#witch queen
Savathun Cosplay Destiny 2 by HayleyRudolph
Savathun Cosplay Destiny 2 by Hayley Rudolph / Witch Queen Savathun Cosplay Fan Art Reaper Rudolph
He smiled for a photo
How To Make A Spell Locket
I love lockets. Especially vintage ones that have filigree designs engraved on them. Or sometimes they come in different shapes like hearts, circles or ovals. Lockets to me already feel kind of mysterious reminding me of poison rings but for keeping photos or secrets inside.
If you have a locket sitting around, this spell is the perfect way to switch it up and wear your locket with your spell intention. If you need a locket first, try checking out thrift shops or craft stores. You can find pretty inexpensive lockets at any jewelry rack at a second hand shop, or score a pack of them at your local craft supply store.
Making spell lockets is really simple and only requires a few ingredients depending on what you choose to designate your locket for.
Protection Spell Locket
Black Obsidian Chips
Mugwort, Sage, and/or Rosemary
Black Candle Wax
Incense
Abundance Spell Locket
Citrine Chips
Basil
Green Candle Wax
Incense
Psychic Abilities Spell Locket
Amethyst
Jasmine
Purple Candle Wax
Incense
To Find Other Witches Locket
Labradorite
Rosemary
Gold candle wax
Incense
To create your spell locket set your items out in front of you and light the candle color correspondence to the spell locket you are creating. Light your candle and incense. Meditate to clear your mind and cast a white circle around yourself and your spell.
Light your incense and cleanse your locket by passing it through the smoke first. Next, cleanse the crystal chips and herbs you will be using.
Arrange the crystal chips in your locket. Next, arrange the herbs. Both the crystals and the herbs should be placed in a way that the locket can still be closed and latched if necessary. If you have too many pieces in your locket, reduce them by removing a few herbs and crystal chips.
Once you have the desired amount and your locket can easily close, take your candle and let the wax drip inside setting the crystal chips and herbs inplace. (Careful not too much!) Let the wax dry. If you’ve over dripped or are no longer able to close the locket, carefully take a toothpick and scrape the excess wax off.
Set your intention over the locket by reciting the following but paraphrasing for your intention: I create this amulet for ______________ and charge it with my intention to _________________. (For instance you can say, “I create this amulet for protection and charge it with my intention to protect me from all harm.”)
If you are actively wearing the necklace, don’t forget to take it outside and charge it under the full moon each month.
Graphics on this blog post were created by Obsidian Odyssey. Thank you so much for creating the amazing art art for this post! Check out her witchy blog and join her online coven. <3
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Kick start your spring season by getting some spiritual cleansing done! For more witchy content, tips on starting your practice and more >> follow or visit witchesbelike.com.
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How To Make A Spell Locket
I love lockets. Especially vintage ones that have filigree designs engraved on them. Or sometimes they come in different shapes like hearts, circles or ovals. Lockets to me already feel kind of mysterious reminding me of poison rings but for keeping photos or secrets inside.
If you have a locket sitting around, this spell is the perfect way to switch it up and wear your locket with your spell intention. If you need a locket first, try checking out thrift shops or craft stores. You can find pretty inexpensive lockets at any jewelry rack at a second hand shop, or score a pack of them at your local craft supply store.
Making spell lockets is really simple and only requires a few ingredients depending on what you choose to designate your locket for.
Protection Spell Locket
Black Obsidian Chips
Mugwort, Sage, and/or Rosemary
Black Candle Wax
Incense
Abundance Spell Locket
Citrine Chips
Basil
Green Candle Wax
Incense
Psychic Abilities Spell Locket
Amethyst
Jasmine
Purple Candle Wax
Incense
To Find Other Witches Locket
Labradorite
Rosemary
Gold candle wax
Incense
To create your spell locket set your items out in front of you and light the candle color correspondence to the spell locket you are creating. Light your candle and incense. Meditate to clear your mind and cast a white circle around yourself and your spell.
Light your incense and cleanse your locket by passing it through the smoke first. Next, cleanse the crystal chips and herbs you will be using.
Arrange the crystal chips in your locket. Next, arrange the herbs. Both the crystals and the herbs should be placed in a way that the locket can still be closed and latched if necessary. If you have too many pieces in your locket, reduce them by removing a few herbs and crystal chips.
Once you have the desired amount and your locket can easily close, take your candle and let the wax drip inside setting the crystal chips and herbs inplace. (Careful not too much!) Let the wax dry. If you’ve over dripped or are no longer able to close the locket, carefully take a toothpick and scrape the excess wax off.
