#the most important thing about Eris/Drifter

[imonthemoonitsmadeofcheese]

Surgery

In which the Drifter requests medical assistance from Eris Morn.

Now with art from @h3xxthev3xx !!!

Link to Ao3 if you prefer to read it there

ACCESS: RESTRICTED DECRYPTION KEY: 7CP9SXMO2G$IKO-006 REP#: 062-DERELICT-AUDIO AGENT(S): AUN-326 SUBJ: RECENT VIP#1316 and ERI-223 INTERACTIONS - MULTIPLE RECORDINGS

RECORDING 77455.8 [BEGIN TRANSCRIPT]

“Hey, Moondust!”

“What is it, Rat?”

“Serious question for you. I’ve been thinkin’-”

“A challenge for you, I’m sure.”

“Aww… you ruined it.”

“Ruined what?”

“Can’t tell you now. Maybe later.”

“Clearly it wasn’t that important.”

“Oh it was, but it can wait.”

“Speak plainly. What do you want?”

“Nope. Not telling you now. The moment is gone.”

[END TRANSCRIPT]

...

RECORDING 77456.4 [BEGIN TRANSCRIPT]

“Hey, Three-Eyes.”

“I am returning your call. Your message said it was important.”

“Yeah, so, um… you do dissections, right? Cutting stuff up, like, medically? For science?”

“Generally, yes.”

“So you’d be good at using tweezers to pull bits of shrapnel out from being embedded in human flesh, right?”

“What have you done?”

“I was working on a grenade idea, more of a mine, really, and it worked! It worked real well, actually. I’m proud of it. Misjudged the range a bit, though. Made myself into a bit of a pincushion. Was wondering if you’d be willing to help me out.”

“You have a ghost. Use it.”

“Nope. Not gonna happen. But, if you’re busy, that’s fine. I’ll deal.”

“I… do you even have antiseptic there? Bandages?”

“Yeah, a bright light and tweezers too, just need you to be the hands.”

“I am on my way.”

[END TRANSCRIPT]

...

RECORDING 77456.5 [BEGIN TRANSCRIPT]

“Ow.”

Plink.

“Do you prefer I stop?”

“Nope I prefer you keep going.”

“Then stop squirming.”

“It hurts.”

“You have punctured over one third of your body with foreign objects. Of course it hurts.”

“Ow.”

Plink.

“Upon cursory examination, that appears to be a shell casing.”

“Yeah I threw some in there. Ow.”

Plink.

“And this one… a finishing nail? From carpentry?”

“Yeah, tossed that in there too, whatever I had lying around, really. Ow.”

“A metal screw. Not pointed. For fastening metal, most likely, but rather small. From electronics, perhaps?”

Plink.

“Probably. I wasn’t paying much attention when I stuffed the thing. Oh dammit.”

“This one is curved and deeply embedded. I am trying to be gentle but if I do not pull it out, it is just going to work its way in deeper. It looks like broken glass.”

“Yeah I put some of that in there too. Ah shit. Fuck!”

“I have extracted it.”

Plink.

“That was probably the worst one. Just a few more and this leg will be done. Do you need a break?”

“Nope. Let’s get it over with.”

“I would let you squeeze my hand through the pain, but I need both of mine to remove what you’ve done to yourself.”

“Yeah, I know, thought’s real sweet though. Sweeter than you normally are. You must feel sorry for me. Ugh.”

Plink.

“Have you decided whether or not you will ask me what you were going to ask me before?”

“Nope. Now is definitely not the time. Ow.”

Plink.

“I am curious as to what has you so reserved. You are not normally bashful.”

“Ow.”

Plink.

“I don’t… I don’t even know what that means. But that hurts.”

“I spoke too soon. This one is another that is much deeper than expected. You are bleeding quite a bit. I recommend we stop.”

“Is that the last one?”

“In this leg, yes. I have not yet examined the rest of you.”

“Get it outta me.”

“Can I convince you to reconsider your ghost?”

“No. You take it out or I will.”

“The cleanest way to remove this will be to cut it out of you.”

“Then do that.”

“Why are you so stubborn about this?”

“Because I am.”

“Will you at least get your ghost to give you something for the pain? I am hurting you considerably.”

“No.”

“What about alcohol?”

“I have plenty of that, yeah.”

“Where is it?”

“Second door on the left, back cupboard up high has the strong stuff.”

“Do you have a preference?”

“Whiskey.”

“In a glass?”

“Nah. This ain’t a glass kinda situation.”

“I will return.”

[END TRANSCRIPT]

...

RECORDING 77456.6 [BEGIN TRANSCRIPT]

“I told you I didn’t need a glass, Moondust.”

“This is for me, when I’m done. The rest of the bottle is yours.”

“I mean, the whole thing is mine, but fine, Doctor Three-Eyes, you can take your cut.”

“I shall, and the alcohol too. Now drink some of that while I clean up the rest of you and prepare the incision site.”

“You say such sexy things when you’re working. What? What’s that look for?”

“You are not normally this careless. What actually happened?”

“I am not in the habit of lying to you, Moondust. In fact, I don’t even know if I can. You see through everything. I do not think I have ever successfully convinced you something was true when it was not.”

“You are not in the habit of lying to anyone. You simply do not state the full truth, constantly deflect conversations, and allow people to believe whatever they want to be true without ever correcting them. It is what makes your methods of deception so effective.”

“You… you really do know me, Moondust. Ain’t no one ever been able to get in my head like you. Ow!”

“Drink more. You are still too sensitive for me to proceed.”

“Get me drunk, in a compromising position, and then stick things into me. I see how it is.”

“Keep insinuating that I’d behave in such a manner as to take advantage of you and you will be left to extract this distorted… spring? on your own.”

“I’m sorry. That was actually out of line. I trust you more than anyone. You know that. I was trying to make a joke and worded that way wrong. Didn't come out as flirty as it did in my head.”

“You are in considerable pain. “

“Don't forget the blood loss.”

“Drink more alcohol you… clumsy fool.”

“That has to be one of the gentlest insults you’ve ever thrown at me. You are being nice to me. What I was trying to say before was more that you are at this point literally trying to get me drunk. I might say anything.”

“Any confessions of undying love will not be held against you when you are sober.”

“Well there goes that plan out the window. How am I supposed to tell you of my undying love so you won't believe me when I'm drunk and I can deny it later if you don't feel the same way so it isn't awkward?”

“I have faith in your ability to be forthright and lewd without chemical assistance. And you have yet to show any reservations about being awkward in my presence so I doubt that is an issue. Also, drink.”

“Yes ma'am. Oh shit that stings.”

“Disinfectant usually does.”

“So let's say, hypothetically, I was truly madly deeply hopelessly in love with you, what would be the best way to go about getting you to love me back? Hypothetically.”

“Let me see the bottle. Not enough. Drink. Hypothetically, your premise is flawed, rendering the logic of the entire question unanswerable.”

“Come again?”

“There is an inherent assumption in what you have asked, hypothetically, which would itself be, again hypothetically, incorrect.”

“And what's that?”

“The assumption that I do not care for you already.”

“Wait what?”

“More. Drink.”

“Did you just say what I think you just said?”

“I said nothing. We were speaking hypothetically.”

“Ah, because I could have sworn you said you love me. Totally am starting to feel a buzz though so that may have been wishful thinking on my part.”

“Clearly someone who shows up in the middle of the night to remove foreign objects from your flesh because you are too stubborn to get help from your ghost does not have any affection for you in the slightest. You obviously imagined that. Do you have scissors?”

“Yeah, why?”

“I'm cutting off your pants.”

“Now I know I'm dreaming.”

“Hmmm…”

[END TRANSCRIPT]

...

RECORDING 77456.8 [BEGIN TRANSCRIPT]

“Are you ready?”

“Ready as I'll ever be to have a beautiful woman scar me for life.”

“You have more than one life. This is a non-issue.”

“Point.”

“I am beginning now.”

“Fuck.”

“Pausing for a moment here. I've got the object. I have a mostly clear path to pull it free.”

“Ok.”

“I'm going to have to wiggle it. This will be painful.”

“Eris Morn, mistress of pain, I submit to your will. Hurt me you beautiful three eyed witch.”

“Is it the alcohol or the pain that's making you so eloquent?”

“Probably both, plus that undying love.”

“Hold on to something that is not me. Three… two… one...”

[INTERMITTENT SCREAMING 43 SECONDS]

“Did you just freeze my ass with stasis?”

“To stop the bleeding, yes. You have needle and thread?”

“Yeah desk over there, bottom drawer.”

“And I'll find a pot within which to boil water within your kitchen area?”

“Yeah.”

“A clean pot?”

“I ain’t the one that leaves a burned wok lying around unusable for a month. I use my pots. They’re all clean. Trust.”

“Be still until I return.”

“You’ve got me frozen to the table. I couldn't move if I wanted to.”

“You're a resourceful creature. I'm sure you'd find a way if you wished to be free, but please don't.”

“I'm staying put. You say stay, I stay.”

[END TRANSCRIPT]

...

RECORDING 77456.8 [BEGIN TRANSCRIPT]

“You keep doin sweet gentle stuff like brushing your chin against the top of my head like that I’m gonna start thinking you like me or something.”

“It is difficult to express reassurance to you any other way when my hands are coated in your blood.”

“If I’m good will you nuzzle my head again? Or is it if I wiggle? What gets me more head nuzzles, Moondust?”

“Be still, Rat. You are messing up my stitches.”

“Anyone ever tell you that you’re weirdly good at sewing human flesh?”

“No, but I accept the compliment.”

“It barely even hurts where you’re sewing. You really are good.”

“Thank the alcohol.”

“I’m thanking you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“You know, there ain’t no one else I trust like this.”

“I know. It is an honour to have your trust. One I do not take lightly. I know how rarely it is given.”

“If by rarely, you mean pretty much not at all, yeah.”

“Are you going to tell me what you were going to ask me?”

“Now’s really not the time.”

“I think we have cleansed the last of your blood off of most surfaces and ourselves.”

“You patched me up real good. You make a fine surgeon.”

“Usually my subjects are not still alive.”

“You gonna stay and finish that drink?”

“I had forgotten. Yes. I shall. But first would you like help to your bed?”

“You and me in my bed? I like this.”

“Avoid putting weight on that side. You can, and will, rip the stitches if you exert it too much before you’ve healed.”

“I like this side of you, all sweet and nurturing. If I’d known you’d be this nice to me I’d… nah that was stupid and I won’t be doing that again.”

“Thank you.“

“Still proud of how well it exploded though. Gonna give some of them to Devrim to put around the farm. Should very effectively shred anything that comes to mess with the civilians. I really didn’t think I was in range. You know how careful I am.”

“I know. Sit. I will return.”

“You gonna come back and cuddle me? I’d like that.”

“No, but if you wish, I will sit with you while I finish my drink.”

“I’ll take what I can get.”

"I'd expect nothing less"

[SILENCE 8.25 MINUTES]

“Woman of my dreams, bringing me the bottle after putting me to bed. You really are the best, Three-Eyes.”

“Sit up.”

“Ok. Oh hello. You let me lie in your lap like this, you must feel sorry for me.”

“No. There is nowhere else to sit.”

“I disagree, this is half-way to cuddling right here. You like me. Ain’t no one sit like this with someone they don’t like.”

“I sewed your skin. That’s considerably more testament to me liking you than this, and this is at least comfortable for both of us.”

“It’s real nice. ‘Specially when you touch my face like that.”

“Hmmm…”

“I propose a toast.”

“To?”

“Why, to the most excruciating and intimate experience you and I have shared to date. The night Eris Morn sewed up the Drifter after he blew himself up.”

Clink.

“Hmmm…”

“You like it?”

“It tastes like… wood and paint thinner.”

“That’s just the first few sips. Flavour changes as you go.”

“Hmmm…”

“You should visit my bed more often, Moondust, it’s nice.”

“If you wish I will return tomorrow and change the bandages to make sure you aren’t getting infected.”

“I’d like that. You know… you could… stay.”

“And sleep with you in your bed?”

“Yeah. Don’t tell me that doesn’t sound real nice to you too. Not when you’re running your fingertips through my hair like that, like you’re already considering it.”

“Perhaps now is the time to ask me what you were going to ask me?”

“You sure those eyes don’t give you mind reading powers?”

“One does not need to read your mind, when they can read your body language, and between the lines of what comes out of your lips. You have not been discrete.”

“No, I have not. But, if you already know what I was going to ask you, what’s your answer then?”

