, I am once again going to reference philosophy/worldbuilding from the Young Wizards universe, which has great resonance with Destiny lore and which Bungie has been long aware of and has even been referenced in Forsaken-era canon lore.

“all the fair things skewed, all the beauty twisted by the dark Lone Power watching on his steed. If only there were some way he could be otherwise if he wanted to! For here was his name, a long splendid flow of syllables in the Speech, wild and courageous in its own way—and it said that he had not always been so hostile; that he got tired sometimes of being wicked, but his pride and his fear of being ridiculed would never let him stop. Never, forever, said the symbol at the very end of his name, the closed circle that binds spells into an unbreakable cycle and indicates lives bound the same way.” [...] “Nita bent quickly over the Book and, with the pen, in lines of light, drew from that final circle an arrow pointing upward, the way out, the symbol that said change could happen—if, only if—and together they finished the Starsnuffer’s name in the Speech, said the new last syllable, made it real.” Excerpt From: Diane Duane. “So You Want to Be a Wizard, New Millennium Edition.”

CAIATL’S NAME IS LITERALLY THE UP-AND-OUT SYMBOL.

I know I'm probably only talking to the handful of Destiny players from the (very small) Young Wizards fandom, but what you need to know is that this moment is pivotal and sets up the series-long theme of hope for an eventual exit from the cycle. It's the incredibly small, overwhelmingly improbable possibility of a second chance, a new start for the Lone Power, the source of all strife and suffering, who itself is driven by loss and pain. A concept of extended grace that is inherently tied to the philosophy of the Light.

“Billions of years, it took. All the redemptions there have ever been went toward this; from the greatest to the least. And finally in the fullness of time you came along, and took my role, of your own will, and woke up a race powerful enough to change the whole Universe, and gave them the fire.” She glanced up at the mobiles and smiled. “How could he resist such a bait? He took the gamble: he always does. And losing, he won.” [...] “The Defender reached down and put a hand into the shadow. “And we are going where such matters are transcended… where all his old pains will shift. Not forgotten, but transformed. Life in this universe will never have such a friend. And as for His inventions… look closely at Death, and see what it can become.” The long, prone darkness began to burn, from inside, the way a mountain seems to do with sunset. “Brother,�� the Defender said. “Come on. They’re waiting.” Excerpt From: Diane Duane. “High Wizardry New Millennium Edition.”

This is the devil’s second chance, its homecoming. Grace among the memory. How do we heal this? By fixing it. By making and TAKING that opportunity of grace.

Likewise, Destiny is shaping up into its own universe’s story of this Reconfiguration, the remaking of everything that exists through the act of a second chance, both offered and taken, with full awareness of the irreversibility of harm already caused.

Destiny isn’t the story of the light and the darkness fighting each other. That happens, but that’s not what it’s ABOUT.

It’s “And I know exactly what we are. We’re best frenemies with a history of intense mutual hurt and messy reconciliation, leaving a deep tenderness as well as an almost impenetrable knot of scars. What could be simpler?” (Chalco)

It's “For so long, I believed peace was beyond my reach. No more. I have found it in guiding others down the same path that saved me. But… I might allow myself to want more than peace. What, I am not certain. Is joy the word? Might I find that again?” (Eris)

It's “Second chances… hm. Turns out I've been using mine wrong. I thought being a Guardian was my destiny. That wielding the Light for good was the most I had to offer. But it's clear now. This is what the Traveler chose me for. I was reforged in the Light for a purpose. To remake something dead and gone… into something beautiful. To learn how to forge something new from what we were. Everything Uldren did to the Reef, the Scorn… Fikrul. I have a responsibility — no — a calling to make them whole. And… I can't replace Cayde. But I can cover his old patrols — maybe organize the Hunters a bit, if they'll let me. Clean up some of my mess. I don't know if I can fix everything Uldren left broken… but I can try.” (Crow)

We aren’t defeating the Darkness. That’s never what it’s been about. It’s about breaking the cycle of trauma and grief with memory and grace. We're transcending the Final Shape, but we're not here to destroy it or become it. We’re harmonizing the Darkness and the Light into a sustainable balance to create something new from the wounded remains.

