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#and it was 2 people who assume
rubensmuse · 3 months
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here's a link to his IMDB to check for your favorite property if you're not sure
EDIT: FORGOT ABOUT OZ, I FULLY INTENDED TO ADD IT BUT IT SLIPPED MY MIND...As for Law & Order I entirely underestimated his impact in those episodes so I will take that L
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seeyouguyslater · 6 months
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love the details on this one , the armor is so good
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lobaznyuk · 6 months
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hella1975 · 6 months
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hiiii haha. hello. exceptionally awkward introduction bc idrk how to start something like this so let's just jump right in. im taking a break from this account for a bit. i know i said i wanted taob out before halloween and currently im fine sticking with that deadline, but if i decide i need longer away then i will take longer away. every time ive reassured people that id never abandon a fic and updates will always come eventually i never once considered that my writing and ability to feel safe and comfortable on this site would be actively taken from me, so im not even going to apologise. i dont want this either and more importantly i dont fucking deserve it. i dont know what it is in the past year, if ive hit a certain amount of followers or 'popularity' that's made it so the natural ratio of positive to negative interactions must in turn go up, but there's been a serious uptick in weird asks for me. the annoying part is that a very small amount of them are actually objectively mean and hateful, the rest are just weird and invasive from people who seemingly dont realise that's what they're being. ive reached a point where i dont care if the intentions are good. it's not my job as a 20 year old tumblr user of all things to defend the morality of someone who couldnt even bother to come off anon. unfortunately, after blocking only one or two anons, the weird asks have decreased substantially, which says all you need to know about the fascinating and exhilarating lives led by these people, but ive also gone on to turn anon asks off entirely. this is something i actively fought against doing and had to be pushed into by my mutuals (who have been the coolest people on planet earth during this entire thing). turning off anon was a big deal to me even if it sounds silly. i felt betrayed and like id been backed into a corner because it was so vehmently something i DIDNT WANT that to feel like i had to do it anyway for my own mental health??? that sucks. so even though ive 'fixed' the problem, im still kind of reeling and uncomfortable every time i come on tumblr. i hope it's just something i need time to ease because i'll truly be devastated if this becomes 'ruined' for me. tumblr exists as the only place in the world where i am honestly every facet of myself without shame or hesitation; losing that would be insanely harmful to me. and to the people who cant appeal to the actual human behind the post, let me put that in words you can understand: we wouldn't get any more writing 😦😦😦 riots and fires and sirens, i know. so yeah. to anyone who has sent me an anon ask and you're now wondering if you were part of the problem, im firmly of the belief that you'll know if you are. when i say 'weird asks' i dont mean 'you sent me a para about your personal life just to vent or ask for advice' or 'you sent me a really deep emotional compliment about the impact me and/or my writing has had on you' - i love asks like that, so much that i put off taking a break and turning off anon solely for the joy they bring me. im sorry that it might feel like you're being punished too bc of the actions of what in reality is a HANDFUL of weird people, but this is what i feel like i have to do to feel safe and not go insane every time i log in. love you guys, hopefully ill see you soon x
#seriously another shout out to my mutuals#id particularly like to say thank you to boom who's always right there for me no matter what's happening or how insane im being#and also everyone in our little discord that wound up having to make a whole new channel for venting#bc i was there so often like 'today's weird ask isssss.... telling me about my cupsize!! rip them to shreds!!!'