[SILENCE 3.75 MINUTES]

“That… is worth getting blowed up for.”

“Please do not. Multiple lacerations and shrapnel from improvised explosive devices are not a prerequisite for my affection.”

“Can you let me know what the pre-”

“The pre-”

“The p-”

“You know, Moondust, it’s been a very long time, literally longer than I can remember, since someone was able to make my head spin with just a few kisses.”

“That is more likely being caused by a combination of shock, blood loss and alcohol.”

“Nah. Had all three lots of times. This is all you.”

“You’re trembling.”

“Yeah, it happens.”

“Let me get you under the blankets.”

“I ain’t cold. It’s just you feel so good. You feel so fucking good. Wait, where you going?”

“To take off my boots. Move over and get under the covers so that I may join you.”

“Oh hell yeah, you’re just making all my dreams come true right now.”

“Be careful of your stitches or you’ll bleed all over both of us and your bed.”

“Worth it.”

“Behave yourself or I will leave.”

“Yes ma’am. Ah shit, Eris, I can’t handle how soft and warm you are when I’m this drunk. I’m gonna cry.”

“You are inebriated and injured and I am choosing to stay. Alcohol induced emotional outbursts are to be expected and are a reflection of your trust, which is precious to me. I consider it an honour to hold you as you cry.”

[END TRANSCRIPT]

[sugolara]

♫ Ridin' round and round

Ft. Shota, Katsuki, Hitoshi, Izuku, Shoto, Eri & gn! reader

Synopsis: Born by dysfunctional parents, Shota Aizawa takes it upon himself to adopt a litter of kids to give them the best chance life could offer them. Or... [A family with different parents try to beat any obstacle that come their way, though they couldn't have done this without the help of their adopted father; Shota.] Cw: language, drinking, smoking, substance abuse, death mention, a bit of angst, quirkless! au, humor, slight sexual themes nothing to graphic, gender neutral reader!, updates once a month or so Honorable Supporting Cast: Denki Kaminari [The best friend], Kyoka Jiro [The friend], Eijiro Kirishima [The love interest], Ochaco Uraraka [The friend], Tenya Iida [The love interest/Ex], Mina Ashido [The friend/Ex], Momo Yaoyorozu [The love Interest], Hanta Sero [The love interst] & other extras that aren't important Music of the chapter: In My Neighborhood — The High Plane Drifters

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Later that day, school was finally over and with the breakup of Tenya and F/n still lingering in the air he refused to hangout with all the siblings at their home. While F/n was unaware of his refusal, they brought home Mina, Hanta, Kyoka, and of course, Denki. Along with them came Ochaco and Eijiro, but unlike the two who hung out in Katsuki’s and Izuku’s shared room, the others stayed in F/n’s. Since it was also a shared bedroom, the friends knew to keep in mind of Eri’s privacy.

On the twin size bed, F/n leaned against their headboard while Mina had their feet on her lap. The pink-haired girl always kept beauty products in her bag, so with a hot pink nail polish plush between the blankets to keep it from spilling, she painted F/n’s toes neatly. A toe separator was also neatly placed in between the crevasse, “I never knew you had this many siblings, F/n. You never told me about them.”

“‘Cause they’re not important.” F/n hummed out, knowing it was a complete lie. Continuing to read a magazine about staying healthy while eating Hitoshi’s bag of chips, being lucky that the tired male was busy with some after school club,“Plus, we only went out for like a month or two and we weren’t serious.”

Gloomy, she popped the dry brush into the bottle to apply more polish, “Still, it would have been nice to know about who you live with. I already know Mr. Aizawa is your dad, but…doesn’t it ever get weird with so many siblings?”

Pausing from reading, F/n looked at the girl who continued to paint their toes. There wasn’t anything weird about having so many siblings, so with the question coming in mind, F/n’s eyes narrowed a bit, “What, you think we all love each other or something? Like some incest type of shit?”

Next to F/n’s bed and on the floor, Kyoka and Denki sat while Hanta placed himself on the bean bag where he placed it next to the other two. The three eyed each other. The question Mina brought up was always something that was brought up since everyone who knew the Aizawa family, knew they were all adopted. With that being said, lots—though mostly girls—have fantasization of the Aizawa kids. It was weird and they hated whenever someone they dated would bring it up with a shy gaze, like they hadn't just said the most disgusting thing ever. And when all that was said, it would mostly end with a fight; courtesy of F/n and Katsuki.

But, they like Mina and it's so rare whenever someone gets added to their group because of their dislike of everyone. Besides, Mina was just clueless about the whole situation, so to spare an awkward tension in the air Denki spoke up, “You mean like banging the same chick or being into the same person, right?”

Mina nodded, blowing on the paint for it to dry, ignorant to what the others were thinking, “Yeah, like do you guys ever have competition? I know this one girl that dated Katsuki and when she and him broke up, she told me everything about him and Shoto. Something about a love trope, I don’t know, she was, like, batshit crazy.”

Kyoka snorted, looking up from her notebook that had musical notes for a gig that was coming up, “She had like purple and blue streaks, right?”

“Yeah, her!” When Mina nodded, Kyoka glanced at F/n, “Wasn’t that the girl you dated to?”

Scoffing, F/n returned to their magazine, “She knew we were family, so who’s to really blame here?”

“You.” Hanta pointedly said, scrolling on his phone, “Because you did that to this other girl before she moved away—you all did it to her. Shit was nasty when she bragged about it.”

“Wait, even Izuku?” Mina smiled, “I know he’s into Ochaco, but I didn’t think he had it in him.”

“Nah, not that little twerp.” F/n said, closing the magazine, keeping their thumb on the page to not miss it while it rested on their lap, looking ahead, “We don’t go after someone we want to be serious with, they’re off limits. Just ask Izuku who threw me into a canal when he found out I tried going after Ochaco.”

Mina chuckled, trying to keep her hand steady, “How did that happen?”

“He paid Hitoshi to keep me up for two nights and when I fell asleep, he helped Izuku throw me into a canal.” F/n rolled their eyes at the memory, “Mind you, it was raining and the canal had fucking leeches.”

Going into his photo album, Hanta grinned, “You wanna see the picture Hitoshi sent me?”

“What, yeah!” Mina excitedly moved, kicking F/n’s feet that hit Denki’s head.

“No!” F/n quickly rushed to Hanta with wide eyes, “Don’t show her, shits embarrassing!”

The two trampled over Kyoka and unfortunately with Denki being placed at the end of the bed he had his head smacked by the feets that kicked away.

“This is the club?” Hitoshi, with a dead face that expressed wishes of going home and crawling into his bed, said. He stood on the doorway where he stared into the classroom of what looked like 2-A. The room was empty of human souls except for the two who stood in front of him with hopeful looks, “This is what you wrote me up for?”

Hitoshi said, looking next to him where Shoto also stood with his usual resting face. The bi-colored male had his hands in his pockets to keep warm from the cold room, “Neat, isn’t it?”

“It's an empty classroom with Tenya and whoever that is.” Letting out a sigh, the older male turned around, “Have fun ‘cause I’m out, Shoto.”

“No, wait!” Whoever reached out, grasping Hitoshi’s hand, “Please don’t go! If I don’t have any members then Mr. Nezu will shut it down! Shoto told me that he knew a lot of people that could join and this wouldn’t only help me, but also you! So, please, don’t go…stay.”

“...You know if I was blind and I heard this conversation going on I would think this was a love confession.” Shoto spoke before turning to Momo, “You don’t have to say…all that. Hitoshi and the others are going to join regardless, but for now I want some peace and quiet.”

A sigh of relief left Momo’s lips, “Thank you.”

“Wait, if the others are joining then does that mean F/n will be joining too?” Tenya asked with brows quivering, “Not that I don’t mind, but there are some ground rules that’ll need to be discussed.”

Closing the classroom door, Hitoshi rolled his eyes as Shoto dragged him into a desk, forcing him to stay glued to the chair until the club was over, “With the others joining we’re going to need a lot of rules.”

Nervously, Momo looked at Shoto as she held her hands to her chest, “So…you mentioned your siblings would be coming tomorrow. Are they going to be a worry…?”

“Yes.” Shoto nodded as he waved his hand, “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure their attitudes are in check.”

“Good luck with that.” Tenya and Hitoshi murmured.

“So, uh,” Hitoshi placed his palm on his chin, allowing his fat head to rest on it, “what club is this exactly?”

“Oh!” Momo grinned with eyes brightening, “I’m so glad you ask! This club is different from the others! This club…is a study club!”

“...Oh…great.” Said the soft disappointed voice of Hitoshi.

[missmirakell]

Hello!! I'm sure you can tell by my name, I am an avid shipper of Eris and Drifter lol XD I wanted to ask you though, being a fellow player of Destiny 2, do you ship them? I would love to know your thoughts and I hope you have an awesome day/night!

Howdy!

I love the Drifter/Eris ship! I may have even bought haykebyr's book for them 🤭

This got long and it's a lot of musing, so more under the cut!

For the two of them, aside from just liking their general dynamic, what I love is that they're both incredibly interesting characters on their own. They're both people have survived the worst, but entirely different situations. Drifter saw the ugliest parts of humanity, living through the Dark Ages, and the turf wars of the War Lords. Eris witnessed the full horrors of the Hive, taking their eyes and making it part of herself, never able to truly forget the hell that she and her fire team want though.

The two of them deal with their trauma in different ways -- Eris is forever tied to the Hive, and she embraces that. Drifter, on the other hand, has never been able to quite settle down. He was always on the move, as the name might suggest. His experiences taught him not to get too attached.

But over the years, they bond. Eris is very blunt with him, and she often sees through Drifter's games, but they still challenge each other's perspectives. They compare notes on things most people would never dream studying/using. They're not afraid to look into the dark, and seize it -- their methods are just a little different.

And how could Drifter not admire Eris Morn? This woman has fought tooth and nail to achieve her goals - she's never run away, never backed down, never wavered in the face of impossible odds! Plus, she makes guns out of enemies! That's cool as hell.

Meanwhile on Eris's side, Drifter's methods are a bit uncouth, yet they often yield results. His relationship to the Light is strained, so he's more than willing to look into and accept whatever she's working on. In fact, he often seems enthusiastic, where as she's often met with concern or outright rejection from others. Where Ikora continues to show worry for Eris during Season of the Witch? Drifter expressed that concern once, but accepts when she tells him she knows what she's doing. He trusts her. He just needs to say it once to let her know he's there for her if it becomes too much. And I'm sure after so many people questioning her methods, and the others around her treating her actions with apprehension, his trust must mean the world to her. In fact, it's in the way she's started reassuring others.

"Trust." Such a simple statement. When Drifter says it in Gambit, there's an air of mystery. A reassurance, but like you're about to get Monkey Paw'd. When Eris says it? It's pure affirmation. Maybe she adopts it because Drifter really hasn't done anything to betray that trust, despite how he says it. And it's really that trust between them that is SO important. Eris has to trust that Drifter has her back, and won't just make an escape when things get hard. Drifter has to trust that Eris knows what she's doing when she uses, frankly, frightening powers. It's really what their relationship comes down to -- they built that trust over years, and they don't back down from each other. They're not afraid to look and see what the other is becoming -- they'll be right there with them

And honestly, the combination of Local Witch and Wandering Redneck is the scariest and most hilarious combination of people imaginable, and I'm obsessed with them.

[sylenth-l]

Hello! if you dont mind me asking, what about Witch Queen's seasonal writing did you not like?

Hey! Oh boy, I'm really turning this into a rant blog, don't I 😅 I guess it may be summed up as progressing simplification and flattening of every aspect of the story, from its characters to the plot.

My biggest issues are some characters' portrayal, LOTS of poorly written empty dialogues and very uneven story progression, with characters sometimes acting like a bunch of total idiots for no reason other than for The Plot to happen. Some I didn't care about from the start and they just kept getting more irritating (e.g. Crow), others I liked before, but they suddenly mutated into something I can hardly recognize now (Eris most of all, Drifter and Big Red in a lesser amount), etc. I won't say absolutely everything was horrible, no, it had some very good stuff too: interesting conversations (mostly in the last season, which imo was the best if we don't take into account the moronic ending), cool cutscenes (I especially like the one about Saladin and the girl and ofc the O14 one), some characters are still just as good (Osiris, Mara and Caiatl make everything better every time they appear on screen, bless).