We're here to heal the broken relationship between the Winnower and the Gardener.

That's all that it is, in the end. They had a falling out, and now they hurt, and they hurt each other, and everything else, forever. Breaking free from that cycle begins and ends with them.

Is that fair? No, it's not.

But Destiny is – unhingedly, brilliantly, paradoxically – a FPS game about how to stop killing each other, growing ever more into a framework of restorative and reparative justice.

The story says, we are all culpable, we have all done awful shit and have endless potential to do more awful shit – AND, most critically, we all have the potential to do better (grace). AND, the act of making the conscious choice to do so and letting that happen is the only way for things to get better (memory).

The Collapse happened and it was horrible, the Red War happened and it was horrible, the Great Disaster happened and it was horrible, Twilight Gap happened and it was horrible...AND?? HOW ARE YOU GOING TO RESPOND? The Whirlwind happened and it was horrible! The Fall of Torobatl happened and it was horrible! Your species' Choice was stolen and you became the most prolifically violent killers in the universe and it was and is horrible! WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?

Are you going to make it more horrible? Or are you going to make it BETTER????

Are you going to fight for the Final Shape, or for the gentle kingdom ringed in spears?

[syncopation53]

The thing about nimbus that makes them such an interesting character to me is that they are earnest and unapologetic and excitable and they put 110% into everything they do at all times and all of it comes from a place of “pay no attention to what’s behind the curtain lighthearted funnyman persona”

Not to say that nimbus is Actually just full of angst and sadness and tragedy behind the scenes all the time. they aren’t, not even with the death of their mentor. nor is it all that different from what they are feeling at any given moment. it’s not. But being neomuni, being a cloud strider, a protector of their people (and an incredibly competent one at that), it gives them a certain presence to their self-image in their own mind that probably wouldn’t be there if they were just another digital citizen, if they were still Dara Danu instead of Nimbus. The augmentations they put themself through to become a cloud strider aren’t something eating away at their lifespan every waking moment, it was a conscious choice and noble sacrifice. Rohan’s death wasn’t something to mourn, it’s something to inspire and propel them to fight and work harder and preserve his memory. Their jokes and commentary aren’t ways to put distance between Nimbus the Cloud Strider and Nimbus the Person, it’s just their brand of humor that some people find annoying. But that’s fine by them, they wouldn’t be bothered by that. Their core is still protected, and that’s all that really matters in the end. This way nothing can reach them, hurt them, pull them in any direction other than where they want to go. This way nimbus as a whole is friendly and open and protected and untouchable, paradoxically in thanks to how ridiculously, unabashedly comfortable they are in their own skin, so much so that it becomes a caricature of itself without anyone even trying to make it that way, least of all nimbus themself

And they are themself, fully, during the entirety of lightfall and post-campaign. They’re silly and fun-loving and goofy and joking and reckless and overconfident and compassionate and intelligent and caring and emotional and dedicated to the safety of their people above all, and it’s all over-the-top and in-your-face and probably a little bit too forceful thanks to them going from one in a team of two with someone to watch their back and cover for them so they can goof off on the job to The lone cloud strider responsible for the survival of their entire civilization more than ever now with their presence being known to the rest of the solar system and also dealing with shadow legion and vex incursions on the side. It’s their nonchalant “I’m full of fury” line that made me think “oh you are absolutely blorbo material” but it was the mission in the black garden for deterministic chaos that really made my third eye open and my brain say “oh. oh there is so much more going on with your character than we realize. ok then” *becomes my new favorite*

[savyir-genesizz-the-wizard]

All Cogito-4 fics chronologically

Will be updated. If a fic isn't here it means that it's not canon anymore sorry

Pre-D1

Destiny 1 Report from the bottom of the canyon [X] Report from secret Operation Powerplant [X] Report from the Last City [X]

Destiny 2 Report from the crashed ship [X] 9 sayings of the Nessus scouts in A5341 sector [X]

Post Beyond Light Report from an unimportant rock [X] Report from a rock marked with yellow paint [X] And I killed Cayde-6 (old but still somewhat canon) [X] Lost and found [X]

