#that's a whole ahamkara

[wingylalkasartstuff]

They would do Excursion together. As a treat.

[thefirstknife]

The Vex and the Wish

It's been a while since the finale of the Starcrossed mission and I've not stopped thinking about it. I want to talk about some of the stuff that's been on my mind, mostly about all the little hints about what we might be delving into after The Final Shape.

So, the whole premise of Starcrossed is really interesting and has been since we first heard about it. Some sort of a mission in the Black Garden? During an Ahamkara season? It immediately meant that we'll be dealing with some Ahamkara shenanigans in the Black Garden, two things that have previously not been combined. And the Ahamkara element was really good and nice and heartbreaking!

But the bigger thing that got me thinking and overthinking was all the Vex elements this season. They're kinda flying under the radar because we have bigger issues to deal with, but everything we got about them this season has been super weird and concerning. Especially the Black Garden stuff!

The Sol Divisive have been very active doing... things we don't truly understand. They've made their attempts to somehow interact with Ahamkara magic and they've been messing with Darkness as well. I'll do my best to recap all the stuff we've gotten about the Vex this season and how it relates to Starcrossed. Long post under!

The first thing that got us all thinking was of course the premise for the season in the first place; we knew that we would be dealing with Ahamkara, the Dreaming City and the Awoken, but we did not know about the Vex. That was peculiar in general because they simply haven't been mixed together with Ahamkara before. This was also really intriguing because of the reason we needed an Ahamkara in the first place: to get through the portal in the Traveler and follow the Witness. So why are the Vex (Sol Divisive) interfering?

As soon as the season started and we could look at the items, the first very interesting lore tab was Scatter Signal. In it, we have Osiris tracking some sort of a signal, locking onto it and getting a transmission in the form of hexadecimal code. When decoded, it revealed a strange message from a still unknown source, discussing the Vex:

“A churning singularity of shadow and mimicry beats again within cultivated chaos. Minds orbit its gravity, to bridge communion with a Voice, to move from parallel to entanglement. They dream of a dark core, contained within a timeless structure. A suspended return to the primordial. If not for this truth, why kneel? If not for this truth, why does it elude definition? Though not all agree on all, all agree on this. Sol is Salvation.”

We still don't really know what this message means or who sent it, but I've speculated before that it could have something to do with the Ishtar scientists, most likely Chioma or maybe even Maya and the others. I wrote about this speculation before Starcrossed was out, so now that we know how Starcrossed ended, I believe more strongly that the Ishtar team (at least their simulated copies) is somehow still out there and capable of communicating and that they're the ones who sent this message.

As for the message, now that the season is over, I believe it talks about the Black Heart (churning singularity of shadow and mimicry beats again within cultivated chaos) and the Sol Divisive's obsession with it and their belief that it could grant them some sort of knowledge or ability (possibly paracausality) or a way to return the universe to the way it was before paracausality existed (return to the primordial): this is possibly also talking about the speculative time when the Traveler and the Veil were one, a time that the Vex perhaps remember. It also warns us that while the Sol Divisive are unique in their worship of the Darkness, the Vex as a whole agree on the simple truth that whatever they want to finally achieve will be achieved in Sol, our system, because this is where they have all the necessary ingredients to do so. Whether this is understanding paracausality, resetting the universe or Convergence, we don't know.

When I wrote that speculation initially, since Starcrossed wasn't out yet, a lot of my questions were about what possible connection could there be between the Black Garden and the Ahamkara. That was the only thing we knew before the mission dropped after all. Now in retrospect, we can at least put some of the theories to rest; originally there was speculation that Riven or the Vex or both are doing something that would end up tricking us somehow. This has since been disproven; the Ahamkara in the Black Garden was Taranis who made his lair there to stay hidden and to hide his and Riven's children.

However, a very important question remains. Did the Vex know about this and did they use Taranis' residence in the Black Garden to study paracausality and Ahamkara magic? I believe they must've known about him and that they must've dedicated at least some observational resources to monitor him and his shenanigans in their space. This obviously isn't good. The Vex have been trying to understand paracausality for a very long time and we've been practically giving this information to them for almost equally as long. Taranis living within reach of the Sol Divisive probably offered them some insight into it as well and possibly also insight into Ahamkara abilities.

Sol Divisive has spent a considerable amount of time and resources trying to understand the Darkness, the Witness and the Veil. This season we've gotten confirmation that they're actively merging with Darkness and even trying to somehow fuse with the Witness. We've seen them being able to simulate techeuns, we've seen oracles appearing outside of the Vault of Glass and shaping themselves with Darkness energy, as well as tapping into Darkness in general, into memory, to enhance their predictive abilities. They spent this whole season messing with Ahamkara eggs and Riven's Lair and the Coil as Vex artifacting became more and more prominent as the weeks went on. Osiris has also noted, on several occasions, just how similar wishing magic and Vex simulations are. The second one is particularly interesting:

What is a simulation if not a machine's wish? A projection of what might be, were certain parameters to be altered.

One big problem is that while a lot of this is linked purely to the Sol Divisive and their obsession with the Darkness and the Witness, a lot of it is not. First, one very interesting thing that happened this year is that after nearly 10 years, we finally got an explanation about the Black Heart; it was the Sol Divisive's failed attempt to recreate the Veil, very likely an idea given to them directly by the Witness, to create a makeshift Veil after the original had been lost in the Collapse. A lot of the stuff in the background of this year has been about the Vex, simulations, augmented reality and the Vex attempts at understanding the Veil and paracausality at large; discussed at length in Veil Logs, most notably this one where Chioma speculates about how the Vex could potentially gain access to paracausal simulations if they gained access to the Veil.