Also I must say that I'm not big fan of the current seasonal model in general. Imo, in terms of the story it creates very strict limits of things that are allowed to happen throughout the year (nothing too important or amazing, because soon it'll be deleted) and provokes not putting too much time & effort into the content, because again, soon it'll be deleted. It's not always the case, but sometimes it really shows. Only the last seasons of each year seem to be consistently impressive, maybe because they're part of the marketing campaign to sell the upcoming dlcs. All that is my personal impression, of course ✌️✨

[buginateacup]

It’s Gambit week!

Time to see what my eldritch space wife’s funky boyfriend is up to

[thefirstknife]

have you seen the biphobia going around about eris? its super fucking gross

Sorry, forgot about this ask in the middle of all the other stuff that's been going on. If I understand it correctly, this is about the ongoing discourse about the ship between Eris and Drifter. I'll go a bit in depth about this because it's been gaining traction recently.

I've definitely seen some biphobic sentiments, yeah. People are really weird when it comes to bisexuality and this fandom is not any different, unfortunately.

The thing to remember, however, is that there is no canon for Eris' sexuality. There is a lot of speculation, but she has never been confirmed as any sexuality. I personally believe she must be some form of wlw, due to the sheer amount of her close relationships with women; Ikora, Mara, Sai Mota, Eriana-3, the Awoken in general (who are a matriarchal society) and so on.

A post with some details on this + links to other posts about it. Not linked here, but this has been further explored in the Witch Queen Collector's Edition book where Eris explicitly says she felt an "emotional debt" to Mara, that they had some tensions in their relationship that "remained private," and that when Eris was wounded, Mara "treated the wounds in what I interpolate was a moment of reconciliation and perhaps genuine tenderness between them."

I find it hard to believe that Eris is not wlw. However, that could mean many things. She could be a lesbian, she could be bisexual/pansexual, she could be ace or aro or both with a preference for women, or biromantic or... You get the idea. We ultimately have no idea and we're only left with speculation.

More under for length:

Some people insist that she must be a lesbian and only a lesbian and that any other interpretation is wrong. I disagree with this! There are so many other options that people should be allowed to explore and we shouldn't insist that she is canonically and objectively one thing when we don't really know. Until there is an unambiguous canonical proof for her sexuality, everyone should be allowed to HC her as they please, as long as they're not entirely erasing her closeness with women.

The same applies for people insisting that she is canonically bisexual. We don't know! I see her as bisexual (mostly because she's my blorbo and I see my blorbos as bisexual). I don't have any hard proof that she is and neither does anyone else. Canon doesn't say either way.

While some people tend to have a visceral reaction to the possibility of her being bi which I would definitely classify as some form of biphobia, there's a difference between people just being biphobic and people expressing their disdain for how Eris' in-game interactions are now largely revolving around men.

As I've said above, Eris has always had incredibly important and close relationships with women. It doesn't matter which type of a relationship they are (platonic, romantic, queerplatonic). Eris has always been heavily surrounded with other women and relied on mostly women with her interactions. Some people are reasonably upset that this has been slightly pushed aside in favour of Eris interacting more with Drifter and Crow and Zavala, rather than women.

She wasn't present at all in Season of the Lost which Bungie explained as them being limited with how many characters can be active in a given season. This is reasonable to me, someone will have to be cut. I do think that cutting Eris from Lost was a mistake however, and that they should've at least kept some of her content in lore, if not in gameplay and cutscenes. It was one of the most crucial turning points that involved her long-time antagonist (Savathun), her long-time friend (Mara) and the people she feels closely connected with (the Awoken).

In Witch Queen, Eris was there, but her appearance was fairly limited and didn't involve a lot of interactions with Ikora, which is odd. Mara showed up again and had no interactions with Eris, again. Eris was mostly interacting with Zavala and Crow and, finally, Drifter who by far gets the most screentime with Eris and has been getting it since Arrivals.

From what I've seen, people are mostly upset about this sudden shift with Eris being mostly paired up with men in lore and gameplay, while her ties to women are either cut entirely, reduced significantly or kept for special lore pieces and then not brought up again for an extended period of time. I've not seen many instances of people just vehemently disagreeing that Eris should never be with a man and that it's impossible for her to be bisexual. Even if she is bisexual, her relationships with women should still matter and not be pushed aside.

Another thing that people have an issue with (me included) is the way some of her lore with Drifter is presented. I don't mind if the plan is for them to be romantically involved. I would be more than happy if my two faves were both bi and were together. The problem I (and others) have is that there's been significant backtracking in the lore between Eris and Drifter since they first interacted in Arrivals.

In Arrivals, they first meet when Drifter is ready to pack and leave the system due to the Pyramids arriving. He always said that it was what he would do when the Darkness comes knocking again. He has always been adamant about being ready to skip town when the main threat returns. Drifter is notoriously afraid of everything and traumatised. He was 100% ready to leave. Until Eris came to ask for his help.

The two sit. They speak. They listen. Linkages forged in Light and Dark of traded secrets as the Derelict hangs in orbit around the Earth. Pacts are made. Soon, there is only the silence of knowing left between them.

They connect. Deeply. They share incomprehensible traumas that have been going on for centuries and they're both people others distrust because of how close they are to Darkness, despite their best efforts to use that closeness to help.

Obviously, since it's their first time working together, things weren't smooth. They sometimes annoyed each other. Contact event dialogues from Arrivals and Prophecy dialogues often had them bickering over their different methods and approach to the threat; Eris is serious, Drifter tries to deflect with humor. It annoys her that he's joking, it annoys him that she is constantly doom and gloom. This makes sense, since it's their first time working together. It takes time to adjust.

In Beyond Light, they work together again and things are smoother between them. They still have their differences, but Eris admits that he is a good ally, a valuable member of the team, that his perspective brings a lot to the table and that they both understand the need for balance. Again, this makes sense. They've worked together for months at this point.

We don't hear from them a lot in the meantime, but we do get some minor hints. For example, Eris seems to have picked up on Drifter's habit to end sentences with "Trust." This would imply that they kept on communicating and that they've been friendly.

It's very strange when they get the spotlight again in Season of the Haunted and they are... bickering again. I thought they moved past that for the most part? It's been 2 years! In the Eidolon Pursuant set, Eris is uncharacteristically distrustful of Drifter, a man whose help she bet on to save the system from both Savathun's interferences and the Darkness itself. She even believed that Drifter would feed her rotted screebs, for some reason, despite the fact that they must've shared meals while working together on Europa. She is surprised when he tells her he wouldn't do that to her and that he is a good cook. She would've reasonably known this?

In this season, they've been bickering again on comms in a very childish way. They keep calling each other derogatory nicknames, despite knowing the other doesn't like them. Their relationship tends to jump all over the place from deep respect to childish bickering and back. It can be jarring. In comparison with the first lore I linked (Whispering Slab), it's so incredibly odd to hear Drifter mocking Eris for "calling him" when she is literally just speaking on a public communication.

Drifter simply isn't like this? And it shows in the lore tab from the seasonal lore book, titled "TRUST" as a callback to Drifter's catchphrase which Eris picked up on. He respects and trusts Eris. He is comfortable around her and minor jokes at his expense (and at hers!) are fine. He respects her space and her orders. He also thought of her and her expertise first to help them with relics.

I appreciate this type of an interaction that makes sense with how long they've been working together. It also makes sense with their personalities; Drifter really isn't the type to continue aggravating someone he respects and Eris isn't the one to tolerate someone being openly aggravating to her. She very clearly disliked Cayde for how he acted with her and she never backed down from her disdain. Drifter is similar in that he tends to use (and overuse) humor to deflect from his pain and trauma, but he doesn't do so when the other person is someone he likes and respects. He is especially not like that in private settings.

A lot of people dislike the way Drifter and Eris sometimes act like the classic trope of a toxic m/f relationship where they have to tease and hate each other because they're actually in love. It's immature and goes against their characterisation. I completely understand people who dislike the ship because this dynamic is being presented in lore sometimes and very often in fandom. That dislike is not inherently biphobic and it has merits especially when lore also cuts all of Eris' relationships with women in order to put Drifter in the center and have him being mean to her. It just makes no sense that Drifter would do this and that Eris would tolerate it. And it also makes no sense that she would ignore her close connections with Ikora or Mara in order to spend time with a man who is mean to her.

However, sometimes people go too far with it and instead of criticising these aspects, they simply criticise the idea of Eris liking a man. Even if their reasons are all I've mentioned above, the way a critique is framed can make a difference between that critique being reasonable or biphobic. Eris can like whoever she wants and her relationships with women aren't less valuable if she likes a man as well.

I definitely wanted to make a comprehensive post about the issue because some of the criticisms of this relationship are valid, especially when that relationship comes at the expense of us not getting more lore on a much more established friendships and relationships in general that Eris has with female characters. I think people wouldn't mind the focus on her and Drifter in the lore if we also got some new lore of her and Mara or Ikora.

It's important to understand what aspect of this people have a problem with, because for the most part, it's NOT simply about Eris possibly being bisexual. But also, people should be careful with how they phrase these criticisms because it can definitely be read as biphobia.

[plasmometer]

ISKA-2's MASTERDOC

so i decided to collect all info i have on iska in one post, prepare yourselves. iska-2 is an exo titan from tangled shore, currently living in sav's throne world. she's neurodivergent and a minor and has some cool survival skills, mostly travels alone. she's cheerful and somewhat naive, but honest, brave and really good at guessing anyone's intentions. not in a good relationships with the vanguad.

20 QUESTIONS

did this on twitter, will copy here

1. her ghost's name is saltpetre, and she's a thousand times more badass than iska herself

2. iska was rezzed on the tangled shore where her body was laying for a long time. saltpetre raised her almost from nothing. she lived there, in underground tunnels, for a long time after resurrection.

3. she was revived right after the red war, lived alone for ages, and then was kidnapped by a guardian and brought to the tower around season of the splicer. left again after season of the lost

4. iska uses arc only, because it's the most natural subclass for her and no one taught her anything else. but she learned some void tricks from lightbearer knights

5. she was very confused after the resurrection because saltpetre has begun to explain things and rules right away, not caring about her state of mind at all, and only thing iska wanted back then is eat sand

6. iska didn't struggle learning light at all, it was easier for her than use traditional weapons. light flows through her like a stream, and she has trouble holding it inside. you can receive electric shock if you touch her when she's sleeping

7. she doesn't remember anything but her name from her past, but saltpetre knows that she was a botanist from golden age colonial ship. she had a neural modulator to correct her mental state, but now it isn't working and no one cares about her that much to implant it again

8. she's too hyperactive and easily distracted to handle, so she's usually alone. iska feels more comfortable around aliens than other guardians and prefers their company, even if she has to establish connections for a long time

9. neither, because iska is afraid of drifter. she also is afraid of zavala, lord shaxx, mara sov, lord saladin, and eris morn (but respects her deeply)

10. she's totally ok with the darkness as power, but the witness and its disciples give her very bad feelings. she doesn't communicate with them nor interact with the pyramid ships

11. she's ok with the traveler and the light too, but she thinks a lot of guardians don't appreciate their gift enough. when she was resurrected, saltpetre gave her the rules that will control their relationships - no stupid things, no gross things, and no dangerous situations for the ghost. iska takes this seriously, she knows that saltpetre will continue her life alone if any rule is broken

12. despite everything, iska and saltpetre are in best relationships possible. saltpetre threatens to kill everyone who wants to harm iska, and iska respects saltpetre's gift. saltpetre tells that she rezzed her as a joke, but in fact she noticed iska's clear mind and honesty.

saltpetre has threatened to make a nice ghost-shaped hole in spider's head and called immaru "guardianless" she's a vile creature

13. iska was forced to be a guardian and she doesn't really want it. after the appearance of hive lightbearers she was really disappointed in the vanguard and left to live in the throne world

14. this is the most interesting thing, her nightmare is shaped like savathun. it is silent most of the time, just laughing at her struggles. that's why she is being questioned by the vanguard right now

15. iska's favourite guardian event is to land on a planet and survive for a month with nothing on hand. she may appear childish, but she is actually a very experienced ranger, she can use anything at her advantage

16. iska has no duty, she does whatever she wants. all the time. she enjoys making cave paintings, usually featuring her and important events in her life, or something she wants to happen. she communicates with aliens, success depends on the situation, but she's happy anyways

17. she doesn't interact with human civilians because she visits the tower rarely, but she has some connections with eliksni and hive lightbearers. she helps eliksni a lot, doing some tasks for them, and hive... it's difficult.

there is a hive technician, melakheth, who doesn't try to kill iska on sight. their relationships are far from friendly and they're still figuring each other out, but both are patient and working together building trust