#hannah and theo especially being there and pushing me to finally turn off anon. war is truly over#and of course rori bc the shamelessness u show when hating on my anon asks has been genuinely really cathartic#sometimes u really do just need a rottweiler mutual to tell random people online to kill themselves 😭#okay weird oscar acceptance speechcore gratitude over. i do just rlly love my mutuals#like i went three years not telling anyone about the worse side of internet popularity for fear of looking spoiled and ungrateful#so for the first time to open up about it and be met with outrage on my behalf and people saying in fact it's MORE fucked up#than i initially realised bc ive grown desensitised to it is. yeah cathartic i guess#they are singlehandedly reassuring me of the good this cursed app still holds#so everyone thank them and send them flowers NOW#okay im done i think. see you guys soon. i truly do want to come back asap bc like i said i NEVER EVEN WANTED TO FUCKING LEAVE#SOME ASSHOLES JUST HAD TO PUT GRENADES ON WHAT I ASSUMED WERE VERY UNIVERSAL AND OBVIOUS BOUNDARIES#if you're reading this like 'ohhh fuck i defo sent something invasive lately. i thought it was a joke/we were friends'#then 1) we arent friends if you're on anon. it immediately creates a power imbalance where you know me and any necessary context#but i have no idea who you are or how much you know about me. that's already a fucked dynamic#and 2) I HOPE YOU FEEL BAD. LIKE GENUINELY I HOPE YOU FEEL AWFUL AND HAVE A GOOD LONG LOOK AT YOURSELF#okay i think that's all. ta-ra lads??? how tf do u end something like this#ive queued this to reblog a couple more times throughout the day
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carlyraejepsans · 7 months
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i was thinking about that ask i received the other day and how uncharacteristically upset the topic had made me when i usually just think "mh. gross!" and move on, and after mulling it over a while i realized it wasn't about the topic at all, it was the ask itself that freaked me out. i've mentioned sporadically before (for obvious reasons lol) that i used to be involved in fandom discourse when i was younger and that!! fucked me up quite a lot. between exacerbating my ocd and straight up getting cyber stalked (i almost feel guilty using that word, like i don't deserve it but. yeah that is 100% what happened to me), the topic is something I have very complex and personal opinions on but that i hate talking about in public because it still sets off my fight or flight response.
i know some people in the fandom are like "let me know if i ever rb someone who wrote/drew gross stuff" and that's entirely their choice and i respect it. but for the record, i am not one of these people. please, for the love of god, i am asking this genuinely do NOT come into my DMs about this, I don't want to know. assume I'm either living in blissful ignorance or my blacklist already covers me quite nicely & i wanna keep it that way. i vastly prefer the discomfort of stumbling into something unprepared and deciding what to do about it on my own, to the utter pit of dread i get whenever i open a message that starts with "hey just so you know-". i have blocked multiple people in the past over it. i WILL block more. be warned.
[note. this doesn't apply to people who have either hurt or behaved inappropriately with other members of the fandom, or spread bigotry and discrimination like racists and transphobes. please do let me know in those cases]
does this make sense? idk I'm kinda feverish you guys figure it out. I'm going to sleep.
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aroaceleovaldez · 1 year
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the other half to my “Piper has sectoral heterochromia” headcanon is that she also has hazel eyes alongside the heterochromia and the Argo 2 crew just also doesn’t know how hazel eyes work, because they’re teenagers and its funny and makes sense for them to be A Little Dumb about some things. And hazel eyes tend to confuse people anyways. They just think she has like. Special Eyes™ or something. They think her eyes change color cause they don’t know that hazel eyes just look different depending on the light. And also Percy’s eyes do change color so they figure if one person on the ship already has color-changing eyes then Piper can too.
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delyth88 · 5 months
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Loki - season 2, episode 6 series finale -immediate reaction
Okay, so this time I’m gonna have to split this into two posts.  This one is my reaction after just watching the finale, but this time it’s going to be mostly my emotional response, and the more considered post with images will have to wait till later.  I don’t have the heart for it right now.
So yeah, spoilers ahead.
Well that tore out my heart and stamped on it!
I mean it was an utterly perfect story for a character like Loki, but I’m still devastated. I love it. And I hate it.
I love it on a story level.  The whole season was beautifully done! Loki developed so much over the six episodes, and really won my heart back. I fell in love with the gang from the TVA, particularly OB and Mobius, and I warmed to Sylvie and just wanted her to be able to live the quiet life she’s wanted for so long.
I loved that they really went into the depth I had assumed I’d only get in a fic about the different attempts Loki made to fix things by going back in time. They didn’t just gloss over things, they really showed him trying.  I was shocked when after he asked OB how long it would take him to learn everything, he went and spent CENTURIES doing it!  My stomach dropped.  Because can you imagine what that means for someone?  Even someone as long lived as Loki?  What that has to do to your mind? And that should have been the first clue things weren’t going to turn up roses.