This thing, the Veil. It’s… it’s some kind of web of consciousness. Just like the Vex network, but organic instead of artificial. It makes sense why the Vex want it. Paracausal simulations? There’d be no stopping them.

As I said, a lot of this is about the Sol Divisive, but a lot of it is not. The Vex we see on Neomuna are not Sol Divisive, for example. Scatter Signal also implies that despite the Vex at large being in disagreement with the Sol Divisive, all Vex do seem to share some basic ideas which the speaker in Scatter Signal summarises as: "Sol is Salvation." Apparently, all Vex agree on this.

To make things even stranger, here comes Starcrossed. As soon as we first saw it, it was strange because it showed us a big Vex structure in the Black Garden!

This is the centerpiece of the whole mission and as we proceed through it, we get closer and closer to it. This is called a Citadel and it has appeared in the game before; notably, in Destiny 1, but you can now see it in Destiny 2 as well, in the first encounter of Vault of Glass. This structure is distinctly not Sol Divisive and it never has been.

The origin and purpose of the Citadel are not entirely understood, outside of ties to the Vault of Glass. It's been on Venus since the Golden Age where it was investigated by the simulated copies of the Ishtar team:

No human being in the Ishtar Academy has ever crossed the safety cordon and walked the ancient stone under the Citadel, the Vex construct that stabs up out of the world to injure space and time.

And:

"I wonder where it came from," Duane-Mcniadh says. Of course he's the one to break the reverent silence. "The Citadel. I wonder if it was here before the Traveler changed Venus." "It could have been latent," Chioma Esi suggests. She's the leader. She kept them together when it seemed like they faced actual, eternal torture. She pulled them through. "Seeded in the crust. Waiting for a period of geological quiescence, so it could grow." Dr. Shim shrugs. "I think the Traveler did something paracausal to Venus. Something that cut across space and time. The Citadel seems to come from the past of a different Venus than our own. It doesn't have to make any sense by our logic, any more than the Moon's new gravity." Maya Sundaresh walks at the center of the group. She's been too quiet lately. What happened to them wasn't her fault and maybe she'll believe that soon. "What could you do with it?" she murmurs, staring up. "If you understood it?" Chioma puts an arm around her. "That's what we're going to find out. Where the Citadel can send us. Whether we can come back."

This is interesting to us now because a very similar construct appeared out of nowhere in the Black Garden and when we reached the end of the Starcrossed mission, we gained access to the inside of the structure. And inside, we found a single room decorated with the symbol of the Ishtar Collective made out of Vex materials.

As I've noted before in the post where I speculated about the names of the seasonal missions and the meaning of Scatter Signal and what this mission in the Black Garden could be, this whole situation brought me back to thinking about the lore book from Season of the Undying: Aspect. In it, we follow Praedyth who is eternally stuck in the Vault of Glass (incidentally, this happened to him because he wished to an Ahamkara) and who discovers the simulated Ishtar scientists and establishes communication with them.

He realises that something has changed and that he's no longer in a loop, but able to change things by talking to the Ishtar team. He and the Ishtar team develop a strategy in which the simulations are able to theorycraft and instruct Praedyth (who is physical and in a physical space) to create a way for all of them to escape their associated prisons. The team figures out together that a way out could be achieved through the Black Garden and that they would need a specific event to jumpstart their escape; this event would be the Undying Mind and its awakening which opened the gate to the Garden again, this time on the Moon. They start with Praedyth sending messages through in hope that someone, somewhen, will hear them. Soon, as the disturbances in the Black Garden get more prominent, they get the chance to not just send messages of code out, but to actually try to escape physically.

The lore book never tells us if they succeeded.

A hundred and sixty Mayas reach for the Chiomas by their side. A hundred and fifty-eight Chiomas reach back. One Praedyth, waiting for the conductor's baton to drop. Uncountable Vex in the Garden, waiting for the same event, a synchrony none of them notice. Somewhere, a veil is always lifting. Somewhere, Kabr is always dooming himself. Somewhere, a door is always opening. Somewhere, they are always stepping through.

The name of the final chapter is "irrealis;" a grammatical mood for situations or actions that are not known to have happened at the moment of speaking. All Aspect chapters are named in this way, one of the reasons I started thinking about this lore book in the first place, the moment I noticed the names of missions this season (this theme is also extended to the weapons reprised from Undying: Imperative, Adhortative, Subjunctive and Optative). As an addition, the final mission's name is also very interesting and it is possible that maybe there will be another (one more radio message and triumph haven't been unlocked yet).

The point is that we don't know if the Ishtar Collective simulations and Praedyth managed to escape because at the time of speaking (when this lore book was released) this was an irrealis mood; unknown if the action has occured. But their plan, to use the situation with the Undying Mind in the Black Garden and the Black Garden itself to escape (the Vault of Glass and a simulation) seems to be connected to the massive Vex Citadel usually connected to the Vault of Glass that suddenly appeared in the Black Garden and has tangible proof of the Ishtar Collective inside.

As in, I believe they did manage to escape, in what for us is right now (or at least in a way that we could detect right now; time shenanigans with the Vex could mean anything honestly). I think that the appearance of the Citadel in the Black Garden correlates with their escape and that the Scatter Signal message is also something that came from the Ishtar team trying to give us information about the Vex. I also believe that this is a massive setup for the future content about the Vex and most likely the return of Venus in some form.

