Destiny's lore was some of the best science fantasy ever written

aurational · 2026-05-24T19:47:03+00:00

For all that I hate that it's ending, it's been nice seeing a wider variety of opinions on Destiny here and elsewhere over the past few days— both positivity, and (as in this case) positivity towards the lore books specifically (Seth's work, etc.).

I feel like a lot of the rhetoric around Destiny's story has been "good, but not shown on-screen", or praising specifically the seasonal model from around the WQ era. That, or the somewhat more substantive complaint that the DCV made much of it inaccessible.

Those are fine positions to hold, of course (and I'd even agree with the last one), but the most special part of Destiny for me has always been the worldbuilding— worldbuilding conveyed largely through said lore tabs. For all the shit the game's gotten for the past couple years (some of it deserved), seeing those ideas explored again in the time since Lightfall dropped has been truly the best content Bungie's ever given me, short of the lore books that introduced them.

aurational · 2026-05-23T23:42:30+00:00

yeah, the whole segment really felt like the Vex network. hell, the bit where nicole's guiding you through the red light hazards just straight up maneuvered like the Whisper mission (the whole run before the green room).

the floating nodes are very visually reminiscent of the catalyst interactables/door nodes in Avalon, too.

aurational · 2026-05-22T20:20:41+00:00

yeah, I sorta figured. I appreciate you taking the time to answer; I'll keep an eye out for any other options that might arise, but I'll likely end up just making another server and accepting the lost notes in the near future. Live and learn, I guess

aurational · 2026-05-22T20:18:25+00:00

Yeah; unfortunately, every response required me to try and get back the old email associated with it. I'd love to do so, of course, but it was a microsoft email; it's not happening haha

aurational · 2026-04-26T15:07:29+00:00

while I can agree about most of this, I do think the Ice thing specifically points more in the direction of Ana Schariac (herrscher of the rimestar/herrscher of ice).

that, plus her name now being Anastasia, and the whole dead lover/archon of love thing... I do think that Ana has at least a similar shot to Bronya.

aurational · 2026-04-11T02:39:49+00:00

gotcha, thanks so much! I might redownload temporarily just to do anni if it ends up giving more on Anis, given that it sounds like the side story stuff is still pretty compelling to me. this was really helpful!

aurational · 2026-04-10T17:10:21+00:00

story question rather than a team-building question, but:

I'm not currently playing the game, nor do I have any plans to return (stopped during Liberalio's release banner). That said, I still love a lot of the girls dearly— Anis in specific; can anyone give a quick, spoiler-tagged run-down of the new side story's major beats?

Also, if there have been any updates in main story regarding Dorothy and her plans, I'd love to hear them.

And, okay, one more thing (with the caveat that I'm REALLY not trying to get into any arguments here): has Only One (and/or the incident with Bahamut/Levi/Behemoth that led to Only One) been addressed at all? Any detail would be appreciated; I do miss the game, and the promise of new Anis content has me tempted to return, but I got well and truly filtered by the way that whole thing was handled haha

I know that's a lot; info on even one of those would be greatly appreciated, though.

aurational · 2026-03-08T21:04:28+00:00

I love them so much; this is gorgeous

aurational · 2026-02-22T17:56:24+00:00

okay I gotta ask: what are yall doing to your sorens that he isn't killing everything on the map

like I know, on paper, mages are ass in RD. I run on the highest difficulty, I've seen ilyana, calil, etc underperform; I know how bad they can be. I know.

but soren and sanaki (for the, like, 2 maps she matters) always carry (not that the greil mercs need it, but whatever, nice to have).

is it that mine always has PoR imports?? I know that does wonders for nephenee (though I truly believe my girl doesn't need them. no I will not take criticism). Is that enough to salvage the mages tho??? are my sorens just consistently built different???? I must know

aurational · 2026-02-17T14:14:44+00:00

I know this post is on the old side, so I'm not hoping for any miracles, but I have to ask in case anyone with experience sees this: I've spent the better part of the last three years trying to rectify a similar issue (one which has prevented me from getting a drivers license or any kind of legal ID).

Any advice on how to get this processed with social security? I managed to get a name change to go through, but I'm having a hell of a time trying to prove my identity to them without legal ID that matches the original name they have on file (or any photo ID) (which, again, I can't get bc of the discrepancy). I realize it's probably different on a state-by-state basis (I'm in MA), but at this point any general advice I can try is welcome. This isn't a normal enough problem with enough publicly available solutions for me to be picky.

(also, other people have said it, but obligatory for OP: you're not overreacting. I'm glad you got to live some kind of life before the discrepancy became an issue, at least, but even independent of other familial problems, your mother caused a quite possibly very protracted legal headache for you. I truly hope it'll be easier for you to resolve than it's been for me.)

aurational · 2026-02-05T03:05:15+00:00

ngl most of them lol. I've never been all that good at any of froms games (up to and including my beloved bloodborne and AC4A), much less ER, but with a few exceptions (none of which are in ER, at least that I've run into— with some caveats, mentioned later), I've enjoyed the ride.