Post Final Shape A house and a clothing line [X] Fragmented, Vex [X] Together (Wawrzyn's report) [X] Rebirth (Report from Savathûn's Court) [X] Ensnare (Of course I did) [X] Divine [X] Fireteam Colide plays a board game [X]

Full timeline, abriged:

BrayTech scientist (chemist)

pirate on an Eliksnii pirate ship after 4th reset

Killed while defending the crew from a ambush

Risen during the Great Hunt (1st of July)

Student of a Warlock named Štefan Ryba

Leaves the City for missions after the Battle of The Burning Lake (after Ryba goes missing)

Takes part in The Great Disaster (he's greatly affected by it (terribly scared of Hive) but doesn't let anyone know)

Doesn't oppose Osiris but doesn't align himself with the Cultists

Leaves the City more often after Osiris'es exhile (to avoid the tensions between fractions)

Takes part in The Battle of the Twilight Gap (as defending the ammunition suply chain)

Works on planets and other objects distant from Earth as a reasercher (notably the Asteroid Belt)

Recieves a vision from Traveler and finds his mentor's light artifacts

When the Red War starts he returns to Earth but doesn't take part in the final battle (stays at the Farm)

Confronts rumors of his mentor being Taken but doesn't find them in the Ascendand Realm nor the Reef

Investigates Nessus and the Vex for the first time

Fights on the Leviathan

Establishes a permament camp on Nessus

Confronts the nightmare of his mentor

Assigned Warlock Vanguard Deputy by Ikora Rey

Gets involved with Misraaks'es Splicers (works with them during and after SotSplicer)

Investigates alternative timelines and learns how to manipulate Vex structures

Leaves Nessus after the Echoes Incident

[incesthemes]

so the first seal shall be broken when a righteous man sheds blood in hell.

and i want to postulate on this concept of the righteous man. both john and dean are considered by this prophecy to be "righteous men," and of course they are both candidates for michael's vessel. it's in their blood.

but at the same time, this is a destiny that must still be fulfilled. action is required to create a righteous man—aka, they have to be sent to hell in the first place. they have to become worthy of being michael's vessel through their participation in starting the apocalypse.

john dies in 201. he's at peace; he's accepted the terms of his deal, and he's accepted his fate. his soul and the colt for dean's life.

there are two conflicts presented across season 1:

the first is on the topic of revenge. ultimately, the conclusion is that revenge is pointless, it will lead to no positive outcome—the past has already happened, and once blood is spilled there's no getting out of it, no stopping. knowing what happened to her brother didn't make kathleen feel better about his death. max killing his family didn't make his pain go away.

the second is on the topic of family. it's a more subtle theme, i guess, suggesting that family will invite destruction to everyone around them. the tagline "the good of the many outweighs the good of the one" is proven to be erroneous and ruinous: by choosing the family, by choosing to protect loved ones, great harm will inevitably come to the outsiders. we see this foreshadowed in 111; we see this exemplified when dean shoots and kills an innocent man in 121.

so choosing revenge and choosing family are both bad choices. but the conflict of season 1 is revenge vs family—sam as the protagonist has to choose one or the other. he's not given a third option.

john, however, finds that third option. he abandons his quest for revenge by relinquishing the colt to azazel, and he abandons his family by sacrificing himself. the act of sacrifice is seen as a selfish one (see: crossroad blues), one committed by a man who cares more about his own feelings than that of the person he saved. this is the recurring narrative throughout seasons 2 and 3—it's not something that john did for his son, it's something he did for himself. and in fact, his act of sacrifice puts sam and dean in more danger by leaving them without a weapon to combat azazel and without any of john's knowledge about the demon or sam's fate.

he doesn't choose revenge. he apparently doesn't choose family. he found the third option: he removed himself from the story.

so he managed to choose both "correct" options: he avoided ruin by abandoning his revenge, and he avoided ruin by abandoning his family. and he went to hell.

he became a righteous man, set to break the first seal to the apocalypse.

dean ends up following these exact steps at the end of season 2—the difference is that doing so is dean's fate and not necessarily john's. the other difference is dean is not at peace with his decision to die. john went to hell but he had accepted it. he was ready and willing to go, and he took what was given to him. even in all hell breaks loose, he's happy and serene in death, in hell. it's his commitment to his actions that separate dean and john.