Set your intention over the locket by reciting the following but paraphrasing for your intention: I create this amulet for ______________ and charge it with my intention to _________________. (For instance you can say, “I create this amulet for protection and charge it with my intention to protect me from all harm.”)
If you are actively wearing the necklace, don’t forget to take it outside and charge it under the full moon each month.
Graphics on this blog post were created by Obsidian Odyssey. Thank you so much for creating the amazing art art for this post! Check out her witchy blog and join her online coven. <3
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Things to do for a Spring Witch
Spring isn’t really my jam, but I do like to incorporate seasons into my practice. I love how each season brings with it a certain focus so you can really explore your magic throughout the whole year.
March 20th is the first day of spring this year, and where I live we have had a long snowy winter so I’m really ready to incorporate some warm days into my magic.
1 Clean out your witchy supplies
It gets to be a mess, I know. Spring is a great time to cleanse and purge your witchy things. Donate what you don’t need and organize the rest. Your magic will thank you.
2 Do a big ritual cleanse for all your baddy spell casting
Kidding, but for real. Spring is a time for cleansing.
3 Sweep out the negativity from your life
This is not in the literal sense. To do a broom cleanse, open all your windows and doors and take your broom two inches above the floor metaphorically ‘sweep’ the negativity out of your space.
4 Spring walks for collecting items
Spring is the best time for finding witchy things outside. I’ve found insect wings, small animal bones, rocks, anything you think you’ll need for your craft.
5 Spells for New Growth
Ready to get that new job? New home? Or start a new business? Spring is the nest time to piggyback off that energy.
6 Spells for Abundance
Want to attract more abundance around this time? Add dill or parsley to a drawstring bag and place it on your altar or carry it with you.
7 Charge your Crystals (for real this time)
I’m not the greatest when it comes to taking all my crystals outside and charging them under the full moon because really it’s a nuisance. But I try to commit once a year and spring it when it is.
8 Cleanse your tools
While you’re charging your crystals, do some more magical spring cleansing and charge your tools too.
9 Honor your Ancestors with fresh picked flowers
Next time you’re outside, pick up some fresh dandelions or spring flowers and place them in a vase for your ancestors.
10 Draw, write, meditate outside
Take some time to sit outside and reflect.
11 Focus on spiritual growth
Remember that the season of spring is all about new growth, growing spiritually and creating the life you want for yourself.
12 Spring Clean your space
Sometimes it starts with the mundane work. Take some times this spring and clear out your physical space, sometimes it helps with your mental space too.
13 Make sun water
Make sun water on the first full spring day for the masculine equivalent to moon water.
14 Go outside, camp, take a walk, connect with nature
This one speaks for itself, but go outside, connect and get out of the winter mood.
15 Grow your food for spells
Even if you don’t have a lot of space (me!) take an old terra cotta pot and grow some tomatoes or zucchini. Use the vegetables in a soup spell.
16 Grow herbs
Another way to bring spring into your home is to grow herbs. Start with basil on your windowsill and go from there.
17 Make sun tea
Sun tea is simply making tea and setting the pitcher outside letting the sun brew the tea for a few minutes. Create sun tea and absorb that good energy from the sun in every tea glass.
18 Press flowers or leaves
Press flowers or leaves gathered from your next walk and use them to decorate your spell book or journal.
19 Read tarot
Do a really intense tarot reading for the season and see what’s headed your way.
20 Learn a new divination
Spring is the perfect time to pick up a new skill. If you’ve been leaning towards learning a new divination technique, now is the perfect time to learn it!
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Self Protection Jar
This is a throwback to an old spell that uses a lot of sharp items to create a protection jar. Using sharp objects like thumbtacks, pins or broken pieces of glass is a way to create a ‘psychic fence’ so to speak. That way anything negativity coming towards you will be pushed back or deflected by all the sharp objects surrounding your energy field.
What you’ll need
- 1 clean and cleansed jar (see note on this post on how to cleanse your jar)
- Sharp items (Thumbtacks, pins, opened safety pins, needles. If you’re going to use broke glass PLEASE BE CAREFUL)
- Add in any protection herbs or crystals if you choose to but I usually skip this step.
- Something that binds you to the jar such as fingernail filings or a lock of hair. The original spell asked for drops of blood but that’s a whole different thing if you want to do that. I recommend just using hair because of the risk of infection by cutting yourself.