Then he finally succeeds! But they don’t show it to us like we’re experiencing that moment, but more as though we’re an observer, rushing through it because it’s yet another repeat. And for one brief moment Loki is happy because he thinks they’ve done it. But no, it turns out to have been an impossible task!
And then he finds out that HWR basically gave him his newfound powers, and that he still had a lot to learn, and then we see THAT HE ALREADY HAD LEARNED! The way they kept dropping the sense of time on us, that sense of dread and urgency. And inevitability. *shivers*
How he tries, and tries, and tries to convince Sylvie, but can’t get through to her, and how he has to contemplate whether he’s the sort of man who could kill her. I loved how he visited Mobius to ask for his advice. My god. What a horrible conversation to have to have.  But what trust he places in Mobius! 
And I loved how he kept refusing to take the easy path. How he decided he couldn’t kill Sylvie, and how he realised there was another way. But OMG at what price!? I can’t….
But I hated how much this hurt Loki, what this took from him.  When the gold from the rock trickles upwards to create a mockery of a throne, which is more a prison… just…. 😭 The look on his face once he knows what he has to do. He had to make the impossible choice, and he chose the impossible.
I love that it kept the tone of tragedy that has haunted Loki all through the MCU.  I love how they were true to his character in that way, but AT THE SAME TIME allowed him to retain his new sense of self, all that growth we’ve shared through this series but also the change that he’s experienced while he’s been isolated during centuries trying to find a way to defeat HWR and keep the people on the branched timelines safe. His desperate act to do the right thing.  And finally it is the right thing in the eyes of the universe and the audience, and yet he still loses. My heart just can’t bear it!
It’s perfect and it hurts.
Tagging @woodelf68 @pinkpondofasgard @projectprotectloki @scintillatingshortgirl19 @juliabohemian @galaxythreads @makerofrunevests @ladyofthestayingpower @thelightofthingshopedfor @sparklegemstone @iamanartichoke
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fiveminuterice · 3 months
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controversial take i think but i don’t like when artists say “don’t like without reblogging” on their posts or say they’ll block people who like their art without reblogging. i say this as an artist, if you feel upset often enough by people who like without reblogging then that’s not on them that’s on you. and i say this is gently as possible. you are not owed engagement.
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ante--meridiem · 2 years
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The humanities are wonderful and valuable and I understand humanities students feeling under appreciated but every time one of them suggests you need college level humanity courses to understand that murder is bad I roll my eyes so hard.
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do you know where to find all the tpn official arts outside of the manga? I also want to know where to find the artbook content so I was wondering
I'll have to open this up to @1000sunnygo but my understanding is Art Book World is *the* quintessential collection of TPN art outside of Demizu's character birthday drawings and other pieces on twitter created post-2020 (I have a little incomplete collection of them in my Posuka Demizu tag, with these being my personal favorites of the trio).
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Highly recommend purchasing if you have the means and access, not only for the art but also the insightful interviews.
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All the art is sourced and divided into sections based on the source.
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(Volume 13 frontpiece rough. 🥺 And the volume 14 cover rough is very cool.)
If you're looking for the original raw covers of WSJ featuring TPN, here's a link to them on WSJ's wiki.
If you mean the promotional anime art that typically is put on clear files and turned into acrylic stands, as far as I know no one has ever compiled them all together in one single-page gallery for browsing outside of online shops selling them. (My small tag of it is here.)
On tumblr there's @just-like-playing-tag's compilation lamenting how TPN Committee can't be bothered to understand Emma's character and preferences because marketing that she's a girl takes precedence.
Offsite, the closest you'll probably get is TPN wiki's collaboration page listing, though as I've mentioned before don't confuse tlieilt_625p's art with official promo art. I still have no idea why their stuff is in the wiki gallery pages; it just serves to confuse more people.
For example, the TPN x Princess Cafe collaboration:
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Their style is insanely close to the official art on a quick glance, but the heads and limb lengths and widths are a bit off.
My favorite promo collaboration art is probably with Megane Flower glasses (cute comic focusing on it by @kewstiny) just because I'm always a sucker for characters who normally don't wear glasses wearing glasses and vice versa, but also for reasons addressed here.