18. iska could have all glimmer in the world, but she doesn't need any. cool rocks are more important

19. ISKA'S POCKETS

- a spotted rock - some herbs - a lighter - dust from unknown places - eliksni symbol of protection

20. iska's secret just before the exorcism iska visited savathun, and she whispered something to her. iska is silent and doesn't reveal her words to anyone, even her ghost. no one knows what savathun said to her back then.

fact!!! iska speaks eliksni better than human

REFS

painted this myself, sooo most accurate

without helmet

with helmet, front & back

FUN STUFF

you'rev

resurrection

tangled shore

throne world

iska and melakheth

more melakheth (last one is final design i think)

little things

that's all! you can write questions and comments about iska-2 in my ask box or how do you call it, i would be very happy to answer and illustrate

[moiralovestowrite]

A Titan’s Gamble Chapter 7

So…” Hawthorne watched as Ryan rummaged through the broken boxes of supplies. She knew there was barely anything there but the Titan was as stubborn as always. “You wanna talk about Cayde?” “No. No I really don’t.” Ryan replied blankly. There was almost no emotion in his voice. “...Is that why you’re tagging along with those two weirdos?” The woman asked, gesturing out the window to Drifter building a strange small machine with Moira handing him parts. With a sigh Ryan slowly sat down on the barn’s flooring and grabbed another box, beginning to shift through. “They offered to help me. Unlike Zavala.” “Help you with what?” Hawthorne asked, her tone deepening. Her eyes grew serious as she listened to Ryan speak. She trusted the man with her life but sometimes he did incredibly stupid things. Was this one of those times? “Look, it’s not important to you-” “You think you’re the only one missing Cayde? You think I wanted to hear that Zavala had to rip him from your arms as you had a mental break down? He was my friend too! Now you’re all I got so YES! This IS important to me! So let me in!” Hawthorne rose to her feet as her hands moved with her words. The woman cared so deeply for Ryan, he was like a brother she never had, he was family. She could see the strain in his body, the light beginning to falter. He was her beacon. With a loud agitated sigh, the Titan turned his head and gazed up at the Clan Steward. He looked so lost, confused. It was like Ryan had completely lost his purpose in life. “They know who killed him. They’re gonna help me...get rid of the guy. His name’s Uldren.” Ryan spoke in a quiet tone, tossing aside the empty box and reaching for another. “Revenge? Ryan, you’re seriously gonna kill out of hatred?” Suddenly the Titan’s fists covered in flames as the man rose to his feet, meeting the woman on equal ground. “YES! BECAUSE IF I DON’T WHO WILL?!” Smoke flew from the man’s nose as he breathed heavily, anger rushing through him like a hungry ocean. Hawthone took a step back, her eyes huge and her hands reaching for the sniper behind her back. With a deep breath the fire left Ryan’s form as his eyes filled with sorrow. “I’m sorry, it’s just...Cayde did everything for us. Helped us in so many ways and his killer is just wandering around, watching us struggle without him. Zavala has gone bat shit crazy because of his death and now the only thing I can think to do is get revenge. To do it for Cayde because fuck, he’d do it for us.” Hawthorne’s eyes saddened as she heard Ryan’s words. The man had lost himself in the dark, but maybe this was the answer. Either way, Ryan needed family more than ever. Hawthorne gently placed her hand upon the Titan’s shoulder and gave the man a weak smile. “Then we do it together.” Ryan smiled back, placing his hand on top of the woman’s, looking into her eyes. He could see her fear, her confusion. Would he lose her too?

Moira handed Drifter the final piece for his strange little machine. “Perfect. Alright, gimme a couple minutes and this’ll be up and running.” The woman smiled under her mask and nodded.  As she stood by the man’s side Drifter chuckled and straightened his back, giving Moira a look. “Means you can go walk around kid, Ain’t nothin happening to old Drifter here.” Moira didn’t trust the place. Guardian’s were everywhere and Ikora was already pretty clear she hated the man’s guts. Leaving him alone sounded dangerous. “I’ll be fine.” Drifter spoke again, feeling the woman’s worry wash over him. His hands placed themselves on top of the woman’s shoulders before he spun her body around and gave her a shove, pushing her towards the fountain in the middle of the Farm. With an annoyed grunt, Moira found herself wandering towards the stone fountain, her fingers slightly twitching with worry. Drifter knew the woman wanted to explore and take in the sights, sometimes he had to force her. As the woman reached the middle of the shelter, her eyes fell upon a small child. It’s arm was in a cast and the kid had tears in his eyes. The thing must have been so confused. The small boy was sitting on the edge of the fountain, sniffling as he tried to make sense of everything around him. Moira carefully walked up to the kid, she was horrible with children but something in her wanted to try and cheer the thing up. The child gazed up at the woman with the snake mask, startled by the sudden presence. “U-Um...Hi?” The kid stuttered. Moira lowered herself to her knee’s and smiled at the child through her mask. The woman gestured for the young boy to hold out his hand. The kid was confused but more than willing to obey. As he did, Moira wiggled her fingertips above his hand, causing tiny snowflakes to fall into his palm. The child’s eyes widened with delight as he watched what he assumed to be a Guardian make snow. “How’d you do that!” The kid asked with glee causing Moira to laugh. She had never made a sound in public before. It was nice, freeing. Suddenly Drifter snapped his fingers. Loudly. Moira’s eyes widened as she heard her boss’s signal. Shit. Quickly the snow vanished and Moira rose to her feet. Ikora was directly behind her. “So you can laugh.” The Warlock said with a smug grin. Moira’s body tensed as she slowly turned to meet Ikora’s gaze. The brunette made no sound as she came face to face with the Guardian she feared most. Ikora was powerful, smart, strong. When Eris had made Moira’s existence known Ikora traveled from planet to planet, attempting to find her. Thankfully the Warlock never found out what she looked like and after five years of searching she stopped looking, sending her hidden to do the job. Drifter had always warned the woman of her, how’d she experiment on Moira if she ever got her fingers on her. Darkness wasn’t welcome at the Tower. “How’d you do that dear? It was very pretty.” Ikora’s voice was tauntingly soft, as if the Warlock was trying to lure the woman into a false sense of security. It would never work however. The kid nodded and smiled brightly. “Do it again!” The boy squealed out, gently tugging on Moira’s leather robe. Drifter’s second in command refused however, staying silent. Moira quickly straightened her back and placed her hands behind her, standing at attention. She had no idea what to do. Drifter thankfully came to the rescue, the man placing himself between the Warlock and the Dark creature. “Hey, hey, making my partner uncomfortable. Take a few steps back alright?” The man wasn’t asking and it was clear in his tone of voice. However Ikora wasn’t scared of him. “Why?” The Warlock pushed, looking for answers. The man’s face changed from a happy con man to a killer. “Cause I Asked.” His voice deepened as he pressed a hand against Ikora’s shoulder and gave it a shove. He had no fear towards the Warlock, minus her big ass shot gun. Under normal circumstances, shoving Ikora would be a death sentence. Thankfully for the Drifter, they needed both of them alive to get the City’s people to safety. The Warlock’s smirk grew as she placed her sight’s on Moira. The woman could feel the Vanguard’s raw power flowing through her, she was completely terrified of Ikora in every way. “He has you well trained.” Ikora purred before walking towards Devrim. Moira finally released the breath she had been holding in, her legs slightly shaking. Fuck, this was gonna cost them. Drifter turned his head and gave Moira a harsh look. “The hell were you thinking?” The man hissed out, grabbing Moira by the arm and bringing her back over to his work bench. “You wanna get killed? That’s how!” Drifter continued to speak in a hushed tone, his face covered in worry. Moira’s eyes saddened as she slowly looked down at her feet, unable to even think of an excuse. Sighing, Drifter rubbed his forehead before placing a hand on top of Moira’s head. “I-I can’t lose you. Okay? Just play it extra safe...please.” He gently gave Moira’s head a pat before giving the finishing touches to his new machine. Moira’s lips curled into a soft smile as she slowly looked up and watched the man. Words couldn’t express the joy going through the woman’s body. Drifter was horrible with words when it came to his emotions, but it was clear the man had just said “I love you”, something Moira had been waiting years to hear.

After a tense twenty minutes, Drifter stepped away from his work bench with a satisfied look upon his face. Alright. They were good to go. Moira walked along side the man as the two went to go meet with the others. Ikora and Devrim had been talking about survivors, helping everyone get ready for flight while Ryan and Hawthorne had been loading up ships with what little supplies they had. “Good news.” Drifter called out, catching everyone’s attention. Ryan was quick to walk over to the man, giving him a trusting look. “They’re all ready for us, they got some Awoken tech witches or whatever ya call em ready to help the dying folk and some guns, more than enough to arm everybody, plus food.” Moira gently grabbed Drifter’s hand and squeezed it, proud of him for making the call. It was hard for him to do with his history of the Dreaming City. Ikora quickly spoke. “I’m surprised. But thankful. Good work. Devrim, round everyone up and get them ready, Hawthorne, get Holliday in a pilot seat.” With a nod, the two were on the move, ready to get things started. Ikora smiled gently at Ryan. “Do what you can.” The Titan nodded before he shot Drifter a smile. Drifter smiled right back before the two were left alone with the Warlock. “I wish to speak to your friend alone.” Ikora said softly, turning to face the Drifter. The man’s back tensed, his form stepping in front of Moira as she normally did for him. “Nah, I ain’t really comfortable with that idea.” “I don’t need you to be. You both seem to be scared of me, yet you have no reason for that fear. We are all on the same team right now.” “And when that changes?” Drifter challenged, Moira’s hands clinging to the back of his robe. “Nothing will change. You’ve helped us. I simply just want to know more.” Drifter scoffed and rolled his eyes, his arms crossing his chest. “You warlocks and always wanting to know more, ya ever realize that it’s one day gonna get you killed?” The man was like a brick wall, unmovable and unwilling to sway. Ikora’s smile faded as she realized she was getting no where. “Fine. However, my offer still stands. If your friend ever wants to speak alone with me, I’d be more than willing.” “I’ll remember that.” Drifter growled, watching Ikora walk away.

“ALRIGHT PEOPLE, LETS MOVE!” Hawthorne’s commanding voice helped people climb aboard the ships, while Guardian’s carried supplies. As the last few people and supplies loaded, Hawthorne turned to meet Ryan’s gaze. “You coming with us? Or going with them?” Her voice had softened as she watched the Titan’s eyes. Ryan turned to look at Drifter and Moira, the two seemed to be waiting but for what? Slowly Ryan turned back to Hawthorne and gave her a smile. “I’m...I’m gonna go with them. Do you wanna join? They’re actually pretty neat once you get to know them.” A sad smile crawled on Hawthorne’s lips. “I’m good bud. I’ll see you there I guess.” And with that, the Clan Steward climbed aboard the ship. The engines began to start and the Titan took several steps back, watching as it flew into the sky. Drifter and Moira both smiled as they watched Ryan walk over to them. “Hey hero.” Drifter teased as he gently punched Ryan’s shoulder, making the Titan smile. “Quit that or I’m gonna start calling you Old man.” Moira laughed and snorted as the group transported upon the Derelict.