Cleansing your jar
It’s important to cleanse your jar first and foremost. You can use any jar (Hello salsa and sauce jars!) Clean them out super well. If you are stuck with a smelly jar that has retained a strong odor even after washing out thoroughly you can rinse the jar with vinegar or let it sit overnight. That will usually get rid of any smell.
Once you have cleaned your jar, I simply cleanse it by using incense. Light your incense and let the smoke thoroughly fill up your jar before releasing it into the air.
What to do
Set up your spell with any provisions you would normally use. Light candles, incense, and have any crystals out that you feel connect you to your magic. Protect your space by imagining a white light in a circle around you encasing the jar and sharp objects inside.
Place each object inside until your jar is at least ¼ to ½ of the way full. Last, add a lock of hair or item that you chose to bind this jar to you.
Once everything is inside, close the jar. If you want to seal the jar with wax you can take a candle and drip wax on top of the jar or on the sides letting the wax drop down into the seal.
Close your spell and release your circle.
Take your jar and hide it in a dark place where no one will find it.
SPECIAL SHOT OUT to Obsidian Odyssey for collabing with me and creating the art for this post. Check out her witchy blog! Also she’s an AMAZING artist and has a free coven you can join!
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Ever since I can remember I’ve had really bad nightmares. Eventually as I got older, it got to this point where I had developed insomnia and anxiety associated with sleeping. It sounds so dumb, because sleeping is a super basic natural function so why was it so stressful?
Over the years I learned a lot about sleeping, how humans are designed to sleep and how stress, trauma and anxiety can lead to problems getting a good nights sleep. I also learned how unproductive people are simply because we are tired all the time.
I first ran into this chant reading an article that interviewed a spiritual medium. I am no medium, I do not communicate with spirits on the reg nor do I help people talk to their dead relatives. However, the chant still really helped me put up some barriers when trying to fall asleep.
The chant isn’t really a ‘chant’ but a series of visualizations that I throw up right before I go to sleep. It takes about a minute and I never forget to do it.
Before you fall asleep, while you are laying in bed with your eyes closed, say this:
I ask my spirits and guides to watch over me and keep me safe when I sleep.
I ask for protection from all ghost, demons, spirits, negativity and anything else while I sleep.
Now imagine in your mind a bright white circler of protection around your room keeping you and wherever you are sleeping inside safe.
That’s pretty much it. Super easy. Feel free to modify it in anyway that works for you. (The original chant was different but I changed it to work for me.)
Sometimes I also picture a massive ‘gate’ and close/lock the gate to lock out anything I don’t want in my head or dreams while I’m sleeping. This is also super effective.
In addition to this chant I also sleep next to a hunk of Black Tourmaline and a Selenite, but work with whatever crystals vibe with you.
In the end I don’t know if it’s really ghost keeping me up at night, or just the ghost of my own stress and anxiety manifesting in the creepy-ness. Like I said I am not a medium so I don’t play in that space. But regardless this simple chant has helped me for YEARS so I wanted to share it.
*Note sleep disorders are serious business, in no way is this advice to be taken in precedence of a doctor. If you are seriously suffering from insomnia or anxiety please seek out professional help. This chant is only meant to aid in sleeping or getting a good nights rest, not a cure for a serious medical condition.
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I love it when the seasons change. Each shift of warmer to cooler months feels like a fresh start, and the seasonal magic is really where it’s at. In the summer I like to focus on cleansing, doing things outside and lots of gatherings. But in the winter things change to a more personal perspective and I want to work on inner growth and spending time with myself.
I’ve put together a list to give witches some ideas on what they can do this winter. Feel free to add to it in the comments and write your own take on things. Happy winter witches!
1 Winter spell jar - Sometimes I like to create a fresh spell jar for the season. I view this jar as me, my psychic energy, and I place it in things I want to cultivate during the season. Maybe it’s an image of the High Prestress from tarot, because I want to learn to connect more to my higher self. Or maybe it’s a rose quartz because I need to work on self-love. Place it in whatever feels right for you and leave it out to remind yourself of where you’re going this season.
2 Melt away the stress snow spell - Collect snow from outside and bring it in. Pace it in the center of a circle of white candles. Say your intention over the snow and let it melt away whatever you were stressing over. Modify this spell in any way you want as a release spell.
3 Collect snow for other spells - Snow melts. But you can use it otherwise in place of water during the winter. You can use it to cleanse crystals or wash ritual items. If you’re feeling very witchy you can collect snow from graveyards. Just be mindful of ‘who’ you’re collecting the snow from if it’s from the tops of graves.