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We are ignoring that Gilda, Sonya, and Vincent would have been more fitting for this promo because they aren't as recognizable for marketing. 😔🙏 Fucking crying over Emma either gluing or duct taping the frames to her face or just like...holding them for the shot vkldlf
Honorable shoutout to this collab though
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Whippin' this out on a date like "relax, babe, I got this"
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ahalliance · 8 months
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there’s something funny about the people pissed at aziraphale for his choice in the end because they’re doing exactly what the show itself is criticising its characters of doing; not looking at things from the other person’s perspective
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worstloki · 6 months
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friends to enemies is fine but friend group to enemies holds so much more potential for comedy. everyone is chill and still gets along fine. except for Todd who defected and is now our arch nemesis. yeah like he totally just went off on his own and founded a cult. barely changed his aesthetic too and now all he talks about is the corruption in the system and how we're free to join him when we've had enough of it ourselves.
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francy-sketches · 8 months
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girl dont add years to her that's rude
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octarineblues · 5 months
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the strike's over, has anybody heard anything from michael sheen yet
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dallonwrites · 6 months
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actually making my tags from my last post into their own post. writers who struggle with grammar, spelling, typos, errors etc i love you. writers who struggle with rereading their stuff thoroughly no matter how much they try, who don't always have access to other people to help them read i love you. whilst reading through and checking for these things is good practice i really believe that the weight of it should not be put wholly on the writer's shoulders. especially writers who are neurodivergent, disabled, have any condition that can impede their reading + comprehension, are overworked and overtired, are not writing in their native language, list goes on....because grammar mistakes/language mistakes/typos have nothing to do with your abilities as a creative. this is where editors should be uplifting writers, helping them, not scrutinising them for something they cannot always control
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thefirstknife · 8 months
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I want to talk about Lakshmi-2 again since her story came back as relevant, as well as touch on Savathun since she's coming back. So this is going to be a retrospective on their involvement in Season of the Splicer!
A lot of people weren't around for Season of the Splicer or maybe don't remember it as well. That season was a lot and one of the most important parts of it was that at the time we still didn't know about Savathun impersonating Osiris. SOME of us who dedicated a lot of time to figuring it out have speculated it and were pretty much 100% convinced that Osiris in Splicer was NOT Osiris, but this wasn't confirmed until after Splicer ended.
I think that the misunderstanding of this event has also led to misunderstanding Lakshmi and what she did in Splicer. The entire season's story takes on a completely different vibe if you know that Lakshmi was heavily manipulated by Savathun whose presence in the City had a major goal of destabilising leadership and drawing attention away from her own schemes.
This isn't a post to justify anything that Lakshmi did; her actions in Splicer were unambiguously bigoted towards the Eliksni. She used her xenophobia for personal political gains while putting a vulnerable population in danger with her words and actions. Lakshmi's xenophobic preaching resulted in direct violence against the Eliksni. There is no excuse for that, no matter what's the origin of that xenophobia. I want to make that clear before I dive into this.
What happened in Splicer?
Season of the Splicer was the third season in Y4 (Beyond Light). It focused on a mysterious phenomenon known as "the endless night" which wrapped the Last City in perpetual darkness. This was done by the Vex. Nobody knew how to deal with this, including every single Guardian and scholar in the Tower so out of desperation, we turned to the Eliksni for help; sacred Eliksni Splicers had means to enter the Vex Network and find a root cause as well as a possible solution to the problem. This is how Mithrax and his House of Light were invited to the City, in an unprecedent move for an alliance with the Eliksni. Splicers and Guardians together have the unique power to manifest physically in the Vex Network and deal with the cause for the endless night. Long post under:
Accepting the Eliksni into the City was tough. Most humans have experienced some form of violence at the hands of the Eliksni. Our past is filled with wars and battles against the Eliksni. The first big battle for the City, Battle of Six Fronts was against the Eliksni who wanted to breach the newly built wall and attack humanity. Battle of Twilight Gap was a final fight against united Eliksni houses that got close to conquering the City, only to be held off at the Twilight Gap as the last line of defence. This battle was saved, in part, because Mara decided to reveal the Awoken and stop House of Wolves from joining Twilight Gap which essentially prevented Eliksni victory, but spurned the Reef Wars which devastated the Reef; both the Eliksni and the Awoken. This is but a small selection of the biggest conflicts that show for how long this has been going on and how many people were affected by the wars with the Eliksni.