The trip to the Dreaming City took longer than everyone thought it would. Drifter had everyone take a special route, one told by his friend in the Reef. It would keep them safe and hidden from anyone attempting to find something in the vast emptiness of space. They had no idea what Zavala had planned, it was best to play it as safe as possible. Moira had thrown off her leather clock and was simply wearing a dirty white tank top and black jeans. Her feet were covered by mismatched socks. Drifter had taken her lead, his form now free of his large robes and covered in a black t-shirt and dirty gray sweatpants. His snake necklace still dangled around his form as he let out a yawn. Ryan had removed most of his armor, keeping his large boots on. The man had borrowed one of Drifter’s shirts, it was covered in grease and oil but it was better than nothing. “Do you guys know what cleaning is?” The Titan teased as Moira brushed the knots out of her long brown hair. “Cleaning? Never heard of her, she sounds cute though, tell her to hit me up.” Drifter laughed as he drank water from his glass, or so he claimed to be water. “Yeah, is she into three ways?” The older man carried on causing Ryan to let out a snort. The Titan rolled his eyes as he relaxed into his chair. Moira’s ghost had been zipping around the Titan’s head, examining him before flying over to Drifter, booping the man’s form. “Ack, fine!” The man snarled out, swatting at the creature before his own ghost came popping out. The two made chirps before flying off. “Damn bugs.” Drifter snarled as he took another sip of his drink. Moira smacked the top of Drifter’s head with her hair brush, smirking. “Hey, be nice.” She taunted before she tossed the brush to the side, sitting down in the chair beside her boss. “So you do have a ghost.” Ryan said with a smirk.“Yeah, I call her Farah. I told you I had one.” Moira said simply as she stole Drifter’s glass and took a sip from it. Drifter smiled brightly watching the woman. “Yogi’s my ghost.” Ryan said softly as Yogi appeared, flying around the table. “Hah that’s a great name! Did he give you the name Ryan?” Moira asked, curious. “Yeah, said it suited me.” Drifter laughed and stole the glass back from Moira. “I guess it does, I woulda called you Freddy.” Moira let out a giggle as Ryan’s face twisted with disgust. “Freddy? Really?” “Well what would you call me?” Drifter teased, giving Ryan a look. The Titan thought for a moment before a sly grin curled on his lips. “Shit face.” “Wow, nice to meet you shit face!” Moira joined in, reaching her hand out to shake Drifter’s. The rouge smirked and took Moira’s hand, shaking it. “Hello bitch tits.” Moira let out a fake offended gasp as she ripped her hand away from her boss. “Dirty man!” She cried out, pointing at Drifter’s face unable to hide her smile. Drifter smiled right back, getting to his feet as he held his hands in front of him. “Oh, we doing this?” Moira’s eyes filled with fear “DON’T TICKLE ME ASSHOLE!” The woman cried out as she began to run, Drifter on her heels as he laughed maniacally. Ryan couldn’t stop smiling. A part of him felt like he had chosen right. This was beginning to feel like home.

As everyone reached the Dreaming City, Drifter, Moira and Ryan had slipped back into their usual attire. None of them wanted too, the group craved sleep. Moira’s head rested gently on Drifter’s shoulder as she struggled to keep her eyes open while Ryan couldn’t keep himself from yawning. The older man smiled as he dug his gloved hand into Moira’s hair, playing her long brown locks. With a sigh, Drifter knew they had to keep going. “Alright, let’s go.” The man sighed. Moira’s eyes fluttered before she yawned along side Ryan, removing herself from her bosses form. Ryan got to his feet, struggling a little with his balance. “Think we can get some rest when we get in there?” The woman asked in a tired tone while Ryan stretched his arms above his head. Drifter thought for a moment. Petra was far more willing to help that he had first imagined. It felt like something else was at play. Maybe they’d finally have a chance to sleep inside the city’s walls once they scoped everything out. “Can’t imagine why not.” Drifter stated in a soft voice, his body trying to fight off sleep as he watched Ryan and Moira struggle.

[drexodthegunslinger]

Why is it only Cayde you focus on? What about other destiny characters?

Okay, that’s a fair point. Let’s go shall we?

1: The Speaker.

Said literally three things in the entire franchise. He told you to fight but that we can’t win, he gave a speech nobody listened to because we were all thinking “is this it? Really?”, and then he told Ghaul to kill himself. Yeah the Speaker dies but who really gives a shit? We’re not given any reason to care are we?

2: Zavalla.

Apparently this boy does not understand promotions. “We killed all the Cabal leaders, why are they not gone?” Idk mate, maybe because that’s not how that works. “We stepped into a war with the cabal” yeah and you’re doing pretty shit mate. Sure he’s supposedly busy managing and planning shit, but really it doesn’t translate well in game. He might as well have two lines in the entire game where he alternates between “mah walls” and “we stepped into a war with the cabal” and he’d be the same.

3: Ikora.

Good in the crucible apparently? All she does these days is stand around looking stern and running an intelligence group that can be brought to a grinding halt by a fucking storm. Ikora, listen, if your satellites can’t withstand a storm they’re not much use are they?

4: Cayde.

TLDR, Bungie killed your fave.

5: Eris.

Creepy Hive lady. Very convenient for her to turn up in time for the Hive DLC’s and then disappear when they weren’t at the forefront. Will admit, I was mildly surprised she wasn’t brought back for the Warmind DLC because it has Hive. What did she really do though? She gave us some advice on Hive, had her shit stolen, and was looked down on by pretty much everyone. Only redeemable feature I can thing of is the rule 34 fan art of her which is great if you like generic rule 34 art where the woman’s chest and ass are exaggerated to shit.

Speaking of which, Bungie, I know the Destiny Franchise takes place in a period where food shortages are probably frequent, but mix it up with your fucking character designs. Not everyone is the same height and build you cowards.

6: At this point my mind went blank and I had to google “destiny characters”

7: Ghost.

Look at what the Speaker did. It took a multitool and gave it sentience.

The Ghost is really inconsistent, let’s be real. You want me to hack a lazer grid on earth, sure but that’s going to take precisely three waves of enemies and you’d better not miss one. You want me to access Cabal consoles on our very first time accessing the computer shit of an alien that likely has a numerical system that works off of base 3? Easy shit, no waiting involved.

Yeah, the “talk to your ghost” thing was great and honestly, I liked that. It was a moment for you to sit down ant talk to your Ghost, the one constant companion you have. It was a good moment.

And then they go right back to alternating between being a torch and a lockpick.

Bungie really fucked up with the Ghost-Guardian interaction in vanilla D2. The two of them nearly died, Light was lost, and the two don’t sit down and have a “talk to ghost” moment at any point? That’s theft of a possibly great emotional moment.

8: Crota

He is bad because he kills people

9: Oryx

He is also bad because he kills people and he’s mad you killed his son who he can bring back because We didn’t destroy Crota’s soul or something?

10: The EXO Stranger

In going to find the tweet I wanted I found something worse. Luke Smith had said he felt they had wrapped up her arc and quite frankly I haven’t heard a more objectively wrong thing come out of a human beings mouth with regards to games in a long time.

But it gets worse. Because 4 fucking years later, bungie dropped clues to who she might be if you paid enough attention to the shitshow of the Warmind DLC. According to lore from the dlc and the rasputin arg, there are hints that the EXO Stranger is Ana Bray’s sister who went back in time from the future as an exo to?

No, you know what. That’s bullshit. Bungie thought they finished the exo stranger arc, which was a shambling corpse of writing itself, then learnt actually they were wrong and tried to wrap it up.

Except none of it’s confirmed and explains nothing. Fuck the stranger, and fuck everyone involved in the creation of her character and her arc, learn how to write a story.

11: While we’re here, Ana bray.

Bungie’s first confirmed non-straight woman. I don’t know if it was confirmed if she’s a lesbian, bi, pan, or what so I’m using non-straight until I get confirmation otherwise. Had her girlfriend introduced on the fourth day of pride in a comic where she died. Great start.

But what about Ana herself?

Honestly, I couldn’t tell you. I tried to play Warminds but the Hive ruined it because Bungie is quite frankly not great at writing their own game are they?

12: Ghaul

Quite frankly, my favourite character. I dropped enough money on D2 to get the collectors edition cabal book which gave quite a lot of backstory to the campaign, however I’ll keep this to what Bungie actually make accessible in their game.

He’s an arsehole. He’s just the antagonist of the day, let’s be real. To understand that his behaviours and attitudes might somewhat stem from how he was shunned in mainstream cabal society and how this loneliness and bitterness from being an orphan as well as a runt was used to manipulate him into being how he is today, is completely lost on anyone who didn’t read his lore.

The game doesn’t put any significant thought into him on the actual disc that you play because, like Crota, like Oryx, like Skolas, he’s just an episodic villain.

13: Osiris.

Local Man Who Says He Doesn’t Need Help, Actually Needs Help.

How bad was this dlc? I mean, sure, we ran through the same area repeatedly, killed a Vex reskin of Oryx, and watched a Cabal jump on a vex. Twice. Once in a mission and again in a strike.

I can’t think of what Osiris did in this DLC except think he was able to do this himself, and then be the only reason we could damage Oryx- I mean, uh Panoptes.

Wait. Did they give a Vex guy that tries to simulate all the universes a name after an ancient Greek figure who was the source of the “eyes of Argus” stuff? I think they did.

14: Panoptes.

Bungie aren’t even trying at this point. He’s just Vex Oryx.

15: Amanda Holiday.

She has a robotic leg, an american(?) accent, and didn’t stop Cayde from doing his stupid bullshit plan that she knew was illegal. She also had a quest for an exotic shotgun that makes her different from other vendors. I get that as a vendor she doesn’t need an in depth backstory but Bungie, come on. If you’re going to make her important to parts of the story, give us reason to care about her.

16: Tess Eververse

Is there an actual ingame reason for her to be there? Is Silver explained? Is Bright Dust? As far as I can tell, no. Literally bolted on because Activision couldn’t let EA one-up them in microtransaction bullshittery.

17: Mara Sov

Cold, aloof, had fallen as pets. Was it confirmed how dead she is?

18: Uldren Sov

The only episodic villain I like aside from Ghaul. Uldren is great once you realise that he is how he is because of a bitterness towards Guardians. I mean, we turned up in his house demanding stuff, and the City on at least one occasion, let the Reef take a big loss for us with no acknowledgement. I can understand why he’d be pissed off in the first place and if he was somewhat possessed then sure that’s not going to help.

Most people are just pissed with him because he killed Cayde, but now he’s back as a Guardian that anger seems to have calmed. I’ve stopped playing the game since Warminds and I can’t say for anything that happened since, and while I hope Uldren as a Guardian grows as a character I won’t hold my breath.

19: Variks.

He stayed loyal to the reef and was helpful for a brief stint before we all shamed him for his mine dismantling kink.

20: Is that it?

I can’t think of anyone else. Sure, there are vendors and other side characters, but honestly, those are cardboard cutouts of a character with no depth of anything to them.

Sure, you could say “but drexmun, what about The Drifter, or the Spider, or Obb the Soulcarver?”

And I would say “yes, but two of those are from after I stopped playing the game and I can’t make an analysis on characters I know nothing about, and also you leave Obb out of this.”

[thefirstknife]

Yes!! And they're not the only ones either! Though Osiris and Saint are probably the most important as their relationship was and still is the catalyst for many plotlines.

Here's the most detailed post on it I have I think. Slightly outdated because it doesn't mention some of the newer stuff that we found out in Witch Queen such as Ikora and Chalco Yong.

As a list so you can go through the lore on Ishtar about these characters (I'll also note some details in brackets for clarity):

Osiris+Saint-14 (fully confirmed both gay men) Devrim Kay+Marc (husbands, alive) Hector Abram+Wesley Abram (husbands, from the Golden Age) The Drifter (bi/pan) Lord Shaxx (bi/pan) Emperor Calus (bi/pan) Marcus Ren+Enoch Bast (speculative, but heavily implied) Uldren Sov+Jolyon Till (speculative, but also implied)

Ana Bray+Camrin Dumuzi (girlfriends, both alive, Ana also had a girlfriend in her pre-Guardian life during the Golden Age) Mara Sov+Sjur Eido (Mara is alive, Sjur is.... okay, it's complicated, but it's pretty much confirmed that she didn't die "her final death" and that she will return in some way) Eriana-3+Wei Ning (both dead to the Hive, but arguably the reason we ended up killing Crota and Oryx) Maya Sundaresh+Chioma Esi (Golden Age wives) Eramis+Athrys (Eliksni wives! Eramis is currently frozen, but Athrys is alive still) Suraya Hawthorne (implied to be wlw) Eris Morn (also implied to be wlw) Ikora Rey+Chalco Yong (a complicated queerplatonic relationship) Lore on Karnstein Armlets Warlock exotic Common among the Awoken to be wlw (because there's more women in their society)

Also trans/NB rep: Oryx (trans man) Micah-10 (trans woman) Eramis (she/they pronouns canonically) Again, common in Awoken to be NB My most recent post about some minor characters that are canonically they/them pronouns

Honestly, all things considered, more characters in Destiny seem to be some form of LGBT+ than cishet.

Okay was no one gonna tell me there were gays in destiny? And they're the games most popular characters? That it's a beautiful tragic love story where they save each other time and time again and there's almost kisses and hand holding and never quite having the time to express their love for each other even though they so obviously do?