4 Cinnamon ornaments - Make cinnamon ornaments with cookie cutters, glue and powdered cinnamon. Mix together and make a dough, cut out with cookie cutters and tie up with string. Not only does cinnamon smell good, it brings in prosperity energy.
5 Winter wish fire spell - If you have a fire going, use it to write a wish on a bay leaf and toss it in the fire.
6 Winter graveyard walk - Nothing is prettier than an old graveyard covered in snow. Walk around and take it in. Leave pennies as offerings to anything guarding the cemetery.
7 Winter offering - Don’t forget your ancestors this winter. Leave them out their favorite holiday treats, drinks, or light candles in memory of them.
8 Yule ornaments - Collect pine cones, sticks, or berries from outside and make yule ornaments to hang on your Christmas tree.
9 Pine cone candle holders - Pine cones also make great candle holders. Cut them in half and hollow out a space for a candle on the inside. Perfect if you want to add a little winter decor to your magical working space.
10 Charm your soup for a winter healing spell - The winter blues is real, and this spell helps with feeling blah during the cold months. Make a soup (any soup, really) and say your intention over it. Mix your spoon clockwise and imagine a white light mixing into your soup, while you eat it imagine it going into your body and warming you up from the inside.
11 Herb jar candles - Evergreen is a nice winter herb to burn and looks great in candles. Make your own jar candles with melted wax and jars you might already have. Add evergreen herbs and even white quartz crystals to the tops of your candles.
12 Lavender sachets - If you’re having trouble sleeping, make a lavender sachet. Use purple felt and sew up three sides. Flip inside out and fill with lavender herb. Sew up the remaining side.
13 Bird feeders - Love making these during the winter. Only because I feel like birds need a break too and there’s less food for them during the winter months. Take a toilet paper roll and smear peanut butter on them, then roll them in bird seed. (Kind of preschool project, I know.) Hang them outside on your trees.
14 Read read read! - Since most people are spending more time inside during the winter, it’s the perfect time to catch up on any witchy reading. Try your local library and see what they have on witch books, cook books and more.
15 Orange slices - Make orange slices for citrus cleansing baths by slicing fresh oranges very thin and baking them on low 175 degrees for 3-4 hours or until they are dry. String them along for a garland for another variety.
16 Winter blessing - Do a winter blessing spell for you and your loved ones.
17 Baked breads and cakes - Lavender bread is my favorite but make sure you purchase edible lavender herb first. Try cinnamon cakes or anise for a winter theme. Look up the meanings of the herbal properties before adding them into your dough.
18 Tea leaf reading - The colder months are a great time to brush up on your tea-leaf reading. You’ll need loose tea leaves and a keen eye to pick out the shapes in the cup.
19 Tarot meditation - Brush up on your tarot by doing tarot meditations. Choose a tarot card that you would like to connect with more closely. Light a candle and place the card in front of you. Close your eyes and meditate with the card taking in any messages, feelings or visuals you receive.
20 Write your grimoire - Get creative and start your own grimoire with your favorite spells and rituals.
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I don’t know if ‘spell fallout’ is already a term or not, but I always feel like it’s an important thing to discuss in Witchcraft. Basically spell fallout are the unintended or unaccounted events that happen after you perform a spell. Let’s use what happened to me as a great example of how you can F up your life with magic.
For about 4-5 years I was working at a company that I on and off loved. At first it was not great, but we moved around and I kind of began to like where I was at and more importantly what I was working on. I learned a lot and even though it was frustrating, I wanted to be there. Then after a few years we were moved again to another space and it was a little horrible. Around that time I was super stuck and not feeling like I was experiencing any growth. Of course I blamed my environment and the circumstances around me and not my own fear-driven decision making. I could have simply looked for another job that continued my career growth. But I didn’t, I blamed everything and everyone else around me.
Out of frustration I did a spell on the waning moon to let go of all the things that didn’t serve me. I was NOT specific and I just generally did the magic without even reading my tarot. That week I was laid off at work. I have not always been financially stable in my life and having the security of a steady paycheck was a HUGE deal for me. And now it was gone. The rug was pulled out from under me and my safe little job had vanished. Being laid off or even fired was one of my biggest fears and that experience sent me into a huge month-long panic attack.
Of course, afterwards everything was fine. It took some time, but I was able to secure employment and continue to grow in my career. I also had a lot of personal growth related to that experience. I let go of tons of fear, moved forward with my own side business and stopped giving into other people’s expectations of me and started living for myself.