This is all after the Eliksni arrived to the system just as our Collapse finished and they wasted no time settling in a world just beginning to recover from the Collapse. Early human settlements were routinely entirely destroyed by the Eliksni who were stronger and better equipped than humans; until the Risen showed up. But even with the Risen, ordinary humans still continued to suffer to both the Eliksni and the Risen and their combined conflicts. Stories about Amanda and Safiyah are but a fraction of stories of ordinary humans who had to deal with Eliksni attacks. This also includes civilian Eliksni; many Eliksni were literally just survivors of their own apocalypse and had nowhere else to go, while dealing with unfathomable desperation about being abandoned by what they saw as their deity. Both humans and Eliksni were exploited by their leaders and pushed to constant wars.
This is important to understand because it gives some context to why some citizens of the Last City were somewhat reluctant to accept the Eliksni being there, on top of the growing paranoia about a City plunged in an endless night at the hands of the Vex. Humans didn't just wake up one day thinking "Eliksni are stinky!" there were legitimate reasons for being afraid. Mithrax's daughter Eido confirms this in her logs, telling us that the Eliksni are well aware that they were the initial aggressors on humanity. The same can be applied to Eliksni as well; many Eliksni have lived with the knowledge that at any point in time superpowered immortal humans can descend from the sky and start indiscriminately killing them. They have horror stories about this, most notably about Saint-14 who led a long crusade against the Eliksni, including against civilians who wanted nothing to do with the wars. Putting Saint-14 and Mithrax in the same City during a Vex-induced anxiety was a ticking time bomb.
Luckily, Saint-14 is a kind man who is capable of reflecting and being compassionate. Once Mithrax explained how the Eliksni view him, he got deeply ashamed of his actions and sought to atone for his past. It took a while, but the Eliksni accepted him and he became great friends with Mithrax and was willing to lay down his life for Eliksni who, at the end, he claimed are his people equally as anyone else in the City. At the end of the day, the leadership of humanity and the Eliksni decided to put everything behind and start anew, which was the right thing to do. Everybody suffered in the past, but nobody has to continue suffering in the future. Giving everyone a second chance is literally the core theme of Destiny.
The Lakshmi-2 Problem
On the other hand, there was Lakshmi-2. She was the leader of the Future War Cult, one of the City factions. Factions in the city were representatives of the civilians; Future War Cult, New Monarchy and Dead Orbit were the three that operated for the interest of the civilians. Lakshmi was immediately deeply against the Eliksni settling in the City. She proceeded to be a staunch advocate for their removal, broadcast weekly radio messages with anti-Eliksni sentiments and stoked the anxiety and paranoia of the citizens, directing it towards the Eliksni. At one point, the animosity towards the Eliksni turned to violence as well, and the Botza District, where the Eliksni were settled, was attacked and their settlement ransacked. Many Eliksni were harassed in the streets and some were attacked. Lakshmi's broadcasts were a huge part of this violence, which ended with her broadcasting about taking matters into her own hands which resulted in opening a Vex portal to the City (specifically to Botza District to attack the Eliksni).
The fandom immediately hated her for that and with good reason. A lot of people were confused because they didn't think it was right to portray her as a warmongering politician which was always strange to me. She was the leader of the Future War Cult. Her messaging was always that of political warmongering. It's in the name. Splicer just amplified this because the situation was happening in front of our eyes and for other reasons influencing Lakshmi.
