#while variks is starved of it

[ahamkara-apologist]

eido is so little sibling coded it's incredible. with failsafe I wanted to hang around with her and just chill but with eido I want to pester her (affectionate). bungie in their infinite cowardice will never let me hang off of her shoulders while feigning disinterest in what she's doing but actually being very interested despite being taller than her. do you see my vision

YES she really is soooo little sibling coded to me- my YW took one look at her and went 'baby. this is now my little sister and i will kill and die for her' bc honestly how can you NOT have that reaction to her, she's so fucking adorable. She gives me the vibes of being around 15-16 or so; old enough to be knowledgeable about the world and wanting to strike off on her own, but not old enough to not be naiive about it. I absolutely adore her and the fact that the YW is clearly game for doing whatever she says by bringing her reagents and drinking her experimental potions (even if it turns us into weird shit) while she apologizes for sending us into danger + tries to win us over to Eramis, and I hope that Bungie leans more into our relationship with her in the future...even if I have bad feelings about how Misraaks's storyline is going and how we might be involved in it.

The one thing I do gotta point out tho is that she is still taller than us by like a foot, bc Eliknsi big and Misraaks made sure that the girl got the ether she needed. She's even bigger than Variks in the cutscenes! She's a little-big sister. I would die for her

[jellidile]

Variks drabble

A very small exploration into some headcannons I have for Variks.

Variks had always strived to be excellent. Since the day he hatched he had only heard gilded tales of his House and the Houses they mediated. He wanted to join the ranks of his father and Kell in the history of Riis. Even though he never stood out to the dashing young Kell’s who came to the House Judgement Hall, even thought his father hid Variks talent for hearing the voice of the machine god, even though he was a skinny Vandal; Variks worked to be the best scribe and advisor he could be. 

In all honesty Variks was one of the best. He’d advised his father, Nethiks more than once on issues brought forth by the House of Kings and House of Rain. Yet never was he given any credit. He simply existed as the forgotten son, and so others spoke as though he couldn’t hear their whispers,

    “Nethiks never speaks of him…”

    “Probably isn’t good at anything.”

    “The hidden failure of Judgement.” 

He eventually found it simpler to just not listen. To fade into the background everywhere he went, and to assume an air of weakness to deter others from even recognizing him at all. In truth, while lonely, Variks suddenly was privy to a hefty amount of secrets and gossip, from scribes who had before been too cautious to speak of around him. He reported much of it back to his father and was privately commended. 

Always privately. Why always privately, and why did he seek out praise like a starving dreg? With his father he was subservient until the Whirlwind when suddenly, everyone had to fend for themself and Variks no longer saw in his father the great Kell he once was. Perhaps all those years of drifting from one Kell to the next had left Variks wanting, searching for someone to see something in him; and perhaps that was why he attached himself so strongly to Mara. He who wanted to achieve her grand goals, to serve her, and to be of use to her, to be seen as someone worth praise.

Maybe a shred of recognition from Eramis had been enough to push him over the edge.

[silverolivia-upsidedown]

RIGHT??? Ok... Fucking HEAR ME OUT..... I know that a lot of people are all like, oh man, I guess the Eliksni aren’t into cuddling or kissing or partying, or whatever.... BUT HEAR ME OUT.... First.  There are TWO, count them TWO accounts in the lore that reference the Eliksni not only drinking but partying, dancing (in their own weird way) singing, hanging out, ALL OF IT... They have a fucking BAR/Club for god sakes.  Ok, Second!  One of the flashbacks to Eido’s past was when she was having a nightmare and her NERD father who has ZERO experience taking care of a child, or how to operate as a “caregiver” (other then the bare bones of “be as patient as possible” and make sure she doesn’t starve...) IS WRINGING HIS HANDS while she is obviously troubled... he doesn’t hold her, he doesn’t cuddle her like you should with a child. And let’s be real, his mom was referenced ONCE and he was talking about how she would WILLINGLY dock her own son, not really coming out of a loving family there. So...  Like he’s doing better then how he was raised, but the guy OBVIOUSLY doesn’t know how to raise a kid.  So that brings me to POINT THE THIRD.