Although these were all AMAZING things that I could never have accomplished without the help of my irresponsible spell, THERE ARE BETTER WAYS to achieve this. So before you cast a spell and turn your life into a hot mess for months on end, think about why you need the spell and all the things that could happen in your life from the casting of this one spell. And most importantly, be specific about what you want in your spell. Otherwise you’ll accidentally ‘let go’ of that job that might no longer be serving you, but is still paying the bills.
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One of my favorite ways to spell cast is with a deck of tarot cards. It’s so simple and effective, and you can literally use this basic spell for anything you want to draw in or release from your life. You can use any tarot deck for this spell technique, but I keep an older deck that I don’t use for readings anymore and use that.
What you need:
You can improvise in any way, but I usually have incense burning, a few white candles out (tea lights are my fave) and whatever crystals I feel are appropriate for the issue at hand. You can always use a general white quartz if you’re unsure.
I always include a physical portion of whatever I’m spell casting for. If it’s a job I want, I might print out my resume and have it laying on the bottom, or collect a some dirt from around the building. If the spell is about me, I might cut a lock of my hair. Just so there is something to anchor the spell to.
I will usually add whatever other elements I might need for visualization or to set the tone. Some things I have used was ribbons for school colors, pictures, herbs that have relevant properties and things like that.
What you’ll do:
Start out by predetermining which three tarot cards you want to use. If I am looking for a job for instance I might choose the 10 of pentacles to represent money, judgement to represent the decision of me working and a third card that closely represents the work I will be doing.
Begin your spell by casting a circle or simply visualizing a bright white light around you, protecting you and your space. Light your candles and incense. Set out your physical items leaving space for your cards.
Set out the first one and visualize in your minds eye the intention of your spell. Then lay out the second one and visualize you getting what you want or the decision being made in your favor. Set out your third card and visualize you in the position of where you want to be.
Meditate on this for a few minutes, making sure you are releasing your intention out into the world and knowing that if there is any mundane work to be done that you are committed to your part. (Mundane work would be working on your resume, brushing up on any skills, and submitting for the job…basically doing your best effort to get where you want to be.)
When you feel like you have released your intention, blow out the candles (or let them burn up to you) and ignite your incense. Thank the energies and release your circle however you want to.
Collect all the items and place them in a small bag and carry them with you. Leave your tarot cards out (if you can) and revisit that energy as many times as you want until your spell is successful. Happy casting!
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Hype for the Witch Queen ya’ll.
You tried to tempt fate,
be careful what you wish
I’ll take you deeper and strip you of salvation
It’s a crusade to bring you to your knees
It’s what you wanted,
your last manipulation
-
: @baberoham
https://www.instagram.com/p/CZvJN3oFwxN/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=
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The Witness listening to destiny community’s family friendly discussion about Rhulk.
“I, Lilith—Rightful Monarch of Hell, Empress of Evil, Proud Lady of Pandemonium, Baroness of Blood, The OG Witch, Devourer of Men, First of My Name, the Unburnt, Matriarch of All Demons, Queen of the Damned and the Nine Circles, Lady in Red, Fabulosity Incarnate, Mater Suspiriorum Tenebrarum and Lachrymarum United as One, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, Breaker of Chains, and Mother of Dragons—banish thee, Lucifer, to forever wander the mortal realm like the fukboi you are, always have been, and always will be!”
-Queen Lilith
Ditchwater Sal: I shall not seek the star, Your Dark Majesty. I swear.
Lamia: Seek all you wish! You shall not see the star, touch it, smell or hear it. You will not perceive her even if she stands before you. If you watch Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo Plus Juliet, you will only see a sub-par Romeo. Homeland does not exist for you.
Rumplestiltskin: Gold digger.
Cora: Slut.
Fight, run, fight, run. The pattern is always the same for you. Don’t you ever get tired of it?「DON’T YOU WANT TO ESCAPE?」
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In the Season of Arrivals the Darkness spoke with us, while Savathun tried to intervene. In Beyond Light, the Darkness granted Guardians with Stasis, giving access to it’s powers as an argument to the Sky - if the Sky posits that given the chance, individuals will choose goodness and decency, the Darkness gave the active avatars of the Light the chance to prove the Darkness’ thesis. That, when the going gets tough, all things turn to the logic of the blade.
The Dark Future is the conclusion of the Darkness’ argument against the Light. It is proof that the chosen of the Light, Guardians, will, like all life, turn to the brutal and simple logic of the Deep and become conquerors and butchers. It was quite a move on the board by the Deep, by giving Guardians Stasis. As far as we know, no other species has been directly blessed by the Light in the same was as Humanity. We know the Ammonite were aided by the Traveler through ‘paracausal weapons’ and that the Traveler indirectly blessed the Harmony through it’s manipulation of gravity and spacetime, but until Earth and Humans, there had not been, as far as we know, direct wielders of the Light.