This whole year spent quite a lot of time reacquainting us with the Ishtar Collective: from Neomuna and their adventures in founding this secret city and their investigations into the Veil. Chioma Esi, a character that has existed in Destiny since the first game's release was finally given a voice and she and Maya Sundaresh were developed further and given some extra details to their backstory, most notably all the stuff we were told about Maya specifically and how much the Veil drove her mad. Not only that, but we were also given additional information about the Black Garden and the Black Heart, another point from the original game's first story that was brought back almost a decade later. Like a loop to the beginning.

The fact that it all ended with more stuff about the Black Garden and the Ishtar Collective is not a coincidence, I think. Most importantly, it's not the story that will be resolved this season and very likely won't be something we will be dealing with in the Final Shape. So this is setup for something after; about the Vex and their search for paracausality (and possible success?), about their connection to Venus and about the Ishtar Collective, perhaps even more about the Black Garden and maybe even Praedyth and the Vault of Glass.

As a quick summary:

The appearance of the Vex Citadel in the Black Garden - the original Citadel is linked to the Vault of Glass and is located on Venus. Somewhat related to this, this season Oracles appeared outside of Vault of Glass and were shaping themselves into Pyramid energy.

The Citadel architecture is not Sol Divisive Vex. This is important because otherwise we would be able to just chalk up the appearance of this structure to the Sol Divisive shaping the Black Garden, but the Citadel is not their work.

Ishtar Collective symbol inside; not only linking to Aspect, but also to Venus itself (we got a lot of Ishtar content this year in general, starting even before Lightfall, with Spire of the Watcher dungeon in Season of the Seraph, just before Lightfall, as an intro to the story of Ishtar and founding of Neomuna)

Several mentions of Venus, indirectly (the Citadel, Ishtar Collective) or directly (mentioned in one voice line linked to the history of the Ahamkara in the system, and also in the mysterious mention of an incredibly niche character of Albios, also in context of the Ahamkara history in the system)

All of this points to some Vex heavy content coming post-TFS with a strong connection to Venus and the story of the Ishtar Collective (perhaps their simulations) and some possibility of Praedyth and more about the Vault of Glass. Pretty much everything discussed here and everything the Vex have been doing for years is likely not getting resolved in TFS as the primary problem for us in TFS will be the Witness.

But once the Witness is gone? I'm pretty sure we will be finally moving on to the Vex and possibly their grasp of paracausality. We might be forced to go back to Venus and dig up more information about them, perhaps even reach out to the Ishtar simulations, if they've escaped (which I believe they did, given what we've seen at the end of Starcrossed).

Obviously this will likely be happening in Episodes, probably the first one, given what we've seen about it so far; it is called Echoes and has something vaguely Vex-shaped as a placeholder image. Not only that, but it's covered with plants that have reminded me of Venus ever since it was first shown. Note that none of this is still final and this placeholder image was shown to us before all the troubles with layoffs and delays. But it seems like the general idea will have to remain the same because of all the hints and setup about Vex content we've gotten so far, especially with these open questions at the end of Starcrossed mission.

We don't know yet how big Episodes will be which obviously makes it impossible to make any kind of prediction on what the stories in them might be able to cover and how extensive the content will be. Especially how likely it is to get a whole location like Venus back, not to mention that there are still questions about other Vex-focused locations; for example, are there plans to expand on Nessus and are there plans to also deal with Mercury?

Obviously I would love to deal with Mercury first and foremost (we know Bel), but I think most of everything we've seen through this story and through the hints and setup points to Venus and the return to some of the original unanswered questions in the lore. I'm really excited for the possibility that we'll get more information about the Ishtar team and about what truly happened to their simulations. I'm also excited for the possibility that there might be more information about the Vault of Glass and the Black Garden and the Black Heart (for which I think that the Vex have been trying to rebuild or fix in some way). It would be a neat way to create a circle back to the start of the story, especially since it's dealing with the Vex and time travel shenanigans. I'd really love if the story of the Vex forced us to metaphorically go back to the start of the story and look at everything we've seen so far with a new perspective.

I've gone to a lot of different points in this post, but I hope it makes sense. There have been some really interesting background infodumps and discussions in the lore and character interactions about the Vex and their impact on the world, overshadowed by the fact that we have much bigger imminent problems to deal with. This incidentally also gave Vex enough time and space to do their thing unsupervised. They've had enough time to observe us and other paracausal entities (such as the Ahamkara and the Witness and the Traveler), we've given them plenty of information about Guardians (the fact that we deposit our "paracausal sparks" into Vex receptacles in the Black Garden during Starcrossed is quite concerning) and they've evolved enough to begin shaping themselves with Darkness resonance, and they've never had more information about simulations and prediction.

The Vex have taken their time to catch up with us and they've been especially prolific during Season of the Wish while our attention is directed elsewhere, even with them being directly involved. I'm super excited for whatever they have planned for Vex stuff after TFS and they've given us plenty of content to speculate about it until it releases!

[savior-of-the-ink]

The community: You do know that Calus is probably done for, right...? Like, there is no way Bungie is finding a way to bring him back.

Me, firmly holding onto the belief that the "Cemaili" Calus calls upon his death is actually the Ahamkara the royal trinket belonged to and that he might have used the wishes' mechanics to trick us like Riven did back then: 🎵🎶Just know I'll be here...

Waaaaaaaaaaitiiiiiiiiing...