Lakshmi was shown actively using the Device, a prediction machine owned by the Future War Cult since the Golden Age which was made back then by Maya Sundaresh who founded the FWC and invested into this Device which is a mesh of Vex technology. Maya called it a "mind-ship" and shown that it was capable of displacing one's consciousness, allowing you to see the future, past, other timelines, or possibly something else. The contemporary FWC found remains of the Device and continued to use it for the same purpose. Using the Device proved to be largely damaging or even lethal to those put in it. A lot of the "futures" that users saw would be that of utter Darkness, war and collapse so they decided to spread the message that "war is all there is" and that there will always be some fight happening in the future and that we must always be ready for it. Lakshmi used this to prove that this whole thing with the Eliksni is that fight; the inevitable yet another clash between human and Eliksni that endangers us all.
It's important to note that using the Device is not safe and it's not reliable. It often shows stuff that is hard to interpret or even completely false and based on what the users wants to see. This shows with Lakshmi with a lot of the visions she was seeing. Even her own fellow FWC members were distraught at her behaviour at the time with some deciding to resign, believing that she was becoming corrupted and going mad. This is relevant because it shows that her close colleagues noticed that she was acting strangely.
And she was. Because of Savathun.
Savathun.
At the time, Savathun was in the city, masquerading as Osiris. Before Splicer, she tried turning us to war with Caiatl, which failed. After that failed, she turned to the ace in her sleeve; Quria, the Taken Vex Mind she was gifted by her brother Oryx back in the Books of Sorrow days. Savathun instructed Quria to manipulate the Vex into creating the Endless Night in order to create a problem for the City that will destabilise its leadership, and cause panic and infighting. Savathun was the one who, as Osiris, suggested that Mithrax and House of Light be invited into the City, knowing full well that it will cause issues. She wanted those issues. She wanted a panicking anxious population on the brink of slaughtering each other, gossiping, spreading lies and misinformation. She needed it to keep her worm fed and she needed it to keep eyes off herself, while she schemed to figure out how to get the Light. She needed time to investigate archives and find materials and learn as much as possible so a little background chaos was perfect for that; nobody will pay attention to an old man who recently lost his Ghost when there's bigger problems at the horizon.
This was possible to piece together during Splicer, but Savathun helpfully admitted to it all in the season after, in Lost. Of course, she framed it to appear that she was being helpful, but we as players have more information so we can piece together everything she's done. Savathun infected both Lakshmi and the City with her viral song. Lakshmi's last broadcast detailed that "Osiris" aided her in opening the portal. Savathun spoke to Lakshmi on multiple occasions. We also have proof of this from the other side, from the perspective of Osiris who could see into Savathun's actions while he was being held prisoner. This lore was the POV from Osiris, from Lost (after Splicer) and it shows Osiris seeing through Savathun's eyes as she was actively influencing Lakshmi. Osiris didn't even know who Lakshmi was; she gained prominence after he'd already been exiled. But he saw an "Exo woman" with "vacant eyes" and Savathun's "true voice" humming to her.
Savathun, besides creating both of the main problems (Endless Night and Eliksni in the City), also worked tirelessly to fuel violence in the City by corrupting Lakshmi-2. Savathun whispered in her ear, running suggestions by her, enticing her day by day and ultimately being the one who made her open the Vex portal in the middle of the City. Lakshmi, on top of being already driven mad by the Device, was also being driven mad by Savathun who desperately wanted the City's leadership to fight. It got to the point of suggesting a coup against the Vanguard. Lakshmi-2 and Executor Hideo (New Monarchy) got as far as to try recruiting Saint-14 to help them with the coup; when he refused, Hideo feared that he will tell Osiris everything and snitch on them, but Lakshmi was convinced that Osiris will stop Saint from saying anything. Why? Because it wasn't Osiris. The "Osiris" that Lakshmi knew was actually Savathun who would indeed try to stop Saint from outing their coup plans.
I want to stress again that Lakshmi wasn't innocent in this whole debacle. She had her own bigoted beliefs, coming from trauma; at the end we learned that Lakshmi-2 survived the sack of London by House of Devils back in the Dark Age. She has personally experienced a traumatic event of Eliksni attacking and murdering humans and destroying their settlement. The problem with Lakshmi is that she didn't even attempt to deal with that trauma or solve it. Saint was also traumatised, as were many other Guardians and people in the City and they all decided to put it aside and work towards getting better. Lakshmi held onto her trauma and never got over it. She confronted the Eliksni (Namrask) who participated in the sack of London and told him to his face that to her, he will never change from a conqueror he was, despite his very honest attempt to do so. Namrask, much like Saint-14 decided to put his warring past behind and to change and be a different person. And as much as Saint, he has the right to do so. Lakshmi denied it from him and instead still held onto her original belief that Eliksni cannot change and cannot be good.