So the Darkness reached out to the direct avatars of the Light and gave them a nugget of it’s power. A power move.
Now - with Witch Queen, we see that Savathun has a ghost, has the light, and more - so does her brood. The phrasing around it is couched in terms of ‘stealing the light’ or in some way wresting control of it, but that’s through biased voices like Ikora. I suppose we may see for sure this season, depending on the conclusion, but that remains in the future.
However. Consider Savathun. She was the first adopter of the worms. She led Aurash and Xi Ro to the worm gods beneath Fundament. She threw herself fully into the deal with the worms. In time, Oryx may have surpassed her as the truest, and closest adherent to the Deep, as seen by his actions, his theories and the Touch of Malice, but Savathun was the first.
What greater weapons of the Darkness were there than the Hive? This trio for a billion - billions? - of years have enacted the will of the Deep across the universe. Untold species, unimaginable complexity, all of it cut away by the sword.
But then Savathun started to question. She started to wonder. She started to buck the tenets of the Deep. She doubted her worm, and she had from long ago in the Books of Sorrow. She sought ways around it, loopholes - she betrayed the Darkness. Oryx never questioned his role or his position. He embraced the prospect of death, faithful that whoever slew him was merely doing the work of the Deep and helping the universe to it’s final, brutal shape. If he died - he was meant to, as the Deep teaches. Savathun never accepted this.
And now, at long last, she turned her sight on the Light. Savathun wants to live at all costs. At all costs. This has been her driving force since she was a little krill all those eons ago.
But if one wants to live at all costs, is not the answer the Deep? After all, to become the Final Shape is to become synonymous with existence, to be the last man standing at the end of all things. No better immortality, right? But Savathun doubts that, despite being so steeped in the Darkness for so long. One who should be completely dedicated to this, but she questions. She isn’t like Oryx, or even Xivu Arath as it seems.
So we return to a conversation, spoken by an agent of the Sky to three wayward krill.
—Quick-breeding krill people, I tell you++
++For eons I have watched your struggle—
—Clinging to the sharp edge of survival++
++Balanced between the Deep and the Sky.—
—FOR THIS IS THE DEEP CLAIM—
++Existence is the struggle to exist—
—When the struggle seems lost++
++when the safe place crumbles—
—everything turns to the Deep to survive++
++I REJECT THE DEEP CLAIM++
—You will turn back, sweet krill of hope.±±
++You will choose the Sky instead.—
“Existence is the struggle to exist. When the struggle seems lost, when the safe place crumbles, everything turns to the Deep to survive.”
Emphasis mine. From the Leviathan of Fundament, this is the Deep claim. This is the position of the Darkness, which has been proven over and over again.
Savathun has turned on the Deep claim. She has rejected it. She is at the bitter end, when the struggle seems lost, when the safe place crumbles - she has fled her throne. She has left her brood. She is hunted by her own sister, with her brother slain. Her worm’s hunger is insatiable. All of her plots and infinite plans have failed. Her murder battery failed. Her Taken were useless. IMBARU is IMBARN’T.
And at the bitter, deadly edge of this desperation, where did Savathun turn? Not to the Deep. She turned to the Light.
Oh, I’m sure she can dress it up however she wants, as sardonic or skeptical or cynical as she likes. But the fact remains that when the cards came down, she abandoned the Deep.
She rejected the Deep claim.
And she chose the Light.
What better retort to the Deep could the Sky possibly supply other than to bless Savathun with the Light? To take one of the fiercest, oldest, deadliest agents of the Darkness and give her the Light? To give her the chance to prove, like all life, that the Deep is not the answer. That there is more than just the mindless struggle of slaughter. This is the Traveler and the Sky’s rebuttal to the argument made in Beyond Light. If the Darkness wants to try to tempt Guardians - the Sky can and will prove that nothing is beyond realizing the allure of the gentle nation, ringed by spears.
I hope that this is what occurs, that there is no deception, no stealing, no necromantic trickery. That the Traveler blesses Savathun and her brood with the Light because in the eschatological debate between these two forces, such a move brings the Sky closer to checkmate.