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaitiiiiiiiiiiiing— 🎶🎵

[ahamkara-apologist]

eido reading the inheritance cycle and coming across some very interesting parallels to dig deeper into. did early humans have instinctual knowledge of the traveler? is it a coincidence? did the traveler grant humanity the bond they desired most? so many questions...

Oh Eido would 100% think that there was some magical bond with the Ahamkara going on before someone explained that it was mythological storytelling sbfndn. Though with her what I can imagine is her poring over dragon books and writing up a bunch of notes on human values in storytelling, which oftentimes points to how much humans want to bond with big scary things that really have no buisness pairbonding with tiny little primates. She'd probably write a whole thesis statement about the inherent lonliness of humanity and how it may have been that quality which made them ideal for first partnership with the ghosts, which would do numbers among the warlocks's theological circles and spark hot debates on vannet that she's entirely oblivious to

[laurarolla]

So Destiny 2, yeah? There's an element I've seen running through this season that, when combined with a common theory of how we will cross through the portal into the Pale Heart, gives me an idea about a possible old detail that could be important next season.

This year, each season sees the Guardians and their allies using dangerous powers to overcome a substantial challenge, pushing themselves to their limits in the process but pulling back from the edge just in time. Mara Sov empowers us with access to the ascendant plane that puts substantial strain on her, Sloane uses her partial taking to facilitate communication with Ahsa at the risk of being driven mad by Xivu Arath, Eris Morn becomes the Hive God of Vengeance while refusing to give in to the temptation of dominating the whole of the Hive in perpetuity, and next season, the big prediction is that we will use the incredibly dangerous Wish magic to open the portal to the Pale Heart.

I'm left to wonder if the dead ahamkara have the power to actually help us in this case, as while their magic continues after death, it seems far less powerful. But what if there were a living ahamkara to help us, or rather, a soon-to-be living one?

Credit to @thefirstknife for snapping a picture of this:

In the middle of this room, only in the game during Season of the Lost about two years ago, is the last egg of Riven, the last ahamkara. Fynch's little conspiracy theory from The Witch Queen campaign was right: there is one left. And while this little detail is years old by now... this is Bungie we're talking about. They wouldn't put this here without some idea for it, and they hopefully wouldn't forget it when the perfect opportunity to use it rolls around.

After all, what could be a more fitting way to push dangerous power to the limit than to entrust our future to a godlike child?

[imonthemoonitsmadeofcheese]

Destinytober24: Day 17 - Fragmented

...it might have been a nightmare.

Link to Ao3 if you prefer to read it there

It's dark and the air is thick with moisture. That's the first thing the Drifter notices.

There are frogs and draperies of moss-like vegetation. The water sparkles, glowing. Wait. Is it water?

No. That's not water. That's Radiolaria.

The Drifter looks around, his eyes adjusting to the gloom. There's angular stone protrusions all around. This is definitely Nessus. The malachite green glow of Soulfire appearing down a nearby tunnel causes him to rest his hand on Trust, but moments later he relaxes because it's just Eris.

"Hey, Moondust," he says as she steps out of the tunnel. She doesn't answer him. This is not unusual, but her complete lack of reaction is a bit odd, as though she didn't hear him. Eris Morn has excellent hearing. Usually she will sigh or make some other dismissive noise to acknowledge him if she is purposely focusing her attention elsewhere.

"Eris?" The Drifter asks. She turns to the side, examining the wall.

The Drifter walks over to place his hand gently on her elbow. "Hey, Three-Eyes, whatch'a doin'?"

She stills at his touch, tilting her head. "I miss you, Rat," she says, her voice suffused with sadness.

"Well, good thing I'm right here."

"Would that you were," she speaks dispassionately.

"No, seriously, I'm right here, lover." He reaches out a hand to brush his fingertips against her cheek, not minding the coolness of her paracausal tears sliding along his skin.

Her three eyes dim and she leans into his touch. "You feel so real." There is pain in her voice. Sorrow.

"I am real, lover, I'm literally standing in front of you touchin' your face."

"I had thought the pyramid on Luna bringing back my dead fireteam to torment me was the greatest psychological torment that could be inflicted upon me. But this… you here now… the physical ache of your absence, the memory of your touch, the longing to hold you again… this is worse."

The Drifter stares at her in confusion. A nessus frog splashes into a pool of radiolaria behind them.

Eris catches her breath. Before him in the dim lighting black diagonal lines appear on her face and body, like long parallel cracks.

"The end then," she whispers.

"What?" he asks.

His throat clenches in horror as the black lines along Eris' face begin to widen and slide against each other, splitting her apart, fragmenting her slowly in front of his eyes.

"Would that I were with you…" Her voice is becoming more and more distorted. "I did not wish to go through it alone."

He reaches out shaking hands to try to push the pieces of Eris Morn back together, like squaring a messily stacked deck of cards. The pieces of Eris slide against his fingers and move farther apart.

"No," he whispers. He grasps wildly but the pieces of her are slipping, breaking into even smaller slices.

"I loved you, Germaine." Her voice is barely recognizable. "Why did you leave me behind?"

"Eris!" He screams her name as though if he is loud enough it will solidify her identity and knit her back together again.

The pieces of Eris Morn collapse into a heap on the ground at his feet with a sound like broken dinner plates. Her Ahamkara bone hovers a moment in the air, whole, before it, too, falls down with a loud crunch, shattering bits of her with its landing.