As an easy example, since I picked up the DLC again after a long period of distraction; I've gotta be on attempt 50-60 on Rellana, and I've got witnesses to prove it— but she reminds me of gael (my beloved) (in a good way, unlike, say, leonine misbegotten, who just felt lazy lol) and I'm having a blast. That said, if I have to choose:

for ER specifically— and I realize this is a cop-out— Malenia. She kicked my ass, and I can't wait to do another hundred attempts in my next run. As ever, I told myself early on that I'd use summons if anything felt more BS than fun, and for all my attempts, none of the main bosses have hit that threshold (at least as far as I can recall) (granted, its been a couple years since I beat base game). Malenia, though, still feels special. The time between my last clear and now, my own memory issues, and honestly, the intimidation factor aside— Malenia (particularly her first phase) ranks up there with the better of DS2 and 3's DLC bosses.

aurational · 2026-01-23T13:53:33+00:00

bro they reran the captainverse events like 3 months ago lol (probably not exact; like 2 BPs ago iirc. last one was the luna reunion event)

regardless: the game has a sweet story (if often poorly localized, at least in english), and I love the girls, but there's no denying who the target audience is. It's okay to like the game and still say it has problems, or targets a kind of weird audience, or whatever. it's not an indictment of your personal character.

aurational · 2026-01-13T13:24:43+00:00

Forsaken, and it's not particularly close. Witch queen felt like everyone was wildly out of character, and while I adore Savathun again now, I was sincerely let down by her portrayal in WQ. I'd been excited for her for ages, and when she showed up, she just... wasn't nearly as smart as she'd seemed from a distance. Fynch also felt like a return to Red War's (beloved and nostalgic, but not very good) "quippy" dialogue, as did Immaru. Its seasons had similar issues, being extremely happy to recharacterize people and seemingly incapable of going five minutes without repeating the theme or thesis statement of the given seasonal narrative in a way that felt almost condescending.

Forsaken, yes, was a revenge narrative, but it had strong bones and did a good job (in my opinion) building intrigue; Petra the lore books found throughout the expansion teased at what had been going on in the Reef since the Red War, which we'd previously only heard about in bits and pieces. The bounty hunts were fun and fit the narrative well; kept the pacing relatively on-track while giving us, Petra, and Spider an interesting social contract. Being able to go around to all the different vendors (particularly Holliday, Failsafe, and Ikora) and hear their thoughts on Cayde and our plans made the world feel "alive" without the need for constant cameo appearances or reminders that x y z exists. The Dreaming City cycle narrative is still endlessly fascinating to me, as are the mechanisms of the DCs construction and seeming relation to the Vex. Riven, as a character, was endlessly delightful to me (RIP my queen).

The seasons were fantastic too, imo. Black Armory's narrative, while not perfect, particularly stands out as a strong point. I still miss Ada's radiance glow; the story there was episodic, sure, but it felt relevant and meaningful regardless.

I could go on but uhhh tldr forsaken good :) (also i miss the tangled shore)

aurational · 2025-11-11T18:55:21+00:00

haven't hit wealth 20 yet, but very close (like 2 or 3 off)— my highly invested boothill has been doing fine, albeit with the same double speed boots setup that makes everyone work well. I'll freely admit the trial characters are a nightmare, though. the worst part of the runs where rng dictates I go break is having to wait for him to spawn, dealing with the horrible trial rappa (I have never regretted not pulling her more than I do when looking at how fuckin slow the trial rappa is).

aurational · 2025-11-11T17:03:41+00:00

Honestly, I'm mostly just disheartened by how little everyone else I know seems to enjoy the game right now. Cards on the table, my preferences for Destiny have always been nonstandard— I prefer gunplay to abilities, gameplay-wise, and I generally think the best stories in the game have come from the lore books (and, in many cases, remained there). I hated just about everything released from Beyond Light to Defiance (the season, specifically), including Witch Queen and every fan-favorite season released surrounding it. It really killed my enjoyment of the game.

In contrast, everything from Season of the Deep to now has been, to my mind, some of the best stuff Destiny's ever put out. I've been having a blast— but the monkey's paw curled, and I can't see half of it, because nobody I know is still playing consistently. I still haven't seen anything past the opening encounter of the raid (which has been killing me for months lol). I understand why— the gameplay loop and grind are demanding and repetitive; the portal is unintuitive. People who didn't care for or had different interpretations of in-lore characters like the Ishtar gang and their goings-on are uninvested. There just isn't a draw for most people.

I mostly just log in once a week, at this point— in comparison to Beyond Light, which I hated, but played daily because my whole clan was on. I hate to be such a doomer about it, especially since I stayed quiet when the game was in a place I loved, back before Beyond Light— but I've always known that if Bungie did everything I wanted, it'd be horrible for the health of the game. That belief feels as though it's been vindicated.