Final thought - but why would we fight Savathun? Why not? The Light doesn’t demand, doesn’t act, doesn’t direct. That’s the blessing of the Sky. Freedom of will, of choice, of being. Lightbearers have done atrocities in the past, during the age of warlords. Some do even now. That is part of life, there is good and there is evil. What matters is what you choose. Savathun has spent aeons practicing violence, she’s not going to change overnight. But! The question is if she can. If she can prove the thesis of the Sky.
I think that killing Savathun and her brood, in this case, might be the worst possible outcome for the Light.
ya boi was 100% right
I’ve seen people refer to the Traveler a few times as ‘ours’ or how the Hive tried to ‘take it from us’. Which would follow, since that was pretty much the reaction of the Vanguard in-game and the angle Bungie took with the marketing for the expansion.
The Light isn’t ours. Nor is the Sky. Nor is the Traveler. Merely because the Traveler chose to make her stand at Earth does not give humanity the ultimate right to make decisions for the Traveler or to exert our control of her. The Traveler giftedus the Light, it didn’t swear to be ours and ours alone.
Consider the wager. The Sky stands as gentle complexity. A good kingdom ringed by spears, where the strong defend the weak and life blooms in multiplicity. The Deep stands as the blade edge, the kingdom of war, that eliminates all life until there is only the last man standing.
By that Wager, the Traveler gifted us the Light. Upon us were weighed no demands and restrictions were not emplaced. The Light is to do with as we will, because it is willthat the Sky loves. Choice and the freedom of it. When warlords rampaged in the Dark Ages - did the Traveler chastise them and tell them no? When Rezzyl Azir threw down his burden and turned his face from the Sky, did the Traveler yank hard his reins and tell him ‘no’? When the Iron Lords slaughtered the warlords, when they crushed ghosts underfoot to break the cycle of violence, did the Traveler chastise them for not finding another way?
What we do with the Light is what is meaningful. For good or evil, right or wrong, each action and choice we take is precious and so the Traveler cannot, will not, speak. To speak would be to influence us and tarnish that precious choice.
By contrast the Deep commands. Though it gave us stasis, it constantly speaks to us, gives us hints, eggs us on, teases and leads us. It has demands of its own and what we want is not secondary - it is immaterial.
This may seem an aside, to explore the purpose of Deep and Sky, but I am illustrating a picture.
The Sky wishes for rich life and vibrancy of disagreement, of concord, of strife and peace. The Sky wishes for life, in all it’s beauty and pain.
When we claim the Traveler as ours, when we claim the Light as ours, when we look at the Lucent Hive with trembling limbs and curling lips and find palms on stocks and blades aquiver, we are asserting the Deep claim.
We are saying that “We alone are right. We alone are mighty. We alone may be the only Shape.” The Deep demands a single champion, the Light cherishes a billion. For us to jealously hoard the Light and the Traveler is to make us into the only champion of the Light. We are perverting it’s purpose.
Does it mean it is wrong that we fought off the Fallen, that we warred with the Cabal, that we threw down the Osmium Dynasty?
No.
For that is the freedom of choice the Sky desires for us. And besides - they wanted us dead first. It is never morally wrong to fight for your life.
But the Traveler is showing us a truth. We are beloved, we are precious - and so is all life. Perhaps humans did indeed have a spark that caught the Traveler’s eye, all those centuries ago, which is why She laid down here to fight.
But it was hubris to ever think that the Light would be ours alone. Ghaul was not deserving of it, because he demanded it, because he tried to steal it, because he impugned on free will.
Savathun chose to die. She accepted her fate, she took all her cards off the table, she threw them away. She wanted the Light, yes, but she did not demand it. She did not hold the Traveler at gunpoint, she did not try to tear Light from it’s body. She asked, and she died.
At the end of her long, long life, Savathun finally had faith.
Now the Lucent Hive are blessed. Truly blessed. No tricks, no stealing, no magics. And we war on them.
Again, that is not inherently wrong. The Light is freedom. For us to clash is natural. But the other side of the coin demands recognition too. The Lucent Hive are just as worthy as we to wield the Light. So while we may fight and while we may be at odds, the day will come when we must expect, and should expect, not to be. For the Light is not ours, and it is not theirs. It is the Light, it is given, and none can claim it solely. To do otherwise is to mantle the Deep, and that is a path none should tread.
We were asked to survive the truth, and it was not what was implied. The truth to survive was that all things change and that our humility should be reminded to us. The truth that our precepts were wrong. The truth that we always knew, but maybe had set aside.
We serve the Light. The Light does not serve us.
I actually can like things, you know.