The Drifter sinks to his knees and grabs the orb in both hands. "Bring her back," he says, his voice trembling. "I don't care what it costs, you bastard! Bring her back! I wi-"

The Drifter feels himself violently lifted up in the air and slammed into a wall. The impact makes a metallic, hollow sound. His vision goes white.

He blinks.

It's still very bright. A cool hand rests against his cheek. He closes his eyes and leans against familiar fingers.

"Germaine." Eris's voice. Her normal voice. Not distorted. "Can you hear me?"

He blinks again. Nessus is gone. There's no frogs. The bright lights are in the ceiling on the Derelict. He's staring up at them. He is lying on his back on the metal grating of a hallway floor.

A shadow interrupts the brightness of the lights above him. Three green eyes peer down at him, unbound. The scars around her eyes flex and shift. Eris' mouth below them is twisted in concern. Small short tendrils of hair dangle down like fingers.

The Drifter laughs. It is a painful laugh, tinged with hysteria. He begins to sob and tears well up in his eyes.

"You're ok," he rasps.

"Yes," she says.

"And you're alive."

"I am."

"And I am too."

"Yes."

She helps him to sit up. He rubs the back of his head. There is blood. He looks around. He is wearing a loose clothing for sleeping. Eris is kneeling beside him, wearing one of his shirts. It comes down to her knees. Both are barefoot.

Her glowing orb is in the corner across the hall. He looks at it in concern and back at her.

"Was I…"

"Attempting to make a wish, yes. I hope I have not overly harmed you. It was necessary for me to act quickly."

The Drifter glances around and his eyes rest on a bloody splotch on the wall. He pulls his fingertips from the back of his head and looks at the blood on them, then at her, and nods.

"Thanks. Has it… Has it ever done that before?"

"It has tried. It has never succeeded to such an extent in the past, but it has only ever really had myself as a potential victim. I will be renewing the warding. Perhaps my protections have become weakened over time."

The Drifter nods and leans against Eris. Whole Eris. Not split into pieces. Not left to die alone. He pulls her close and nuzzles his face into the scars along the side of her neck. She smells of wet earth tinged with vinegar. He focuses on her breathing and his own, her warmth and the feeling of her skin against his own.

Tactile. Present. Real. Grateful. Alive.

Link to the entire month's worth of prompts on Ao3, posted daily.

[destiny-aesthetics]

^ Page 09-10 of 'Cayde's Treasure Island Book'; A Copy of 'Treasure Island' by Robert Louis Stevenson, that Cayde-6 as turn into a makeshift journal.

-----------------------------------------------------

Destiny [Bungie] | Taken King [Collector's Edition]

[left page; top of page] The coast is different, beautiful and unbroken and timeless. It teems with new life. Every big brain in the system has their sights on the Academy. We were there for the Ahamkara, parasitic reptilian critters that appeared out of thin air. Inexplicable genome. New proteins. So much potential. And me? I'm there for her. Dr. Maya Sundaresh. She's poured into the research, on the brink of another breakthrough, focused on devouring every new data point. Brilliant. Driven. Beautiful.

^Dr. Maya Sundaresh Ishtar Collective ID card

[left page; bottom left] I can see her so clearly. Dark hair split into smoothed, shimmering strands fanning over her forehead. Gray irises blooming as she looks up from her work to see me standing there beside her. Realigning . . .

[right page] No She doesn't know me at all, doesn't even recognize my face even though I've been standing over her shoulder for months. I'm nothing more than a fixture, a required imposition. An unwanted necessity. I'm no egghead. Never was. Just like now, back then I was on a need to know basis, and the only thing I need to know is that nothing and nobody gets through that door and past me without at least three layers of security clearance and a whole lot of muscle. Still. I think about saying something. Saying anything. In a second my mind rifles through a trillion possibilities. But she's already turned back to her work. I shuffle my feet, straighten my back, and return to mine.

[zappadoodlecat]

a bit of speculation on the risen completely ignoring canon lol. mishmash of my own headcanons and some discussions in chat.

i feel like risen being Traveler SPAWN is something that isn't really explored in the story. the risen that haven't been socialized to humans probably are right out here in weirdness levels as an ahamkara and i think that the possibility of fae-like peoples could be so incredibly interesting.

like age-wise they were probably born old and never aged - or they age out of feeling like they should look older (Shin Malphur looking at all the kids around him and subconsciously going 'ah yes, aging'). risen appearance as something malleable and continually changing or something completely static to the point where you could compare a photo from 50 years ago to the present and see no changes.

risen but they're appropriately eldritch. imagine.

also speculating on why Zavala looked so young in his trailer vs in the game because it's incredibly funny.

risen getting wrinkles and eyebags in seconds flat depending on how exhausted they are. like mood rings but applied to a whole-ass human-adjacent being.

and then expanding further on the idea so we apply it not just to aging but to everything else. risen with no concept of gender, risen with concepts of gender but who change fluidly between genders. risen who transition and stay and risen who change every day.

maybe they even instantly change hair length so that every time they transmat the helmet on, the bigger hairstyles just fit! it'd explain some things.

and not just the outside but also internals as well!

i like to think that when ghosts first rez a risen, the fidelity of their organs remains and it doesn't really change until a risen starts actually thinking about their insides. baby risen die and you get the expected blood and guts and whatnot, typical stuff.

then they get older.

like this guy for example starting off with generally normal human-ish insides(1). then (2) becoming all piss so that they don't have to go to crucible today. after a few years(3), their insides are all weird glittery space themed and that's just the way it's been since.

some risen not caring about their insides but their ghosts do and then you get 1000+ comment space reddit discussions about how to create realistic kidneys.

risen! they're paracausal entities!

