#drifter thread

...so I played the Duviri Paradox and now I'm obsessed with her :3

Ahhhhhh thank you!! It's hard to talk too much about her just yet because I've literally just met her, but I already have such a strong sense of the kind of person she is just based on what I felt drawn to while playing as her, and I'm happy to talk through some of my thought processes in how I approached her as a character.

I wanted Thread to feel different from Needle combat-wise, both for the sake of mixing up the gameplay but also to just give them different narrative flavours. They both exist to hit it till it dies, but while Needle was taught to be precise and lethal without drawing unnecessary attention when possible, Thread doesn't have any formal training and defaults to hitting harder than the other guy can. It's great for anger management too. Girl's got a lot of emotional issues.

Their choices in warframes also feels indicative of some ways in which they apply gender to their situation - Needle operated the warframes via dreaming. In a way, the warframes are an extension of herself, they are her when she uses them and so she prefers to pilot female warframes. Thread had no such training and doesn't necessarily view the warframe as an extension or representation of herself the way Needle does - given her introduction to them in Duviri, a warframe is a tool for her to use and it doesn't overly bother her whether that tool is considered masc or femme, so long as it works.

Thread's design also got tweaked a little after the initial intro to the Duviri Paradox. To begin with, she had pink eyes like Needle, but then I decided to change them to a more 'natural' colour to help further differentiate her more and indicate the narrative divergence between the two of them. She has some eye glow which still indicates something unnatural in her experiences, but she's more passably 'normal' than Needle who has the pink eyes and the eyeglow as well as the marks on her face and implants to suggest some degree of alteration in an effort to help tame and control her Void powers.

Her bond with Teshin is also very important to me because he was so transformative for her despite their in-game time together being relatively brief. He provides her with companionship and guidance, and for the first time since she was a kid, she has someone who is there for her and is able to help her without smothering her. He provides her with the means to free herself and find her way out, and ultimately gives her a reason to go apeshit and fight back.

Finally, the names. I was initially kinda stuck on a name for my Operator, and when I decided to start the Duviri Paradox, I started trying to bounce stuff around in earnest. Thread came to mind because of the Threads in Veilguard, and that in turn led me to naming the girls Needle and Thread, again indicating independent evolution from one another while still remaining thematically linked. Needle pierces and leads the way, Thread binds things together, and together the two can mend broken things <3

Khal 175, I would die for you, you were so fucking cool and a really crucial insight into the humanity of the Grineer, I really hope you survived your derailed suicide mission brother 🫡

Veso. Veso. I know you're just a squishy little engineer but you have the survivability of a may fly, I'm proud of you for sticking it to Alad when it mattered but I'm begging you to invest that profit of yours in better gear

Me: man fuck this, I'm not having fun with the railjack mission, let's get onto the story. Warframe: have a railjack section! Me: YOU BASTARD!

Fuck yeah, getting to play as Teshin was cool af! I loved the dynamic with Ordis, man really hated having to ask our favourite cephalon for help lmao, and his obvious protectiveness of the player, being willing to make the hard choice if Lotus is beyond help but promising the Operator that when they do rescue her, it'll be together 🥹

AND THEN THEY RIP MY FUCKING HEART OUT HOW DARE THEY

The callback to how Erra nearly killed Varzia, except this time there's no Lotus telling him to let go and so he just fucking SNAPS MY DAD'S NECK FUCK

(It's okay, he's chilling in Duviri and being a cave hermit, it's FINE)

And the hand was straight up LOTUS' SEVERED HAND?! THE STAB WAS AN ECHO OF WHAT BALLAS DID TO THE OPERATOR?! FUCK THE PIECES ARE PIECING TOGETHER

Real fucking rich of you to keep calling me a devil when your insides are dangling from that slit in your chest cavity Ballas, you fucking bitch, how about I send you to hell!!!! Better if mum gets to do it because of all the miserable hell you've put her through!!!!

Drifter time! And alas, poor 'fuck it we ball' Thread has been forced to learn the ways of stealth. Don't worry baby, we'll let you pilot Umbra when we get to it

Aw Ordis has a lil body now! And he doesn't seem to know the difference between the Drifter and the Operator, or what to make of their idioms lol

Ah, so it's the old 'if you can't beat them, commit to galaxy-wide brainwashing and gaslighting to convince people that your enemies were the ones who committed the very crimes you're going to commit and that you're actually liberating them'. Do you think Ballas was loved as a child? Because I think his mother should have aborted that thing

We're living out of a crashed Orbiter? Where's all my stuff gone? WHERE'S MY ROOMBA?!

The Solaris went from a based work song to this shit, can't have shit in Fortuna

Huh, someone who knows something about eidolons? My first thought is the Ostrons but they're on earth, so who else- oh, hey Stalker! Nice to see you, thanks for not killing me! (Yes I was this dumb)

Aw sulky peepaw in his sulky pit, sulking because his estranged daughter is 'dead', his son's a tool and his least favourite grandchild is here to try and make some kind of peace

Well he gave me a sick bow and a rundown of my targets and how to kill them, then called me a cringe loser. Nice talking with ya gramps

Yet here he is, sending his helper to give me a revive and reminding me of the enemy's weaknesses. I know you love me really grandpa (well, you love mum at least)

Fuck me, Thread is fragile as shit, fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck

Oh no, mum's hungry

Oh and hey, the whole Zariman situation was actually fucking Terrifying. 'Singing and laughter and play' where the fuck was that, Queenie, because all I hear is crying and feral screaming outside the door, and THAT CREEPY FUCK IS HERE

MUM WTF

SHE IS CHASING MEEEE

Oh and now Needle's back, and she's so happy to see her mum :D

Aaaaaaand mum's left again D:

Seriously this is how children get abandonment issues

And now she gets to meet Thread- wait a second, why don't you guys have the same nose? Ah fuck that's gonna piss me off

Anyway Thread gets to be the one to finish the job - I wanna do a run with Needle as well because she wants payback against Ballas for Lotus, for Teshin, and for everyone else, but for now I want more Thread time

'Eh, it can't be harder than riding a horse, right?' Proceeds to nearly fall over.

Konzo!!!! Right, time to be sneaky stealthy and free the Ostrons without being detec- and there goes Umbra, aggroing all the enemies

(This is how I realised that Umbra doesn't just stay put like other warframes and he will run around with you)

'They believe this tower is inhabited by a spirit called the Unum' yeah watch it be a real thing

It was indeed a real thing

Lotus is on the goddamn warpath to kill Ball Ass, good for her

And another GODDAMN RAILJACK SECTION

WHAT FORWARD ARTILLERY? *one google search later* well where was the on-screen prompt for that?!

'I should've stayed in Duviri' bet you never thought you'd be saying that, eh Thread

Oh and Ball Ass wants to feed the sun to his sentient ship that eats things. Rocky and Grace didn't save the stars for you to do that, you prick!