but dean, through sam's influence, second-guesses himself, and his own shame and hypocrisy stir within him doubt and uncertainty. he doesn't want to die; he doesn't want to go to hell. when he gets there, he screams out for sam, wanting to be saved.

dean breaks. john doesn't.

obviously dean going to hell and breaking the seal was part of his destiny—that much is obvious. but i think it's important that it's dean's actions and decisions that lead him down that path, that he's not a passive receptor for his fate. it doesn't happen to him; he chooses it. sam has to act and decide in order to fulfill his destiny, so dean should be beholden to that same thing. which is why i like this interpretation that it's this selfish sacrifice that creates a righteous man—by dean's own hands he creates his destiny and starts the apocalypse.

john was able to escape this because he's not faced with the same conflict dean is. he's able to find peace and take himself out of the story, choosing both "correct" options and being okay with those decisions. dean makes those same "correct" decisions as john (in dean's case, the conflict he is given is not revenge vs family but duty vs family, and he abandons his duty and his family all the same), but he lacks the conviction that john has. he can't remove himself from the story, he's filled with doubt and unresolved tension, he can't let go fully. there is no peace in dean's story, and the righteous man broke.

and as he breaks, so shall it break.

[ahamkara-apologist]

okay disclaimer: ik that categorizing female characters as the 'mom friend/figure' is a legit disease in fandom caused by general misogynistic views of female characters, and it's something that personally greatly irritates me bc its not only awful to do, it also tends to ruin the characters its put upon. ESPECIALLY in D2, which is outstanding in its cast of strong female characters

however. in the case of Eramis, I do believe that the fact that she was a mother and is a genuinely caring, nurturing person at heart is something that is a deeply important core part of her character, as well as thematically important to the future of the Eliskni moving forward. It's important because in her case, I believe that her motherly inclinations are why, pre-Witness-whispering-through-the-Darkness, Eramis was such a successful kell- because unlike some other kells who sought a future for the Eliksni via domination, her main focus for them was to create a haven for her people that could be defended from Lightbearers. Riis-Reborn wasn't something to sniff at- it was the closest thing to an actual Eliksni city in a very long while. What got her was her trauma of the Whirlwind and her desire to destroy the Traveler to level the playing field for everyone involved- trauma that the Witness preyed upon in order to get to us. Like a parasite, seeking its secondary host. Eramis certainly is not the only Eliksni who lost her family during the Whirlwind, but I think that her specific brand of anger is closest to that of a mother lion whose cubs are in danger, and is lashing out in a furious fight-or-flight reflex at anything that she perceives as a threat. It's just that in this case, her 'cubs' were the Eliksni as a whole, and the threat she perceived before the Witness started torturing her was the Traveler.

I also think that her relationship with parenthood also makes for a very interesting character contrast to Misraaks (aka the other successful kell viewed as a source of hope for the Eliksni), and helps to set them up as antiparallels to each other. Eramis was a gentle, nurturing mother with a reverence for the Traveler who turned into the bitter, cunning warrior we see now when she lost access to her wife and children; Misraaks was a fearsome, ruthless pirate before he became a father, which gentled him and turned him towards being more pious. Eramis represents the old ways, and offers hope to the Eliksni who cannot bear to cohabitate with humanity; Misraaks represents a change in the tide, and kells the open-minded Eliksni who are willing to lay down their arms to live among the humans of Sol. Misraaks is of Light (change, forgiveness, moving forward), while Eramis is of Darkness (memory, control, looking back). They're opposites in every way except for the fact that both of them were/are amazing parents, and I'd argue that their ability to nurture and overlook others is what led to their success as kells.