(somewhere out there is an old enough risen that has stopped looking entirely human just because they wanted to. possibly they have become their fursona.)

[viiridiangreen]

I don't wanna jump the gun & get hyped over nothing but uhhhh. "Warlord's Ruin". During an Ahamkara-focused season. Shaxx with his whole Ahamkara skull that hangs right above him right there in the Tower and hasn't stopped whispering since he killed it. The way he started singing Savathun's Song, the viral chant that possibly jumped onto him directly via the skull. HELLO?????

[crow-posting]

Increasingly annoyed that Mara and Petra constantly bemoan the curse on the Dreaming City when in Forsaken the corsairs admit they can just leave and in 'Season of the Lost' the Awoken built a whole new area without it being reset by the curse and in 'Season of the Seraph' we learned that sometimes victory is achieved thru defeat (in this case, leaving the Dreaming City) and in this season Riven admits she is no longer beholden to her deal with Savathûn and the curse is basically running on spite™.

Maybe I missed something along the way or maybe the lore has changed since Forsaken, but if Mara has the ability to lessen harmful effects and the corsairs have the ability to Hit The Bricks, they could totally make do with their current situation even if they can't undo the curse completely. Maybe evacuate the Dreaming City until Mara/the Guardians can permanently kick Dûl Incaru out of Eleusinia. Maybe convince Mara to finally give up on Eleusinia. Maybe take shifts on who's "stuck" and build devices that amplify Mara's power throughout the city, iunno, just do something other than relying on Guardians to kill Riven every 3 weeks for 5+ years??

*Yes I know Mara's powers have diminished since 'Season of Defiance,' but still. Do something.

But nooo, Big Bad Evil Ahamkara must be kvetched at during *every single Coil run* bc Light forbid that we (Awoken and Guardians alike) rectify the consequences of our own actions. 🙄

[elsiebrayisgay]

nobody was ready for this actually being a destiny blog (unless you, y'know, recognize the url) BUT

destiny new content destiny new content!!!

i am of very mixed opinion on the new seasonal story. it absolutely boggles me that people are TALKING OUT LOUD TO RIVEN did nobody read the manual?? she is showing SURPRISING restraint in not just causing intractable and unfathomable chaos the moment anyone opens their mouth. the wish wall exists not only as a form of language that is entirely void of semantic ambiguity in order to obtain the thing queen mara actually wanted to wish for but also because such a language is the only safe way to interact with ahamkara.

crow just being randomly on the phone with her and going "could you do x?" and riven going "do you... WISH it? ;)" is absurd to me because she doesn't need permission she can just ruin your day for looking at or speaking with her. anyway it's weird to see riven as just a normal person who happens to be an ancient and powerful dragon wizard rather than someone who, because they are an ancient and powerful dragon wizard, is totally impossible for everyone else to understand or fathom. discarding her whole thousand voices shtick! what's going on there! this season really just threw out all of the cool riven & ahamkara lore and is now treating her very differently, which will always grate on me as someone who has invested time and energy in the lore. if tallulah fairwind could see this riven now... unthinkable.

[thefirstknife]

Ok so there’s lore in the new shadestalker gear where zavala realizes he’s aging now bc targe is gone and his knee hurts. This is making me *feral* bc 1) we have no idea how long it’s been since Eris lost her ghost. Is she aging? 2) what about all the guardians who lost their ghosts in the red war? 3) Osiris is no spring chicken either

BUT also, zavala is *awoken* and even tho they’re not *immortal* outside of the distributary, they still live a LONG time (source, tower chatter I keep getting where some dude is griping that awoken don’t age “like people do” which is a whole nother thing to unpack) so, assuming targe was keeping zavala at peak guardian condition, he should have an absurd number of years ahead of him before he really starts feeling his age, right? 🙃

(Unless it’s bc he’s channeling stasis now? I’m gonna start a Pepe Silva board at this rate)

The thing with Zavala is that it's recent. I do believe that he still has A LONG life ahead of him, but the loss of Light is recent and the change must be really significant. Osiris, and especially Eris, have had time to adjust.

It does definitively confirm that Guardians resume aging after losing the Light. The problem that we get into, again, is the lifespans of humans and the timeline. If the lifespan is still longer, Eris wouldn't have aged physically significantly enough to change. Same for Osiris, not in such a short time span. I'd say it would probably take like 50+ in-game years for either of them to start visibly changing which is beyond the scope of the game (unless there's a timeskip).

There's also the timeline ofc. We have no clue how long Eris has been Lightless. Eris is also a curious case due to her involvement with various paracausality that isn't the Light: Hive magic, Ahamkara magic, even Darkness. It's hard to tell with her.

But besides just physical appearance, which I don't think would change drastically in shorter time periods (so not for Zavala or Osiris yet, and Eris is younger than them both so for her it would take longer), the physical effects that can't be seen are there. Both Eris and Osiris have been mentioned feeling their mortality and age.

Either way, Zavala is definitely feeling it right now because he's new to this and not used to it. He's been a soldier his whole life and is used to activity and all-nighters and not really caring about health or injury. I can imagine he's putting the same strain on himself as he did before, without realising that now he can't just look up to Targe to quickly fix these ailments. So it'll be a steep adjustment curve for him. Which is also why he needs a break (and is getting one in the lore tab!).

