7. What's one way your OC has changed since you first came up with them?

Honestly, roughly around Forsaken era Aryn's inner motivations were slightly the opposite of what they are now. I used to think of her as a wholly selfless character, whose danger was in pursuing the salvation of humanity at any cost to herself, but I eventually realized I didn't like that very much. Over time, I started recontextualizing her story and eventually realized I made a hard pivot to the other way around lol. It's better this way, I think, although maybe not for Aryn or her friends or anyone else in the whole world

23. What emotion is the hardest for your OC to process? How about express?

Hmmmmm I thiiiink Aryn's problem is less in expressing emotions, and more so in expressing them in ways that are healthy. She does that thing where she makes her feelings everyone else's problem, throwing her grief and anger at anyone in range, and then crying about it when people do anything other than just meekly accept that the conversation is now and forever about her.

I would say grief. I don't think Aryn has the tools to process everything she's lost in a healthy way, so she projects it all onto this heroic fantasy where she's the center of the universe and everyone who lost or suffered or died were ultimately side characters there to advance her character development. It's the only way it makes sense to her.

24. What is an alternative life path your OC might have gone down? How different would their life be if they made those choices?

Being honest. I think the alternate universe where Aryn would be happiest is the one where she WASN'T the Hero of the Red War and maybe Knot had that job. In THAT timeline I think Aryn could have theoretically been convinced to go to therapy :D

It was a difficult thing to admit. So, she didn't. Not to anyone; not even to her own Ghost. Though Orion had seen worse in her heart before than that.

People did notice, of course, that she still bore some of his golden gifts. A weapon with purple emboss, its origin having slipped her mind, made several Warlocks at the HELM glare at her until she brought it to Banshee to have it disassembled.

She mourned it as he took it apart. Its gleaming components were no longer any different than any of her other ones. She did not say a word.

"So many Guardians taken in by a monster," Zavala said at a strategy meeting. "Most have renounced him, of course, but the fact that it happened at all..."

"The treasures of the Leviathan have lured many a stout mind," Ikora cautioned. "And not just among Guardians. Power is always tempting."

Aryn nearly broke the HELM transponder as she listened. Her hands longed to punch something.

They didn't understand... though maybe that was a good thing.

"I saw it from the beginning, of course," one triumphant Hunter proclaimed at a bar one night. "Calus was rotten to the core. I called it, didn't I? I said, right after the Red War..."

Her words dissolved into a chorus of agreement from her friends. Aryn drank and tried not to listen.

"My father poisons his words to draw in the unwary and deluded," Caiatl said, another night, over her comms.

"I don't know," Crow said, as the infestation of the HELM grew more severe. "I think... there will always be people seeking power. And Calus was willing to give it to them. I can't really blame them for not seeing through it."

Aryn tried her best not to say anything. She dealt more cards for a game neither of them really knew how to play.

"I just... want to think I'm better than that, now," he continued.

Aryn begged him to understand with her eyes, but as Crow averted his gaze and drew, she thought she had never been more angry in her entire life.

What must it be like, she wondered? To leave monstrousness in your past, your greatest problem people confusing you for someone you weren't anymore?

She could confirm that the other way around sucked. Other people holding on to the image of a magnificent hero, averting their eyes from who you were now.

Maybe there was an Aryn who could have agreed with him, but she was gone. She died in the Red War, maybe, when she lost her fireteam, her home, her... anonymity.

And it was Calus who picked her up again. Who assuaged all doubt in her mind.

She had asked him, one night, why it was her and her alone the Traveler had picked to save the Last City.

Why, he said, surrounded by the bright and infinite treasures he rained upon her, because you deserved it. You deserve all of this, and more.

Okay, she thought now, feeling the egregore choking the hallways of the ship and Crow's concerned eyes on her.

The Guardian’s muscles screamed in protest as she made this final pivot; the Witch Queen’s body crashed onto the turf.

“No,” Savathûn gasped, voice loud but frail.

Aryn stood, and beheld her fallen, worthy enemy.

“Isn’t this interesting?” she asked. “I miscalculated. But so did you, Guardian. So protective of your Traveler, you wouldn’t let me keep it safe.”

Aryn shook her head. “You didn’t have to...” She drew in a breath, like the last gasp of a dying woman. “Why did you have to fight me?”

Savathûn grinned, skull-like, death pall already beginning to hang over her. “Your offer was very interesting,” she wheezed. “I was... almost tempted. You are so earnest. So guileless. You remind me of someone, you know.”

The Hive god gestured upward, almost a gesture of tenderness, like she was trying to cup her dearest opponents face in her hand one final time. Aryn readied her gun and her Light.

“But the thing is,” Savathûn whispered, “I just don’t trust you.”

THANK YOU <3

1) Does your OC have a voice claim?

Not reallyyyy... I imagine her with a deeper-than-average voice, though. Someone did an AMA on r/casualiama (basically the r/mildlyinteresting of AMA subreddits) just titled "Woman with a deep voice" and posted audio of her responding to various comments sounding really chilled out. I'd probably cast her if it came down to it.

2) Who is your OCs best friend?

Knot! She loves Knot. They were both newly-raised Guardians picked up by Morna during the Taken War. Aryn loves Morna, too, but Morna sometimes reminds her to fill out her reports or do her laundry or something so the relationship is different.

As for Orion... theoretically, she IS Aryn's best friend. Hands down. No one else does as much for Aryn as she does. But Aryn took her for granted for quite a while, which Orion isn't wholly blameless for; she does NOT know how to set a boundary with a newly created godling. I think, post-TFS, Aryn does a lot of reflecting on that relationship now that it's gone.

15) Do you see your OC ever retiring? Do you see them making it?

I really do <3 It's hard to say retire, since really I think of her fate post-TFS as the beginning for her, not the end. (Past is prologue!) But I don't think there's anything wrong with Aryn that can't be fixed. There are relationships broken beyond repair, damage done that can't be put back the way it was... but I think Aryn eventually finds a way to live in the world again, better than before. You can't really say "normal" about a being composed entirely of Light, but she finds a new normal.