Most importantly, however, is their relationship to Eido, who represents the future of the Eliksni. Misraaks was her father, and he did his best to raise her to be kind and openminded, but he also shielded her from the horrors of the past a little too well. She's outgrown that, and now that she's strong enough to handle said horrors, Eramis has been acting as a mentor to fully introduce her to the tragedy of what she lost and why elder Eliksni are so angry about it- and I don't think that she would have been receptive to Eido attempting to talk to her if it weren't for the fact that under all of her prickly armour, she's still that nurturing person at heart. It's her desire to care for others and to see a better future for her people that has kept her going despite her having no hope for herself, and it's that loving heart that has saved herself and her people from utter destruction at both our hands and Fikrul's- because if she didn't look at eido and go 'oh this child is the future of our people and i must protect her with my life', then both her and the rest of House Salvation would have been marked for death. And now here she is, continuing to care for Eido even as her father declines by telling her stories about Riis and helping her track down an apothecary to try to cure him, despite her not believing in his ways. I don't think it's entirely because she used to be a mother, but...I do think that it's playing a huge role in it.

(I also think it's personally fascinating to see how someone who used to be known for being a doting, sweet mom to her hatchlings and a caring mate to her wife can turn into someone who's a terrifying warrior on the battlefield and a cunning, politically saavy ruler, but even then, that doesn't surprise me all that much- if you've got a dearth of experience wrangling hatchlings, then being kell of a house is basically just wrangling a bunch of grown-up hatchlings. Same principles, just upped a level or two in complexity.)

[justdecadentcollectiondestiny]

Every Day: On Aziraphale

Obviously MAJOR spoilers ahead! Click keep reading at your own risk.

Let's get the elephant in the room out of the way first. I am not angry at Aziraphale for his decision. I don't agree with it, obviously, but I understand why he made the choice he did.

In Aziraphale's mind, there could not be a better course of events than them both returning to Heaven as angels. It would solve pretty much every problem and worry (Aziraphale feels) they had ever had. They would both have their jobs back, both be working for the Good Guys, he would be able to use his new position of power to fix the flaws in Heaven, and, most importantly, they would be together, without any of the fear that had been looming over them for the past six thousand years.

Aziraphale is perfectly aware that they are also being offered safety. With Aziraphale as Supreme Archangel and Crowley as his second in command, they could be freely and openly together and in love for the first time in their entire relationship. Which is why he tries so desperately to convince him to go with him, being the most upfront and honest about his feelings for him than he has ever been before. "We can be together!" "I need you!" He believed so much that he could change Crowley's mind for the sake of them being together that he wouldn't accept that Crowley's answer was "no" until Crowley was out the door, until it was too late.

Additionally, we now know that Crowley and Aziraphale did know each other before Crowley Fell, and this adds a whole new layer to Aziraphale's decision. He remembers the angel Crowley used to be, the angel full of joy and smiles, who loved creating beautiful things, who absolutely adored being an angel. Aziraphale loves Crowley, and he would love to see him that happy again. That coupled with the fact that Aziraphale can probably, like us, tell that Crowley misses being an angel leads him to believe that going back to Heaven would be a no-brainer for Crowley. So he is not prepared in the least for Crowley to want absolutely nothing to do with the idea. He can't fathom why anyone would willingly stay on the "bad" side when they had a choice. The question Aziraphale asks of Crowley is "Why would you choose to be Evil when you could be Good?" But what Aziraphale doesn't understand is that that's not the choice Crowley is making here. He's not choosing Evil over Good. He's choosing himself over the whole system, the system that Aziraphale still has hope can be fixed.

And that's where the Metatron comes in. I fully believe that the Metatron manipulated Aziraphale to get him to agree to come with him. We don't get to see all of his conversation with Aziraphale, but we can see that he brings Aziraphale a coffee (trying to get his foot in the door), reassures him that "I've ingested things in my time," that his humanly habit of consuming Earthly food and drink is nothing to be ashamed of (again trying to get his foot in the door by keeping Aziraphale comfortable around him as well as likening himself to him), and pays him compliments that are frankly out of character considering Heaven has regarded Aziraphale as a traitor since the averted Armageddon. But, most damning of all, in my opinion, is the Metatron telling Aziraphale that he could restore Crowley to angelic status. Before this point, Aziraphale was not keen on the idea, even saying point-blank that he doesn't want to go back to Heaven. But the Metatron (like pretty much everybody at this point) knows that Aziraphale is in love with Crowley. He knows Crowley is his perfect leverage, especially since, I believe, he knows that Crowley would never agree to come back to Heaven and he would never have suggested it if he didn't know that Crowley would reject it. His glare at Crowley on his way out the door is enough for us to see his contempt for him, his asking Aziraphale "how did he take it?" seems like strange wording to me (Not "what did he say?" or "what does he think?" Normally you "take" something you don't want to hear, implying the Metatron anticipated Crowley's reaction), and his remark after Crowley leaves that he was "always asking damn fool questions" shows us more of that contempt as well as an attempt to convince Aziraphale that "screw him he's stupid anyway you don't need him." So there you go. The Metatron uses Crowley to get Aziraphale to agree to come back to Heaven, sits back and watches as they both break each other's hearts, swoops back in to pick up the pieces, and now has an angel feeling very vulnerable and alone ready to be escorted back up to Heaven.