It's definitely not something that is an imminent danger to him, he still has a long life to live, he will just not be able to do the same things without consequences. Kinda interesting for him in particular because of what he learned with Safiyah about healing and medicine; things he didn't need before, but now he does. Feeling normal about it.

[braindamagedrizz]

The urge to have my character adopt the 'O' [subject] mine' phrase post-corruption, but like Taranis' version of it where he excludes the 'mine'. In general he might talk alot like higher-powere paracausal beings because he was once part of one before the guardians defeated it, I just think its a nice detail. He addresses people with it, and they originally thought he was replaced by an ahamkara since the whole Season of the Wish would have passed. But eventually settles into just another weird trait of him he didn't have before.

[oerismine]

Hello again!!! Can I ask about Felderwynne?? What is he like? :D I adore fey characters so much!!

Hihi! I'm appreciating this back and forth we have :D

Ok so Feldy (a nickname he hates but he deserves it because he's a bitch :D) is an Ahamkara, a wish dragon

Not all Ahamkara are the monkey-paw, twist your wishes types, but he for sure is for people he doesn't like

He has his own blorbos too! His first was the character he was kinda made for, a paladin one of my players made called Xaphaniel (or just Xaph). They collected the three remaining parts of him over that campaign, back when he was still called Fassung. First, his Fassung's Fingers, allowing them more Lay on Hands and turning it into a Bonus Action. Got a lot of use, that Lay On Hands :D

Anyway they went from level 5 to 20 together, and eventually that party fought (and beat) a living Ahamkara - oh shit I forgot to mention the death thing! Ahamkara can linger in their remains even after death, leading some to believe that their bones cause hallucinations. They don't, but bones that talk to you inside your brain is a bit unusual :D

So the enemy Ahamkara - It Of Many Names - was fought by the Bandits' Bane, the player party. Xaph's player and I arranged a thing for it too. Xaph accidentally wished the Bandits' Bane could just kill them already, which It twisted into a perverted form of immortality: the Bane and Itself would reincarnate over the whole timeline, meaning It Of Many Names would get to live for aeons, but it would always die at the hands of the folks in the Bandits' Bane

Naturally, Feldy is involved too, and often works at getting the group together to deal with It. His opinion shifts on the villain, but most of the time he doesn't even give a shit about them, he just wants his blorbos back :D

Some people he isn't keen on, but his Paladins like them, so he has to deal with them. He pokes at them a lot, like a kid tapping on the glass at a zoo, trying to get them to fuck up and make wishes he can twist to get rid of them :D

Currently, in a game on hiatus unfortunately, he's with Wynn, another Fey, coincidentally. She's very murder-happy and very gay, and he enjoys her violent side a lot.

He wants more and more little mortal playthings, which he's able to do thanks to Wynn's kills getting sent to his fraction of the Feywilds, combined with the Wishbane Coven, a group set up by Xaphaniel to help prevent unfortunate wishes like the one they did

That wish that immortalised the Bane and It Of Many Names caused such a distortion of reality that the majority of the world changed, and the new world doesn't know the full extent of the changes, but they know about it even 2000 years later, calling it The Cataclysm

The country it happened in was affected the least, with the rest of the disc (flat earth settings are neat :D) being more affected the further from the country of Skorrain they are

So in summary: Felderwynne is an obsessive little dead guy who grants wishes, is bitchy, has blorbos, and enjoys a good fight far too much and he's by far one of my best characters. He also leans on the fourth wall, knowing things he shouldn't and poking at the players too

[ahamkara-apologist]

Okay I kinda get being dissapointed at how they rushed the Sov sibling reconcilliation with just one conversation after drawing it out for months but y'all...this really isn't the end-all-be-all of Crow's character arc, nor is it necessarily out of line for him. His biggest weakness is that he's a bleeding heart who lets people walk all over him- remember how he decided not to get revenge on Spider despite Spider very literally keeping him as a slave? Or how he killed a psion because he was too empathetic to a hive guardian? As much as I love him, and as much as his love is a terrifying force when weilded correctly, he's soft and weak. He always has been. He was bound to forgive Mara eventually, esp. since they have a psychic twin bond going on.

I think y'all are also forgetting the fact that Mara has had quite a bit of character development over the past year or so and has very notably been more open about her emotions and better about keeping herself out of Crow's life- because she got bitchslapped by the reality of what she'd done to him in Season of the Lost and then got shaken to the core by her confrontation with the Witness in Witch Queen. She hasn't been 'defanged', she realized that the way she was acting qualified her to be a Disciple (aka the worst of the worst, the enemy she'd been hellbent on fighting this whole time) and that in tandem with Crow's rejection upset her deeply enough for her to change her behavior, which hasn't been as apparent until now. Idk how y'all can forgive how Uldren Sov slaughtered hundreds of Awoken citizens and wreaked havoc on the Reef but is changed as Crow without also acknowledging the fact that Mara herself changed as well. It's not as dramatic of a difference because it happened more gradually and without intervention from a Taken Ahamkara and the Traveller, but its still there and is the most apparent its ever been right now. It wouldn't surprise me if the reason why Crow is forgiving her now- apart from the fact that he's a softie and discounting potential Riven bullshit- is because she's proven she's changed by both keeping her distance and being more emotionally open with him, as well as open about how she knows she fucked up. That's the second thing Uldren wanted other than her approval, after all.