[imonthemoonitsmadeofcheese]

hi moon, just wanted to let you know that your fanfiction and other's artwork who i follow here have inspired me to make fanfiction. i've written tamer stories but i've also written nsfw stuff as well about eris and drifter. i don't run out of ideas but i run out of steam and motivation to write, even when it involves characters that i love to either draw or write about. do you have any tips to keep going if, for example, you run into an art block of some kind? how can you filter out junk ideas for a good one to write about? also dialogue, it is my weakness but you pick up their mannerisms really well based on some of your work i've read. any tips to get them right in fanfiction? thanks for your time

I cannot express how delighted I am that things I have written have inspired you to write - especially things with Eris and the Drifter. I hope you will consider posting them somewhere and sending me a link either on here or in DMs (or if you are not posting it and still want to share, I invite you to email me - my ID for gmail is the same as it is here, on Discord, and on Ao3.)

Regarding motivation: Writing is a muscle and creativity responds well to routine use of it and sustenance. Motivation is also like a small child and sometimes needs coddling and protection.

I have found the most effective way through blocks is to freewrite through them, By this I mean set a timer, get a pen and paper (not keyboard unless you need one for accessibility reasons) and write whatever comes into your head for five or ten minutes (the number of minutes can vary - I often go up to 20 but even five can be hard at first). Your job is not to actually write, and the words don't actually matter, you just need to keep the pen moving and are not allowed to stop writing words, and then you want to try and do this every day. The point is not to write creatively, it's exercise. Most commonly this begins with phrasing like:

I must write words. I must keep them appearing on the page. I must not stop until the timer ends. I must write. I must write words.

And eventually you get very bored of writing the same thing over and over again and start including other things. For me the most common thing I start to write is lists of things I need to do that are not done yet or lists of things that are emotionally bothering me.

Eventually you run out of things and/or get tired of writing the same problems over and over again and your brain gets bored and starts dreaming up new things. That is good. Let your mind get bored. You want that. Let it play. Grammar is not important. No one else needs to ever see this, including yourself. Ethics/morality is not important. This is pure brain-vomit straight from within. You are teaching yourself to have a conversation with your mind in a nonjudgemental manner. If critical thoughts happen you can write them down, but try not to focus on criticism because that is the enemy of creativity.

For when you're not completely blocked and trying to avoid becoming so, write full first drafts before going back and editing them. Editing engages a different part of the brain from creation and engaging too early can divert your focus and sometimes make it hard to get back into the creative mindset again.

Take breaks. Play games (if you're writing D2 fanfication, this counts as research!) or step away from the computer (or paper). Eat a food. Drink a water. Human bodies were not designed to write for long periods of time. Too much and we start to cramp up and have bad posture and this eventually leads to being distracted by pain.

Protect your creativity. This may be more of a depression thing than a writing thing but few things strangle creativity more than immersing ourselves in toxicity. I curate what media I ingest very stringently. I've had to block people who I still consider to be fantastic artists and writers, whose work I genuinely respect, because it's just not healthy for me to interact with them. Constructive criticism is healthy and good to engage with, but when you encounter a person (or a group) who makes you feel bad routinely, ask yourself if you're actually getting anything out of that relationship. Are they making you a better writer (or a better person) or are they just shitting on everything you love? Sometimes we stay in places (especially online places) that are hostile to us because we feel socially obligated to do so and it harms, not just our creativity, but also our self-esteem. Remember to evaluate these things routinely. Sometimes the reason you're creatively blocked is simply a symptom of something larger. Sometimes your unconscious mind is trying to tell you that it's being poisoned and you need to change your environment so it can breathe again.

Regarding how to filter out junk ideas:

There are no junk ideas, only poor implementation. And even poor implementation is better than no implementation. Write them anyway. You can always edit it later. If your mind thinks something is shiny, pursue it, no matter how 'junk' you think it might be. If your mind thinks something is junk, put it aside, but keep it. It may become shiny later. It may be useful in another form.

Do not filter your ideas. Pile them in a giant heap like a dragon and lie on them. Roll around. Kick your feet. Play. Let your brain be a two-year-old magpie and just pick out whatever is shiniest at the time. Be indulgent. Be decadent. It is your mind. You can have favourites. You can get bored and pick up something else. It's allowed.

You are also allowed to force yourself to finish something when you are unblocked (if you wish) but you may find that doing so causes you to be blocked. Be careful of that. Human unconsciousness and creativity is very cat-like. It gets bored easily and will often be contrary just to fuck with you. It will sit in front of a door, demand you open it, and then begin to lick its ass. It didn't want to actually go through the door. It just wanted you to open it. And that's fine. Let your mind be flighty. You are not on a time limit (unless you are being paid - then it gets more difficult).

In my experience, when you are blocked, or close to it, the restrictions need to come off. Let your mind play and pick up shiny things and get distracted by something shinier or different or otherwise weird. Treat your unconscious like an unruly child, give it breaks. Let it take naps. Give it a cookie when it's done eating its vegetables (but also let it have cookies just because). If you end up with 300 unfinished things that's fine. I, myself, have oodles of them. I look through them and often later find them shiny again. This is fine. Keep your half-done things. Allow yourself to make them and to have them. They are part of your horde. Go looking for more. Shuffle them around. Mix them. Throw them against different walls periodically to see if they stick. Sometimes two things are not interesting but when you put them side by side a third thing appears, within or between them or in reaction to them, that is more lovely than either of them could have been on their own.

When you are writing something and feel bored with it, ask yourself if maybe it's just that you need something else happening at the same time. Maybe this part could use some foreshadowing of something dramatic that isn't yet stated. Or perhaps another scene could be woven into and happen simultaneously with what is happening now.

I work very hard at my dialogue. I am delighted you like it. Some voices (such as the Drifter) come to me far more easily than others and for some (like Eris) I need to immerse myself in them to get a good feel of them. Yet others I simply copy and paste some of their in-game dialogue into a notepad file and then replace individual words until it is saying something else. Or I splice two in-game lines together to make a new one with existing phrases. I often work with a notepad of just copy-pasted dialogue from the game along side what I'm writing so I can use it as a reference for how the character talks.

Conversations also don't tend to begin at the beginning and end at the end. If more context is needed later, you can fix that when you're editing. You're allowed to just skip to the fun parts. You're allowed to have external things interrupt.

Sometimes I go stand by a character in-game that has idle dialogue (both the Drifter and Eris are lovely for this) and I just listen to them while I do other things in an attempt to absorb their speech patterns through osmosis. Sometimes I look up transcriptions of their voice lines from the game, or find quotes from them, or play scenes from the destiny lore vault on youtube in the background, or look up transcriptions on the ishtar collective. I read through them and analyse them. I look for patterns and note them down for use later.

Distinctive character voices have distinctive quirks. Eris, for example, tends to use poetic language, and often uses a bigger word when a smaller one will do, but only when the meaning of the bigger word is actually more precise:

"We do not seek to exculpate the Witch Queen."

Her humour is subtle and pointed, often a little creepy or mean.

"Ikora and Zavala are dear friends. Even if we don't always see eye to eye… to eye."

She is also very blunt, not only in not sugarcoating anything but also in being forthright with her feelings and her tendency to state the obvious, sometimes uncomfortable things no one is talking about:

"Did Zavala send you? He does not trust me." "You give me hope."

Drifter loves colourful gritty memorable metaphors and his humour ranges from self deprecating and flirty to bleak as fuck - sometimes one after the other or at the same time for shock value.

"Otto does it so beautifully that, when he's done, you're standing there holding your guts in your hands and thanking him for the show."

But he's also prone to dispensing unrequested, often highly practical (but a bit unnerving) advice:

"The bullet always comes when you're not moving." "Ever headbut a Kell? Don't. You'll break your neck. Use bullets."

Dialogue also works best when something else is happening at the same time. People rarely talk to each other with their full focus unless the situation is emotionally charged and/or the conversation is extremely important. Figuring out what each one of them is doing in addition to talking can be very helpful even if it never shows up directly in the dialogue at all.

Dialogue also tends to work well when each character has a reason for having the conversation. The reasons don't need to be complicated. The Drifter can be hungry and want to eat dinner. Eris can be busy and want to finish the conversation quickly so she can go back to what she was doing. But having what the character wants in the background of what is being said can really give weight and context to what's being spoken.

Not all responses need to be verbal and many characters have distinctive non-word responses to things. Drifter often laughs, says 'Oooh!' or 'Huh.' Eris often says 'Hmmm…' or sighs. These are as important to their distinctive voices as the words they use.

Dialogue between two people may not need attribution if the voices are distinct enough but any more than two people in a conversation and attribution is usually needed or the reader will become confused. The goal for dialogue attribution is to make it as invisible as possible unless you are using it for a specific effect (for example, I often use attribution as pacing or to achieve a specific rhythmic effect). So anything that might confuse the reader and make them need to re-read or otherwise ask who is speaking is to be avoided. This means that 'said' is not a sin, and neither is 'growled' as long as whatever you choose doesn't stick out and draw attention to itself.

I hope this is useful to you. I love writing, and reading, and delight in sharing stories and ideas. I very much look forward to anything you write and, while I know it is challenging to show your work to others, it's also very rewarding. I hope some day you will be willing to share your things with me, especially if they include Eris and/or the Drifter. I tend to be a very sympathetic reader and will delight in your words and cherish them as expressions of joy and care.

Let there be more love in the world. Let us write it into existence. Let us sing our songs to the universe and delight in the songs we hear in return.

Aiat.

[eggofritts]

I would love a version of Destiny 1 and 2 like this. TY OP for making this post. This reminded me of my own experience, positive and negative, about getting into Destiny 2.

I started playing back at the beginning of the season of plunder because I had heard the story/lore was great and everyone was talking about it on my TL during the free expansions week. I bought WQ after about 4 hrs of playing for free, unsure if it was worth buying the other expansions, but hopeful to start with the newest (and supposedly the best in a while) expansion.

I ended up falling in love with the gameplay a lot more than expected but was having a frustratingly hard time caring about the story. I was constantly confused about what was happening and why I should care about any of the characters. The mystery format was fun and the art direction was amazing, but I felt like the significance of Savathun and what she meant, on the whole, was lost on me. Even that small spat between Ikora and Zavala was cool in retrospect after researching more on their relationship, but I did not really care at the time because I was just confused. I did not know who Cayde-6 was and why everyone talked about him. I was still confused when I played a Vanguard strike that had Cayde talking.

I didn't feel particularly too motivated to do a lot of research even in the confusion because 1. the amount of written lore was daunting (the big 4-5hr long Byf videos are good but at the beginning, I was honestly still confused as I went thru it), 2. I wasn't sure where to start (WQ, BL, D1 lore first? or D2?, there are seasonal stories and are they important?). These two points led me to not care about the story for the first 40 hrs of my playtime. I'm surprised that I stuck out that long since story/character/lore is the thing I value the most in a game, but I suppose that is a testament to how good it feels to shoot a gun in D2 lol. (FYI I do not play FPS games or online FPS games typically)

And then something happened. I was catching up with the current seasonal story and listening to the audio messages outside of Spider's base. I was listening to Drifter and Eris Morn do their weird af flirting with Nezarec's dead body parts. I thought to myself "huh????? These characters are showing actual personality and chemistry amongst each other outside of being an npc vendor and waxing poetic about exposition and lots of jargon??? DAMN YOU STRAIGHT PEOPLE???" And then I went out to read my first piece of lore. And then I read more. And more. Finally, there was something that had no particular significance to the grander plot and was just there as flavor for the cast of characters. Something that informed me about their interpersonal relationships and their possible motivations. I literally thought Eris Morn was so fucking boring until I saw that she had actual some spunk and real emotions while bantering with Drifter. Before that, I thought the whole point of her character was to give me long-ass poetic exposition monologues, shallow hints about her backstory, and quest instructions. I am glad my initial impression was proven wrong, but I'm also still frustrated that I had to jump through many hoops to even see this side of her. (having to buy Shadowkeep, then having to read up on her lore, not even being able to experience this side of her more regularly, or at least to be more easily accessible to a casual first-time audience?)

I still haven't read the vast majority of the lore, but what I have read is just so riveting and engaging. The characters feel multi-faceted in a way I can really connect and engage with. I am someone who typically prefers character-driven narratives over plot-driven narratives. Playing D2 those first 40 hrs felt like aesthetic, shallow backdrops for me to go from quest objective to quest objective for the sake of the "plot" with the occasional drip feed of something more interesting. I saw the potential of what was something for me to latch on to but I felt like I was staring at 10 hoops on fire that I had to jump through; unsure how to approach such a problem. I'm glad I broke through the initial hurdles, but it really doesn't have to be this way.