I would honestly compare Aziraphale to a cult victim. He's essentially been brainwashed. For countless millennia he has been conditioned to see Heaven as the one and only Good Side, and the angels as the end-all-be-all Good Guys. After everything that's happened over the last six thousand years (the last few years especially), Aziraphale now obviously knows that's not entirely true, but even so, he still has the mindset of two sides, Heaven Good and Hell Evil. And so to be welcomed back to the Good Side with open arms when he's at such a low, to be entrusted with power and recognition by the Voice of God undoubtedly feels reassuring, even though I am positive something small deep inside him is whispering to him that something about this is not right.

More than anything, Aziraphale believes in Goodness. It's quite literally the very core of his being. He wholeheartedly believes that the system is capable of being fixed and that he can be the one to fix it. And not only that he can, that, if he has the chance to, he has to. It's his duty as a being of Good.

Brokenhearted Aziraphale is too stubborn convicted in his values to turn down the chance to change Heaven for the better, and with the bookshop being entrusted to Muriel and, most importantly, without Crowley, he doesn't have much keeping him on Earth anymore.

In the end, it's a combination of Aziraphale's steadfast values and principles, his genuine and unwavering desire to do Good, and Heaven's indoctrination and manipulation of him that leads Aziraphale to leave Earth and Crowley behind and return to Heaven.

Exactly to what end the Metatron wants Aziraphale as Supreme Archangel, I don't know. That's for Season Three to tell us. We'll just have to wait and see.

[whirlybirdwhat]

destiny 2 bringing cayde back (?) in final shape june 4 means pride month is real not because cayde is like. #canon gay or whatever but because i like him and IM canon gay etc etc

[synnthamonsugar]

The Destiny fandom has a habit of going "Where's the guy?" when presented with predominantly female-focused fanart/fic. While part of that is general fandombrainedness, I definitely think the official source material doesn't help, what with the D2 writers reticence to create stories that solely focus on women characters (the majority of the time they cannot even clear the Bechdel-Wallace Test, as low a bar as that is).

[raayllum]

Been thinking through the logistics of this dream because 1) while I posited a long time ago that Aaravos may have participated in cannibalism and been quite gleeful that dark magic's cannibalism motif is now far more literal, 2) I don't think this is meant to be literal, at least not in the way we're thinking about it. (Kim'Dael's literal blood drinking notwithstanding.) After all, Viren speaks of harvesting/consuming Zubeia's essence in 3x09, but the spell Aaravos channels through Viren / the staff to take Zym's essence, well. has very similar language:

(Screencap translation / reversal courtesy of Cartoon Universe.)

So Aaravos consumed her power, for sure, but I don't know if it was more of a manner of him using the staff or his own magics, rather than chopping her into pieces and eating her one by one, or having a huge form of some kind and eating her (which would be very hard to keep grounded in reality in a visual medium, anyway, when he can just squash the protagonists).

However, what I want to talk about is... where the fuck is Janai getting this information from? There's no way she heard directly what he was saying since it was obscured from the audience, her sister died, and it was in a clear whisper. It can't have just been a truth she was suppressing. Star magic has to do with visions and premonitions, but she doesn't have access to any kind of Star magic, so unless it's another special Sunfire bloodline / Sunfire spell thing with Truth telling or something... Could it be that Aaravos wants her to know this, to get in her head and terrify her, and that's why he's revealing the information to her in her dreams/nightmares?