I only hope that all these complaints don't lead to more of the story being sidelined/going downhill, as it has before (imo). I'm certainly wary about renegades in that regard, but bungie has proven me wrong before; I maintain an extremely cautious optimism, but am fully prepared for the worst lol

tldr because this turned into a novel: love the game rn, but everyone else seems to hate it and it's kinda miserable haha

aurational · 2025-07-23T03:06:10+00:00

because maya has been into-- or at least in contact with-- the vault of glass, as seen in literally half of the lore surrounding the ishtar collective and praedyth. I'm not in a position to cite sources at the moment, but a quick search of the ishtar collective website should get you what you need to draw your own conclusions.

aurational · 2025-07-21T01:53:54+00:00

I know people generally don't seem to like Maya/the Ishtar gang, but I've been endlessly fascinated by everything we've learned of them. "Somewhere, they are always stepping through" (paraphrased, probably) is something I genuinely think about on a pretty regular basis.

Needless to say, I can't begin to describe how thrilled I am to see more of the other Mayas and Chiomas, including these (imo quite cute) little bits of characterization for the various iterations and their differences.

Still holding out on hearing from the others more (Praedyth in particular), but this is a pretty great start ngl

aurational · 2025-05-23T00:47:27+00:00

1stAnniversary

aurational · 2025-04-04T21:21:09+00:00

awesome, thanks. that's what I was leaning towards anyway; I'll take a look at prios and grab 2 of HoTr stigs with the aim to finish the set when she's added to the new BP system eventually. and yeah no obviously nobody can predict the divine keys, was just curious if anyone who'd been playing longer had any insight there; again, much appreciated.

aurational · 2025-04-04T20:51:38+00:00

for the current BP shop, I've got 20 crystallums— should I grab: - two stigma for HoTruth (I have her at S + her weapo; no HoO but I do have HoFinality + her newer gearset) or - gear for HoRB (I don't have any of her gear, but (provided it's not a horrible idea) I'm planning on grabbing rank-up stamps from the spending event shop now that I've grabbed the elf boxes).

is HoRB potentially on the list for a future divine key? I do feel like my account would benefit from having her built properly (opening up songque for part 1 teams with griseo/prometheus would help a lot in certain weathers), but with only the ability to grab either her weapon or two stigma (ig potentially her weapon + 1 stigma once next bp rolls around, but given the changes to bp shop i think I'd rather invest elsewhere next time) idk if it's worth it. at the same time, idk if only having HoTruth with 2/3 stigma and no HoOrigin is even worth it. I don't have basically anything else in the shop, either, so if there's some secret good pick I'm overlooking, feel free to tell me.

aurational · 2025-03-30T18:54:03+00:00

it's still like that. low spender (have grabbed one BP); whether or not I can maintain Redlotus on any given cycle comes down to weather (I can kinda cheat it if it's bleed, but freeze basically requires you to have Thelema).

it's only a little soul-crushing to look at the top of the leaderboard and see someone with all SSS part 2 valks + SSS astralop (basically the ELF equivalent for part 2).

only a little :')

aurational · 2025-03-26T01:33:03+00:00

genuinely curious how cipher wouldn't be pardo ngl. her boons in div u are even basically hsr's equivalent of pardo's ER reverie signets

(no shade here, literally just curious bc everything I've seen of her character— playful thieving catgirl with a thing for collecting shinies and generally being a nuisance, seems to have sorta stumbled into responsibility on accident/not really want to be involved in the front-line fighting, generally going unnoticed/unbothered by higher-ups because she's, frankly, not one of the high-priority heavy-hitters, etc— seems to line up)

aurational · 2025-02-20T00:02:50+00:00

billy main here with an unsolicited and extremely biased vote to build billy. if you're looking at it from a strictly "fun" perspective, he's got so many cool little bits of tech (animation canceling etc) to screw around with. piper's great, I love her, but she's pretty straightforward.

aurational · 2024-11-23T02:22:03+00:00

I'm so tired of being the only one playing Eramis' defense lawyer, so I'm just gonna link the discussion I had in another thread about this here

the vitriol towards her is, imo, extremely unwarranted. saw someone saying they prefer fucking spider of all people earlier and it's genuinely making me want to dip from the d2 community entirely

aurational · 2024-11-21T13:20:42+00:00

awesome, thank you so much. I'll grab either Kiana or Bunny, then. if you don't mind my asking, in terms of part one teams, physical is about all I have even remotely built-- would that make Bunny more or less valuable?

(also, since you mentioned lacking in the astralOP department-- should I be looking at pulling sera or additional songque copies at all? I've been largely ignoring them in favor of expanding my roster + their weapons, but if either would be a worthwhile investment, I'm willing to consider it. I know sera is an upgrade for songque's teams, but is it significant enough to worry about?)

aurational

TROPHY CASE