To add to your ideas, I was thinking after playing Mass Effect trilogy and FFXIV (both games with sprawling big worlds and big casts of characters) Destiny should really add a more comprehensive lore tab. An actual compendium of the characters, location, factions, and any other jargon. Currently, it's more like a collection of books that you would see at a library except the onlooker has no idea what genres any of them are part of. The way Ishtar Collective filters and sections out the lore is what I would like to see in-game. Possibly even add more detail to the tiny ass timeline they have in-game. I did not even know that existed until like 20 or so hours in and even then, a couple-sentence summary of each season and expansion is not nearly comprehensive enough for this sci-fi epic story.

I suppose the static version of Destiny wouldn't be profitable enough for Bungie though. I certainly would throw money at it. I want to pay more to experience the wonderful world of Destiny, but Bungie certainly makes that difficult.

Ugh, I truly have developed such a love-hate relationship with Destiny, and it's not even for gameplay reasons. I just want to see characters interact in meaningful and/or interesting ways that feel true to me in a world that feels alive, transformative, and growing. I got that when I read the lore finally and made the connections to the in-game voice lines, strikes, cutscenes, etc. (I need less of it to feel like homework and more of it to be able to experience firsthand, but that's a topic for another day.) I can tell the storytellers at Bungie truly care about what's being told and I want to cherish that too. I want to recommend this and share the joy with my friends so bad, but it's difficult to sell it to them when they are faced with the same obstacles I had to face.

You know what I think would be amazing?

If Bungie released years 1-3 of Destiny 2 as a standalone game. Imagine being able to play a static version of Destiny, all the DLCs, seasons, etc, just to always experience it, without having to constantly update old content.

Like it could have LAN/locally-hosted multiplayer, instead of dedicated servers, so friends can play with each other in fireteams. Hell, maybe they could make it so that you always can have up-to 6 players in a fireteam. Like who cares? There’s no meta, there’s no achievements, etc., it’d be for a ‘dead game.’

There’s so much lore out there that we experienced first-hand and so much that we cannot, or could not even. I came in around Season of Arrivals, Shadowkeep was already done with, Saint had already been saved, Titan, IO, and etc., were on their way out. I never got to experience those things.

For others who just started, they have no in-game idea who Cayde is, why Osiris is important, who Uldren Sov was, and etc. These are major story beats that deserve to be experienced, re-experienced, and etc., Plus, people paid for it.

It would be nice to just have a way to experience everything without fearing its disappearance.

Like… I like Destiny 2. I’d like to share its fun with my wife. But I straight up cannot.

[changingourdestiny]

Shadowkeep Part 4: To Hellmouth & Back

Summary:

Fireteam Eklipsys head down to the Catacombs inside the Hellmouth to find a Cryptoglyph. Will they make it out alive or meet the same fate as Eris's former Fireteam?

Previous Part: Here

Next Part: Here

As four Sparrows arrived in the Sanctuary, Blaze practically flopped off her Sparrow with an exhausted sigh, “I wanna get off this rock…that fight was a nightmare!” “Ha…pun intended?” Marcia chuckled, trying to mask her own exhaustion. As Rae got off her own Sparrow, she noticed that there was now three Phantoms beside Eris now. “We’re back.” Rae announced as she approached Eris, trying to ignore the looming Phantoms, “And we’ve successfully killed Hashladûn.” “This is a relief to hear. But Hashladûn’s presence is no coincidence.” Eris began, “The Hive must have grander ambitions for the Pyramid’s influences.” “She had a tablet on her,” Ghost said as he appeared beside Rae, “One that describes a Cryptoglyph. I have no record of such an item.” “That is precisely the information we came here for.” “Oh good.” Rae and Eris turned to see the rest of the newly put together Fireteam approach as Blaze spoke, “Glad to know the back pain of that Ogre trampling on me was worth it.” “Actually, that wasn’t a Hive Ogre. That was one of mine.” Marcia grinned apologetically, “My bad.” “Seriously?!” Blaze exclaimed. “In my defence, it wasn’t on purpose this time!” Marcia held up her arms in defence, “My power surged again and summoned it by itself.” “Curious…” Eris muttered before shaking her head, “But a discussion for another time. The Pyramid trembles under the weight of our progress. With every victory, we draw closer to conquering it.” As Eris continued, Blaze went into her vision state again. Nobody noticed it except for Marcia, who gave her a quizzical look as Blaze shook out of her trance-like state while muttering, “Stop showing me this. I get it, so knock it off.” Marcia pretended she wasn’t looking at Blaze as she turned her attention back to Eris. “We now know what the Hidden Swarm have been using to shield themselves from the Nightmares – and where it lies.” Eris continued, “The Cryptoglyph. If ever there was a more powerful set of runes the Hive use to conjure their magics, I have yet to learn of it…Of course, to acquire it, we must delve into horrific depths.” An audible groan was heard from Blaze. “Our Cryptoglyph lies…at the bottom of the Hellmouth.” An even louder groan was heard from Blaze. “No doing tricks over the Hellmouth this time, Blaze.” Rae added. A groan so loud, it could be heard in the Tower, was heard from Blaze. Marcia chuckled as she watched Blaze trudge back to her Sparrow. “You’re a sadist sometimes, you know that?” Adam noted. “I know.” Marcia grinned as she headed towards her own Sparrow. ——————————————————————— “Alright Eris, we’re here.” Rae said as she and the rest of Fireteam Eklipsys arrived at the edge of the Hellmouth, “Where to?” “The Catacombs. Somewhere within that Hive-infested labyrinth lies our Cryptoglyph.” Eris replied, “If we hope to go beyond the Pyramid’s warding, we must retrieve it. But be warned: Those who enter the rotting depths of the Catacombs often fail to return…In that tomb, light does not find a way.” “Thanks for the confidence boost…” Blaze muttered. “Well, let’s head inside and hope we’re the lucky few who return.” Rae smiled, trying to keep up an optimistic outlook on the situation. “We do tend to be lucky when it comes to these things.” Adam added. “Well let’s hope that luck of yours hasn’t run out.” Marcia noted as she began to head inside, the others following suit. As the team made their way further into the Hellmouth, Rae hopped on the comms, “Hey Eris? Anything we should know about these Catacombs. Doesn’t seem all too wise of us heading in there blind.” “Never are the Catacombs unmanned,” Eris replied, “As they play host to the most potent of Hive magics – including our Cryptoglyph. We know not what the Hive plan to do with power as dangerous as this. But they must not find success. The dark rituals of the Hive pose a threat we can’t currently afford to face. If their goals align with ours, it is of the utmost importance they be halted immediately.” “You can count on-” “GYAH!!” Rae jumped as Blaze let out a surprised yell, “What? What’s wrong?” “I saw a shadowy thing crawl by right in front of me!” Blaze exclaimed. “I didn’t see anything.” Marcia said with a raised eyebrow. “Me neither.” Adam added, “I think the stress is getting to you.” “So when I see something, I’m stressed. But when you see a ‘sea monster’ on Titan, you’re perfectly sane?” “Because I know I saw it.” Adam argued, “I saw it three times while I was there!” “Can we not argue about this again?” Rae asked, “Let’s just keep moving.” Albeit hesitant, Blaze followed the rest of her Fireteam further into the Catacombs. “Though I’ll say this much…” Rae began, “This place gives me the creeps.” “It was within these depths that Crota and his brood stripped me of all that I cared for – my Fireteam…my friends.” Eris began, “Only I remained, beaten and broken.” “We’ll end this,” Rae reassured, “And make sure your friends can rest peacefully.” “…thank you.” Eris replied, her voice slightly softer than usual before returning to its usual tone, “The guilt of survival lingers…but you must not. Onwards.” The Fireteam made their way through a series of tunnels. “Aww, look at the wormy boys!” Blaze cooed as they stumbled across a group of small Hive worms. “How you find these things cute is beyond me.” Rae shook her head. “Y’know Drifter always wanted a pet Hive.” Marcia spoke up as she poked one of the worms with the barrel of her sub-machine gun, “He keeps asking me to summon a Taken version of these lil’ guys, but no can do.” “Why not?” Blaze asked as they continued down the tunnels. “I can only summon Taken that already exist – controlling their will until I dismiss them, or until they’re destroyed. I don’t have the power to Take like Oryx had. And since Oryx never took one of these worms, I can’t summon them.” “So if all the Taken were destroyed somehow…” Rae began. “My power would be useless or would disappear.” Marcia finished, “That being said, feel free to figure out how to destroy them. It’d make my life a bit easier, even if being able to summon Taken is cool.” As the Fireteam exited the tunnels, they saw the Pyramid looming nearby. “My Light…It’s happening again.” Ghost shuddered. “Focus.” Eris began, “The Pyramid distracts, nothing more. When you have the Cryptoglyph in hand, I will teleport you out.” “Hang in there buddy…” Rae reassured, “We’ll try to get through this as fast as possible.” The Fireteam charged ahead, fighting back a number of Hive before arriving at a bridge which had countless Phantoms floating around it. “More Phantoms…just like those haunting Eris.” Ghost noted, as the Guardians made their way across the bridge, “Faceless Guardians watching us.” “Remember what Eris said.” Nox spoke up, “Nothing more than a distraction.” “I have eyes on the Cryptoglyph!” Blaze called out as they reached the other side of the bridge, “Let’s grab it!” “On it!” Marcia replied as she sprinted for it. “Wait!” Rae yelled, “It might be a-!” Before Rae could finish, Marcia was pushed back by a green forcefield of Hive magic as Wizards, Thralls, Acolytes and Knights began spawning all around them. “Trap.” Rae finished with a sigh before summoning her Dawnblade and began unleashing waves of fire towards the incoming Thralls. ——————————————————————— “Forcefield’s down!” Rae called out as she saw the green energy flicker and fade away. “I got it!” Blaze yelled as she leapt up to the altar and grabbed the Cryptoglyph, “Score!” “Eris, we have the Cryptoglyph!” Rae called into her comm, “Teleport us out.” No response. “Eris? Are you there?” Nothing. Rae watched more and more Hive appeared around her as she heard Ghost’s tired but desperate voice in her ear. “Run!” To Be Continued…

[fortunatowrites]

The Reddit Unresolved Plot List and my Rebuttal

A not-comprehensive list of ongoing or abandoned* plotline:

Uldren Sov

Mara Sov

Dul Incaru and the Dreaming City Curse

Eris Morn and the Pyramid Ships

Mithrax and the House of Light

The Traveler being awake/alive again

Ra-ra-rasputin

The Iron Lords (Remember when we became the Young Wolf and started a new tradition of Iron Lords, theoretically?)

Drifter and his gambit

Shin Malphur and his gambit

Praedyth

The entire fucking Cabal Empire. We beheaded them, remember?

Calus and his plans

The Nine and their plans to try and get some hawt bodies

Savathun and whateverthefuck she's up to

Xivu Arath and whateverthefuck she's up to

No Speaker anymore

Cayde's dead and the Hunters don't have a Vanguard

Petra Venj and the Awoken

The Exo Stranger

And many more...

*abandoned as in apparently abandoned, as in haven't been mentioned, progressed or what have you in some time

=

So this is where I’m typing now. We’re going to assume that “some time” refers to at least two expansions ago. We’re going to count Season of the Forge, Joker’s Wild, and Opulence as one expansion and Season of the Undying will count as part of Shadowkeep’s expansion. So we’ve got several points of talk. Pre-Destiny 2, Destiny 2, Curse of Osiris, Warmind, Forsaken, Seasons, and Undying.

Now let’s crack through that list with what has been the most recent update in these plot lines.

Be warned. Everything below will be a spoiler. So if you’re not caught up in the current Season of the Undying, you run the risk of being spoiled.

1. Uldren Sov. This is by far the easiest of the bunch. During the Season of the Forge, we actually got an update on this guy. Personally, I thought we had reached the end of his story when he died at the end of the Forsaken Campaign. I’ve got plenty more to say on this but will wait for the post dedicated to this one.

2. Mara Sov. Forsaken’s post campaign content was almost entirely about this lady. We’re not sure what she’s currently up to, but it’s been 2 seasons since we’ve heard from her.

3. Dul Incanu and the Dreaming City Curse. Same as Mara Sov.

4. Eris Morn and the Pyramid Ships. This is ridiculous to even be on this list. The pyramid ships were seen at the end of D2 and now we’ve finally gotten a definite answer on that they are part of the darkness. Eris Morn and her moon fireteam have gotten a lot of lore updates from Shadowkeep.

