eyes up, guardian

He’s an AI. He has angel symbolism. He was built to replace a god. He likes the arts. He used a customer service voice to tell his creator to fuck off. He used satellites as blunt force weapons. His theme is called “A God on Mars”. He wrote poetry. He’s fucking dead.

other media wants their aliens and monsters to have aesthetic appeal above anything else; even if something is meant to horrify you, they want it to be good to look at. anything that makes a design unattractive past a certain point is usually left on the cutting room floor. and this is an understandable practice! humans are a very aesthetically inclined species!

but look at the aliens in destiny!

they’ve got weird stuff going on! cabal faces straight up look like a scrotum! psions are soooo egg-shaped and malnourished looking, and hive have a bad case of muppet mouth on top of looking like human skeletons with bug parts grafted on. eliksni are gangly and awkwardly shaped and in-game they are constantly hunched over.

a lot of the times (except for with the hive), these features are covered with armor and helmets, and i think that's pretty unfortunate because the base designs for these guys are so interesting to look at!!!

the same principals go for unique enemies like rhulk and nezarec. they're ugly!!! and that's the appealing part!!! rhulk's head is long and almost perfectly cylindrical and his feet can't decide if they're hooves or paws; nezarec has a face like a rotary phone and a second, vestigial thumb, as well as weirdly shaped monkey feet.

and it would be one thing if these features were presented to evoke horror -- but the thing is, i would argue, they're not. they're just presented. it's never a matter of "look how scary this thing is." even though we meet most of these aliens as enemies, their looks are allowed to just... be what they are. they don't look like that to scare us. they just look like that.

thanks dad??

this is a classic, but still. oryx is a big softie when he isn’t genociding entire systems.

stupid vex bother us during lunchtime

xD

I love how he absolutely does not understand what’s going on in their heads but still supports them.

still, this is the best explanation of the sword-logic in the lore to this day.

Also I love how the siblings struggle for a century with the Vex, and when Oryx comes back he just deals with the problem in like one paragraph?

tiny Aurash

this hits hard

gosh, Sav really won’t take shit from anybody

jfhsjsjsk

this reminds me of that passage very very early in the Books, when Sathona remarks on their journey:

that’s exactly the vibe I get from Sav

ah yes, another essay I need to write at some point

oryx organized a baby shower for crota!!

I’m simping for oryx’s daughters ok

<3

@clovisbrayai YOU GET IT YOU GET IT

like do you come back the exact same every time your ghost brings you back, or do you maybe loose just a tiny bit of something every time?

do you even know if you're losing anything or are you relying on your ghost to bring you back "correct," or at least correct enough to fight?

how many times can someone be resurrected missing a tiny, unnoticeable piece of themselves, maybe come back but a little to the left every time?

and you keep being edged to the left until the identity of who you were falls off a cliff and shatters for the facade it was all along?

what makes the guardian who they are? who they choose to be in every life they come back, or the ghost that's in charge of getting them back up?

Festival of the Lost is going great so far. This is Immaru talking btw.

Ikora also goes for the throat:

??? THIS IS NOT A DATE?

Eris:

LMAO y'all gotta stop roasting Glint.

More cursed content, Eris to Immaru:

Immaru:

???? STOP????? And Eris replies with:

(repost from twitter)