Unfortunately, Lakshmi also never got a chance to change, given that the moment this all started, she was roped in with Savathun who wanted a City leader to sow chaos. Maybe without Savathun and the Device, Lakshmi would've turned out better. Maybe she would've thought about it more, learned to forgive, learned to accept the Eliksni (much like Saint), but she never got the chance before Savathun corrupted her. I feel like people forget that, or maybe even don't know about it. It's much easier to just hate Lakshmi and call her racist and talk about how violently she should die. The nuance and tragedy of her story is often pushed aside or not mentioned at all.
This is even more tragic now. Lakshmi was violated, deeply, in a way that is truly impossible to comprehend. She died, erased, in proximity to an alien entity. In her body, a new identity was installed, a combination of Maya and other Exos that participated in the "chorus" with her as the "conductor." She did not consent to this and as we've seen from her research into Spontaneous Exo Reset Syndrome, she was at least somewhat aware that something horribly wrong had happened to her. She was directed by impulses that were not entirely her own. Her interest in the Future War Cult and the Device are both suspect now, given that those things were Maya's obsessions and Maya used Lakshmi as a proxy; a twisted way to create a "child" by imprinting a part of yourself into them.
And as if that wasn't enough, she was grabbed by Savathun, a master in manipulation, lies and corruption who didn't care about her or about the City or about the Eliksni. I hope people can also realise that it was Savathun who used the bigotry against the Eliksni as a tool with zero care for actual victims of this bigotry. Eliksni dying in violent attacks around the City were nothing but an accessory to Savathun; accessory to her plans to ruin us while she's looking for a way get rid of her worm with the Light. It was entirely selfish, through and through, with no regards to either humans or Eliksni. In this case, I would put more blame on Savathun than Lakshmi for any kind of bigotry towards the Eliksni; Lakshmi could've learned better had she gotten a chance, while Savathun had many chances and simply did not care.
Lakshmi was an incredibly interesting character to me since I first saw her. This is partially due to her VA (Shohreh Aghdashloo) whom I adore to death so just hearing her speak had me enchanted. But Lakshmi and the FWC were always my favourite faction and I didn't like how the community boiled them all down to just xenophobia towards Eliksni as if there was nothing else to them and as if they all agreed with what Lakshmi did in Splicer. At the same time, people ignored the same xenophobia first and foremost from Savathun who had zero reason to even remotely object to Eliksni being in the City, or even New Monarchy who also participated in Lakshmi's schemes. It was only ever Lakshmi, a woman whose trauma was manipulated against her by an entity known for toppling down entire civilisations with the use of manipulation and corruption. Savathun infiltrated many civilisations in the same way she did ours and they all ended up much worse than us: her infiltration of the Harmony led to their downfall and her corruption of Umun'Arath led to the fall of Torobatl. A lesser known example is told to us by Rhulk, of a species (Kalarahnda) he came to destroy but that destroyed itself upon seeing him because someone (Savathun) alerted them to him so they spent centuries preparing their entire civilisation for his arrival as per her instructions. When he arrived, they self-destructed their whole planet, believing they're fulfilling a great prophecy of mass sacrifice to ascend. This was Savathun's doing; instead of helping them escape Rhulk, she orchestrated their demise purely to take the satisfaction of it from Rhulk. Not to help those people, to spite Rhulk.
I'm adding this because I want to absolutely stress how much Savathun does not care for any lives other than her own. Entire civilisations crumbled into dust due to her manipulations. We've talked about this before due to some of the stuff writers said about Savathun recently and I feel like people simply forget this or want to excuse it, but are super quick to judge Lakshmi in a way they never would Savathun; the actual person who orchestrated her actions and ultimately her death.