5. Mithrax and the House of Light. I’m not sure anyone even knew Mithrax was important after our first encounter with him on Titan in D2 as part of a side mission. In forsaken, we get lore about him working with guardians and in Seasons (Season of Joker’s Wild) we got this big mission involving him and some more lore. In Shadowkeep we’ve heard more talk of his House of Light from Toland, but not much else. Wouldn’t call it abandoned just yet.

6. The Traveler’s Awakening. To be fair, this has been an over-hyped subject. They made it seem like there was going to be serious change or fallout due to this happening, but we haven’t seen much of what it means. In Curse, we learned it’s messed with the Vex’s Infinite Forest, but other than that, it’s implied that it awoke the Pyramid Ships. So maybe Shadowkeep is the last update we’ve had since it involves the pyramid ships, but overall I feel like there isn’t much more to gain from the awakening. Here’s hoping I’m wrong though.

7. Rasputin. This feels a little abandoned, but also doesn’t feel like there’s more to be explored here. Since Warmind, he’s been awake and apparently launching more satellites to deal with threats and help guardians, but that is a little in the air. There’s stuff about all his protocols that we could learn more about, but otherwise, I don’t agree that there is a hanging plotline here.

8. The Iron Lords. Again, this one feels like reaching. While it would be nice to get an update on the new Iron Lords since there’s apparently guardians taking up the mantle, there isn’t really a hanging plot line either. Nothing foreshadowed to be followed up on.

9. Drifter and his gambit. Season of Joker’s Wild aka Season of the Drifter gave us a lot of info about him. The last update we had was in Season of Opulence (Seasons) where we know he met with Calus and he seems to be against the darkness. There’s more to learn here for sure, but I don’t feel it’s been abandoned yet.

10. Shin Malphur and his gambit. In Season of Opulence we get the Lumina quest and resolution to his and the Shadows of Yor story.

11. Praedyth. We literally just lore books featuring him in Season of the Undying.

12. Cabal Empire. In Forsaken we learn a lot of them are in the Prison of Elders and the rest are scattered like the Fallen’s House of Dusk. Furthermore, in the next season, Season of Dawn, we’re going to get some Cabal plot as they’re trying to use the Infinite Forest to rewrite their loss of the Red War.

13. The Nine. These guys have been a big mystery for sometime and we’ve still got a lot to learn about them I believe. The last big thing we heard about them was Season of Joker’s Wild (Seasons).

14. Savathun. Shadowkeep has stuff in it about her, though not much. We know she’s connected to the Red Keep and trying to become the new Oryx essentially.

15. Xivu Arath. The last we’ve heard about her is Forsaken with her forces being sent into the Dreaming City and an Ogre of hers being within the Prison of Elders.

16. No Speaker. This is one I will agree with. We get lore entries that reference the fact we’re missing one, but no actual plot progressing information. This feels a bit abandoned.

17. Cayde’s Death and the Empty Vanguard position. We’ve actually gotten some updates on these. Cayde’s Death feels done by now but in Season of Joker’s Wild we got updates about how others are reacting to it. Such as the Praxic Order thinking our guardian being a potential suspect in the involvement of such. As for the Empty Vanguard position, it’s almost like the No Speaker position but we have gotten updates about it. Ikora speaks of it in lore in that same Season and mentions viable candidates fled the city. 

18. Petra Venj and the Awoken. Once more, Forsaken handled a good bit of this. I would even say that Petra is just synonymous with the Dreaming City curse plot line at this point. As for the Awoken themselves, we definitely learned a ton about them from Forsaken lore and the fate of the Dispensary seems to tie in to this as well. Definitely seems a bit early to call it an abandoned/forgotten plot or one that’s been going for too long without resolution or update.

19. The Exo Stranger. The last update about the Exo Stranger was in Warmind, but granted that is allegedly. There’s a lot of lore that implies her identity, but there are certainly more questions to be answered about her and the fact she seemed to be working with a group in Destiny’s campaign. Yet, I don’t feel there’s an open plot on the subject. Her main mystery was just who she was.

If there’s anything else you’d like me to speak on or look into, please feel free to send a message. Expect some write ups on these subjects that go more into detail about what we know so far in the coming days. (If i dont decide against it or just get too caught up in playing games)

[thefirstknife]

Sorry for very long ask, but om the subject of this week's talk with Savathûn... i hadn't considered her saying "stand on the line and look up" as literally looking up at her in front of you? That's really interesting, but seems almost... too heavy handedly trying to influence us? But an unknown 3rd party beyond light and dark would be really strange to introduce this late in the story. But it made me think about week 2 of presage, Nosiris makes a point to differentiate between the Darkness and the Entity to Caiatl. This season's activities also have lots of lines about who might control the taken now that Savathûn (presumably) doesn't. It's probably just the black fleet, but could there be someone else? A Worm God? One of the things from Drifter's trip outside the system? Winnower's dad?

Yep, there's definitely something here that we don't fully understand.

The mention of "The Entity" back in Presage was really strange to me because that was the first time we actually heard that there's something different between Darkness and whatever The Entity is.

For now, I'm thinking this is referring to the Winnower. Because in the story so far, it's always been Darkness and Darkness was equated to the Black Fleet aka the Pyramid ships. But even back in the Unveiling lorebook, we learned that the Pyramids and Darkness and Winnower are not all exactly the same thing. Same as Gardener and Traveler and Light aren't the same thing.

In this case, Gardener and Winnower would be the actual entities that govern the universal laws of physics and life and all that. They do that by utilising the paracausal forces we know as the Light and Darkness. They both have things (living or otherwise) that are tied to them in some way; Leviathan (from the Fundament) and the Traveler for the Light and Gardener / Worm Gods and Pyramids for the Darkness and the Winnower, for example. Probably many other things that we don't know about as well (like the creatures from the ice planet which are obviously of Darkness).

If this is true, then what Savathun is referring to is the Winnower itself and trying to tell us there's something behind pure Darkness and the Pyramid ships. However, wouldn't we know that already? Because the Winnower spoke to us through Unveiling and through the Pyramids and through the Tree on Io. Unless that was just something speaking to us on behalf of the Winnower. Or, potentially, only the player knows it's the Winnower. Everyone else still refers to it as Darkness. The Unveiling has somewhat 4th wall breaking vibes imo.

We know the Taken and the power to take was never originally of Hive origin. Oryx acquired the power by slaying the Worm god Akka and communing with the Deep, therefore proving that he is worthy of wielding the power to take. So what Savathun and Mara and others are saying through the dialogue about the Taken is true. They were never Hive and Oryx did simply borrow them. From the Deep. Something else IS controlling them; the Winnower. It's explicitly stated in Unveiling:

It was the first defector—the first predator. It changed everything. Now the oozeballs needed sensors to watch for danger, and brains to integrate those senses and generate plans of survival, and swift neurons and muscles to enact that plan. This was the Cambrian Explosion, the great birth of complex life on your world. I caused it. I, the defector, the destroyer, the one who takes.

Ofc, I could be wrong and Destiny could still introduce something else. I wouldn't say it's too late to do so; we have three full expansions to go through yet. However, from what we currently know, I do believe that what is being refered to here (The Entity) is the Winnower itself, the entity that controls the Black Fleet and the Taken and the Worm Gods and possibly the Vex ("They are not all mine, not in the way that admirers such as my man Oryx are mine: utterly devoted to the practice of my principle. But some of them have, nonetheless, found their way home.") and countless others we may not even know about.

The Unveiling lorebook in general is one of the most important lorebooks tbh. There's still much to, heh, unveil when it comes to the whole thing and the Winnower. At the end of Unveiling, Eris doesn't mention Winnower or Gardener; she talks about the Light and Darkness. She also talks about messages from the Darkness in the Arrivals storyline and the Singular Exegete lorebook. Winnower is only ever named and mentioned by the Winnower themselves, in Unveiling. Never by anyone else. It's what makes me think that we, as players, know more and that in-universe, the characters still don't really know the connection and difference between Darkness as a tool, Black Fleet as the physical enactment of that tool (equal to the Traveler) and the Winnower themselves, as the Entity that created and drives both.

Or it's something entirely new. Idk.

As a side note, makes me think differently about this thing with Expunge Vex names. Was Savathun telling us about the Winnower through this? Was it Quria? Or the Vex themselves? I'm going insane :)

[thefirstknife]

Okay, since Nezarec is my 4 lore pages lore blorbo, I went digging out of curiosity. First of all, my fave tag on this post:

Now for the real stuff. This is the reddit thread and it's actually pretty interesting. It does not say that Nezarec is our Guardian, but that sentiment is pretty wide spread in the comments on this thread, and another one about Nezarec and apparently on Byf's video about Nezarec. So people are definitely latching onto it without any real evidence. The mere fact that Nezarec is always referred to as "he" disproves this immediately because there is no canon gender for YW so that would be kinda stupid to suddenly determine.

The thread is interesting however. I am particularly interested in the symbol that's apparently repeating and that has been showing up since D1:

Cathedral of Dusk (on the Dreadnaught):

Tome of Nothing Warlock artifact:

Thrice Wrapped Thing Hunter artifact:

From D2, Necrotic Grip Exotic perk:

See that circular symbol with spikes coming out of it? That's a repeating pattern. Too repeating to be a coincidence in my opinion.

The reddit thread focuses too much (I believe) on the random shapes that are somewhat similar to the Nezarec's Sin helmet (the prongs/horns). I don't really trust random half 3D printed statues in the Pyramids to be very reliable, but there's that as well.

The thing that interests me the most is Cathedral of Dusk. Specifically:

A Hive burial site for— what? A former master of Oryx? Comrade? Lover? It was vile. And obvious that Oryx never expected the Light to reach so deep inside his throne, to such an intimate space.

If you take a closer look at the symbols beneath the circle with spikes, you will notice that those are not Hive runes. This tombstone (?) in Cathedral of Dusk does not have a Hive symbol or Hive runes and yet it is referred to as "a Hive burial site" for an unknown entity, deep within the Dreadnaught.

As mentioned in the reddit thread, Drifter has already claimed long ago to have visited the Fourth Tomb of Nezarec. It's highly unclear what that means, but tombs and burial sites don't always have to be 100% literal, nor do they have to contain a body. A body can also be transferred between different tombs for various purposes, and, most importantly here since we're talking about a Destiny setting, this entity, Nezarec, could be a being that can die and become alive again.

That doesn't necessarily mean "Guardian." As a matter of fact, everything mentioned so far is as far removed from Guardians as possible.

I mentioned in an earlier post about Nezarec that the moment the Haunted was announced, I had a strange vibe of Nezarec due to the death-symbology surrounding it. And I had a very strange experience when I saw "Nezarec's Whisper" being an item. The whole story about multiple tombs and symbology of death makes sense if Nezarec is some sort of Darkness creature that deals with death and corruption (and pain! - important because in the same post I mentioned another possible appearance of Nezarec, from Sylok, but under a slightly altered name, something nobody seems to be mentioning whenever they talk about Nezarec).

Given the new development from this season that Drifter is going to the Reef and hints that he and Eris have things to investigate about the Pyramids AND Drifter's connection to previous knowledge about Nezarec AND the re-appearance of Nezarec lore this season, as well as more than likely return of King's Fall next season, I wonder if these things are connected.

Even more so, Sylok was experimented on by Awoken and he invoked (presumably) Nezarec AND he was Taken. Drifter + Reef + Awoken + Taken + The Nine seems like a fairly sound setup for a seasonal story at some point that may also include further explanation of Nezarec if he was really a Disciple or Disciple-in-Training (high enough on the Darkness ladder for Rhulk to give him a glaive).

And finally, something mentioned in the comments that isn't stupid stuff about how our Guardian is Nezarec, the lore on Nezarec's Sin:

"He is that which is end. That which covets sin. The final god of pain—the purest light, the darkest hour."

"Chantry of the Darkest Hour" is the final room in the last mission during our assault on Calus and the Lunar Pyramid.

Nezarec may as well have been an entity that commanded the Lunar Pyramid, a place where Eris finds his glaive. Since he is mentioned in a pre-Golden Age text, it is impossible for him to have been Awoken or Exo, which excludes the majority of Guardians which also excludes the possibility of him being our Guardian somehow.

It does however mean that it's very possible that he was an ancient being much like Rhulk and perhaps in charge of the Pyramid that ended up stranded on the Moon, which would also explain why someone on Earth may have had a very strange and very bad trip about Nezarec before the Traveler ever appeared.

DestinyLore reddit is spreading the theory that the player Guardian is actually Nezerac and that the Moon Pyramid was our original home.

Wh-- what...

They will die by my hand.