She has spent most of her formative years reading books... lots and lots of books. And was taught by terrifying mind-witches, and also Variks, a KNOWN workaholic. So, like... yeah, she has ALL THIS knowledge, but like NO worldly experience. And she’s out there like, “Herumf, I don’t understand all this partying stuff or face sucking stuff.”  Like, GURL... Trust me, your people do this shit too, get off yer high “observer” horse. So the point I’m getting at here is that she is a total BOOK NERD who knows nothing about anything that involves stuff NOT in a book. And is now getting a chance to really see people who aren’t actively in a fight for survival. And what that looks like. Like if she had spent time on the Tangled Shore you better believe she would be like, “WHAT IS THIS DEBOTCHURY!?”  Yeah, anyway. That’s my hot take. Eido is a Scribe Book nerd and Young and clueless

[ahamkara-apologist]

Everyone in my notes rn:

But yeah y'all articulated some points that I think I was struggling to come across, which is that the fact that what makes Eramis's past as a mother important isn't so much that she's A Mom(tm) (though she is naturally a caretaker/protector, which has a major overlap), it's that her past experiences as a mother greatly inform her decisions and actions. While it is still a core part of her and is essential to understanding her pain, her motivations, and how she works with other people, the major point of relevance that this fact has is how it enhances her leadership and what it thematically means for the fate of the Eliksni, which is a title that she shares with Misraaks.

What I really like too is how the game itself presents this fact. Almost all of our interactions with Eramis show us, first and foremost, the fact that she is a powerful leader, a formidable warrior, and a cunning politician. She's fierce, she's angry, she's full of rightous hatred, she's stubborn as a brick wall and she will do whatever it takes to see her goals bear fruit. We hear from the Brays about how dangerous she is and how she needs to be broken, we fight her and she roars at us about how we brought nothing but ruin to her kind, of how much she hates gods and all their meddling and the ruin they bring. Variks has us break her, and then he has us break her House.

And then it gives us an exotic armour piece called 'Athrys's Embrace,' which has only an old Eliksni lullaby as its loretab. And then it shows us this.

And then it contextualizes a lot more things that we might have brushed over before. Why Riis-Reborn was so successful, before the Darkness got its hooks in her: why the Witness was able to lure her so easily into thoughts of empires and vengence. She's not just your typical power-hungry Kell- when she spoke of breaking chains and creating a refuge for her people, she was being genuine. She does not care about her own status, but to ensure that her people are not helpless. When she tempers herself and speaks softly to Eido, it's not because she's being manipulative or just tolerating her, it's because she's a genuinely kind person who has been broken and starved and hurting for so long that she's caught in perpetual fight-or-flight mode. The fact that she was known to be a nurturing, loving mother and wife gives us a window into the nature of her grief and allows us to understand her flawed worldview and biases, but that's not what her character is entirely about- it's not even what's driving her right now. Who she is now is the Kell of House Salvation. Her lost family is merely a facet of who she is outside of that.

One thing else that I kind of noticed that's more a D2 appreciation thing is that D2 has, by far, the most amount of female characters in it where being a mother or caretaker figure is not essential to their storyline or motivations. Eramis legitimately is the only one that I can think of off of the top of my head. Most of our ladies are either entirely childless and show no inclinations to change that, are traumitized by being forced into the role of a mother figure at far too young of an age (Mara), or do not have a motherly vibe to them in the slightest. Hell, even most of the moms we have are kinda pretty terrible- just look at Inaaks and Savathun (Savathun especially is god fucking awful at being a mom. Like. She has negative mom rizz its kinda insane). Eramis is the only one who gives me actual mom vibes out of the whole cast and it's something that I really, really enjoy, bc unlike the rest of the female cast, it actually has thematic implications for the wider works than just shoehorning her into the role bc that's what women do

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

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

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

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

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