I think they should both be judged, albeit in different ways. And I definitely think that the blame for what happened to the City during the Endless Night and specifically for what happened to the Eliksni should fall mostly on Savathun, not Lakshmi. It was Savathun who even orchestrated the endless night to begin with. Lakshmi was complicit and she had her own issues that she should've worked out in the centuries she's had to think about them. Savathun probably chose Lakshmi because she was an easier target; already with a problem against the Eliksni. A believable victim, someone that wouldn't take much to convince and corrupt. I'm also of the belief that, as Osiris, she also tried to do it to Saint-14, but he's a much more principled person than Lakshmi.
So they both suck. Both Savathun and Lakshmi were using the struggles of the Eliksni as a tool for their own gains which contributed to untold Eliksni suffering, but in the grand scheme of things, it was Savathun that forged it all from the bottom to the top. She made the Endless Night, she directed the Vanguard into going to Mithrax and the Eliksni for help, she orchestrated their settlement in the City, she spent time picking a target in the form of Lakshmi to spread propaganda and force people to be in a perpetual state of panic and misinformation for months, while she tended to her own goals of gaining the Light.
And once more, Savathun's attempt to put us at war with someone, ultimately led to another alliance. At the end of the day, compassion and friendship in the face of danger prevailed because Destiny is fundamentally a story about hope.
It's just something I wanted to recap and remind people if they aren't aware or don't remember. Because I feel like the new information will reignite the old "Lakshmi is racist" spiel with complete disregard of everything we know about her and with complete disregard of the actual culprit of the bigotry in Splicer: Savathun.
This doesn't mean that you can't dislike Lakshmi for what she's done. You absolutely can! We can't claim that all her actions were because of Savathun; as a matter of fact, she was chosen by Savathun because of how maleable she was. It's not easy to just turn someone into a bigot. The new information definitely adds to the tragedy of Lakshmi's life and to how much she was manipulated by those around her, but it doesn't remove her own fault for what happened.
This also doesn't mean that you have to hate Savathun. Just be aware of some of the more heinous stuff she's done and don't ignore it or view it as not important. Savathun's actions should be condemned as much as Lakshmi's, if not more so, but I'm not here to compare who's a worse bigot. They've both done horrible things to humans and Eliksni in a situation where we needed to stay united. And in the same way we can discuss the complexity and tragedy of Lakshmi, we have to acknowledge it for Savathun as well. She was a victim of manipulation as well, someone who took millions of years to realise that those she swore her life to are liars. She will eventually have to reckon with that.
Luckily, the outcome was ultimately in our favour, although not without consequences. Many Eliksni were attacked and died. Lakshmi died and the rest of the factions were exiled. We now can't simply ask Lakshmi about the new revelations, we can't get more information from her or the FWC, something that might be able to help us understanding and defeating the Witness. There's still a chance to find out in some way, but it would've been so much easier if we could simply ask someone who is in the City.
Splicer was a really good season, I highly recommend going through the story of it if you haven't played. DLV has everything in the playlist I linked and the official channel has just the cutscenes. Being there was truly a whole special experience because of the stuff with Savathun and Osiris. I cannot stress enough that the majority of the players did NOT believe that Osiris isn't Osiris. The theory was out there but it was largely not listened to. Some even used lore tabs that explicitly confirmed the theory from Splicer to claim it debunks it. It was a wild time. The wildest of all was the ending where people were genuinely saying that the ending to Splicer changed their mind to NOT believing it was Savathun. It was one of the most mind-boggling time in Destiny for me and I think that the misunderstanding of that whole plot made a lot of people either forget or not properly understand Savathun's involvement with the events of Splicer. If one played through the whole thing believing that was actually Osiris, Savathun's actions may have eluded them, especially if they didn't engage with a retrospective of the season. I believe that understanding how Savathun manipulated Lakshmi is important for understanding Lakshmi as a character, especially now with these new reveals (and possibly directly because of the new reveals; perhaps Savathun also targeted Lakshmi because of her origin). But at the end of the day, Lakshmi is still someone who couldn't let go of her xenophobia which made her the best target for Savathun to manipulate. That one is on her, regardless of all of her origins and trauma.
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