Also, it's been like, 2 years of Crow being pissed at Mara and avoiding her, so them starting to make up now is kinda necessary even if it feels a bit rushed. I personally would have loved to see more snark and nettling from Crow's end, bc I love conflict and sibling angst, but it really isn't out of character nor is it throwing away Crow's character arc. It would have if Mara hadn't changed, but she has. And while I myself love storylines where victims don't need to forgive their abusers and can exert their wrath upon them as they wish, the fact of the matter is that how such a situation needs to be dealt with varies immensely on a person-to-person basis, which the writing team has already proven they're capable of understanding. Just look at Calus's and Caiatl's relationship! That ended with no reconcilliation because Calus simply refused to change, while Mara has spent the past year trying to get Crow to feel comfortable with her as an equal in conversations and open up to him more and trying to break her habit of watching him like a hawk- aka, acting like an actual sister rather than the pseudo-mother figure she'd picked up from Osanna. Ofc Crow the softie is going to respond to that, esp. since he's got a psychic connection to her via Awoken Twin Magic and seems to have been walking Uldren's memories as of late. He just genuinely is really fucking bad at holding a grudge.

(And while its easy to go 'oh the writing is lazy and rushed', I also think its kinda sus that Riven specifically talks about the human wish to reconnect with family right after the Sov sibling talk happens. It wouldn't surprise me if she picked up on Mara's desire to reconnect with her brother and pushed Crow towards forgiving her. It seems like she's been trying to pull Uldren's memories to the forefront everytime she talks with him and that could be a big factor as to why he's been reflecting on them a lot recently)

[captainstarcruiser]

Vanguard Guardian OC Description

Name: Crimson-9

Nicknames: Crimson, Crim, Red, 9, or (Gambit title) Red Dot.

Pronouns: He/Him

Class: Exo Hunter

Subclass: Solar/Golden Gun and Stasis/Silence and Squall

Ghost: Bun.3 (pronounced Bunny) her shell is the Year of the Rabbit Shell.

Revival spot: EDZ Forest

Age: 25 (29 after revival)

Personal Trinket: MP4 made with salvaged Golden Age technology and these enemies: Fallen, Cabal, Vex.

Preferred Tools of Trade:

Häkke Brand

Suros Brand

Heliocentric QSc

Ammit AR2

Breakneck

Come to Pass

Coronach-22

IKELOS_HC_v1.0.3

IKELOS_SR_v1.0.3

IKELOS_SMG_v1.0.3

Herod-C

Albruna-D

Crux Termination IV

Tarnation

Hullabaloo

Half-Truth

The Other Half.

Exotic Favorites:

Sunshot

Borealis

Suros Regime

Forerunner

Monte Carlo

Ace of Spades

Hardlight

Polaris Lance

Quicksilver Storm.

Bio: Known as the Exo Hunter Crimson-9, he spent time with Cayde-6 on and off the field in order to learn his tricks and skills for the field. He usually sticks to the Hunter groups due to sharing more in common with them. From time to time he works with other classes when he's looking to make quick glimmer or resources for his purchases.

He enjoys music and food more than any exotic he's gathered.

Especially from a hole in the wall diner in the city run by an Exo and Awoken couple, known popularly as The Grease Bucket. They make the thickest, greasiest, and tastiest burgers and chili-cheese fries in the whole city.

As for Crim's taste in music, he has a collection that spreads down to the oldest traces of music, before the Traveler and Golden Age. He loves old school jazz, death metal, dubstep, and for his usual meditation sessions: Japanese Hot Spring Music.

Crimson-9 has a troubled past, involving the Red War and his time being lightless. Eventually his team ended up leaving him behind during a raid on the moon in the Hive sector. His only way to cope with the memory is his music, and meditation.

He hates Hive, with a seething passion. Anything that resembles the Hive, causes his mood to sour. Once he leapt onto a giant Hive Knight Boss and stabbed it in the head over and over till it fell, just because his team took too long to kill it.

The time he spent wandering the Hive zones after his fireteam abandoned him caused him to have nightmares of his time down there. Some nights it's just him being chased by cursed thrall, but the worst is when a curse of Hive decay slowly overtakes his body. He picks at and cracks off all the growing decay till he sees his face fall apart into a hideous ugly screaming thrall.

His likes:

The Grease Bucket

Modded MP4

Music

Pet Ginger Cat named Amber

Dancing

Meditation

Side Arms

Hand Cannons

Spending time with people

Drawing citizens of the Last City

Video Games

His Ship: Mayfly

Collecting every shader he can find

Collecting Gemstones

Collecting Sparrows and Skimmers.

His dislikes:

Hive

Bugs

Spicy and Bitter Stuff

Screams of Pain

Wasting Resources

Arc attacks

Raw Tomatoes

He had a strong silent type of demeanor, usually because he is listening to his music or focused on the battle. He'll open up if you offer food, a clone of your music for his collection, and his favorite drink at the Glimmer Glint Bar, which is a Sweet Wish Stasis, named after a famous Hunter who used Ahamkara-Stasis based weapons on their battles.

He had a secret nerdy when he's happy and philosophical side when he feels melancholy about the entire situation of the Earth.

If you talk to him about cats, music, food, weapons, or animals then he's ready to talk your ear off.

He's Pansexual, and a very tender lover. He knows which buttons to press, and loves seeing his partners reactions. From a cute moan to a squeal, it makes him feel warm when he hears his partner is being satisfied. If you treat him well, show some interest, and try to keep in contact often he'll stay loyal regardless of class or rank.

The only challenge you'll have when around him, is not dying from how critical Bun.3 gets when he's being himself.