And Witch Queen was one of them. Destiny has had a rollercoaster of a lifetime, a lot of ups and downs, but hey, I’ll call it when I see it.
Witch Queen was really solid. I don’t know if I completely agree with folks saying that it’s the best campaign to date - I still think The Taken King was an overall more coherent experience, but I think it does come damn close.
For the first time, I actually had almost no complaints about the writing. People were serious, the events had the right weight, there was a minimum of nervous self-conscious insecurity that had riddled several of Destiny 2′s releases, and - by Asurmen - our Guardian actually spoke. Multiple times. And with varied inflections.
To get my main complaint out of the way - I think, and I’ll be paying more attention on my Legendary playthrough, WQ may have relied a little too heavily on the Books of Sorrow. It may have not explained enough and expected players to understand off the bat. As much as I love the lore books and how well written they can be, you can’t expect players to have read something released in another game like 6 years ago. Again, I’m not positivehere, because I hadn’t considered it while playing as being a massive fucking simp for Hive I know all this shit backwards and forwards. But we’ll see on the legendary run.
Next up, though, is the good.
The level design. Yeah, shit, this is Bungie back again. There was pretty much no filler or fluff to pad out the runtime of the campaign and none of the missions felt much like backtracking or just re-using environments. The aesthetic of the Lucent Hive and Savathun’s throneworld was gorgeous and just the right blend of vibrant gardens and life and the old baroque, gothic Hive architecture beneath. It’s still achingly Hive, but has grown. The design of the maps themselves were solid, I never felt constrained or particularly lost, there was a great variety of diversity in the different encounters and even some of the mechanics.
No fucking champions. As implied above, I did not go through on legendary first. I wanted to just play it and get the story, then I’d come back and do it again. Though I’ll say that it did feel a bit easy to me, mostly because of an over-reliance on despawning of foes when thresholds are met, but that’s been a consistent issue in Destiny. The Lucent Hive were great foes, threatening and intelligent and dangerous even when overleveled. You definitely want to focus them down first. Which does lead into the above problem, which is that often when crushing the Ghost, it causes the encounter to end and all the other Hive to despawn. This kind of steps on the whole point of Hive lightbearers, which is that they rarely ever have a chance to revive because if you just focus their Ghost, the encounter is over, gg. In fact, I didn’t have a single Lucent Hive revive on my entire playthrough. So they could use maybe a bit of love, maybe a faster respawn time or something.
Story! Man. I’ll be honest, WQ was going to be make it or break it for me. Djem actually asked what it would take for me to drop Destiny, and I was honest. I am extremely against warping the Sky and Deep into some bullshit, grey Jedi, uwu muh complex morality paradigm. I am sick of that shit. Fucking everything is doing that to be cool and counterculture because its so boringto have objective good or evil, so let’s be trendy and cool and so deep by making it greeeeeey that now actually that’s the cliche, that’s the mainstream, actually having Right and Wrong is now the outlier. So that would’ve been a make-it-or-break-it.
I am still leery about a few of the comments in WQ about the Deep being ‘neutral’, but otherwise the story still did pretty well hold up that the Traveler and the Sky are pretty objectively morally good, with the servants of the Darkness pretty objectively morally evil. Yay.
I think it did a great job respecting the Books of Sorrow, while still adding on reveals that did not retcon what came before, but instead provided further context that perhaps we did not know, but still slots quite without difficulty into place. This being the reveal that the Traveler had chosen the krill, but for the manipulations of the worm. Is this a necessary twist? No. Does it invalidate the Books or what we seen in it? Also no! It was already evident Sathona was being heavily manipulated - this is just another layer on it.
And Savathun, speaking of. I think the cutscene of her death might well be the single best cutscene in the game and an example of why I still stick with Destiny through thick and thin. Despite questionable and sometimes infuriating design decisions, gameplay changes and dog-awful releases, there is a fantastic story to tell in the world they’ve crafted. The scene of an ancient, ruthless monster who had been driven for her entire existence to live, at all costs, unable to trust or do anything but manipulate, lie, scheme, and try to control the universe itself, realizing that she was at the end of the road and choosing to have, for the very first time, faith. And not just faith, but faith in her oldest and bitterest foe, because she finally understands its nature.
It was such a vulnerability in that scene, and yes, Savathun had plans within plans, but there’s no evidence that if Immaru had not revived her then, that she would not have simply stayed dead as a doornail. She really did lay it all out on the line, throwing herself at the mercy of her oldest foe with only faith and hope.
Glorious.
All in all, yeah, Witch Queen was solid. I’m pleased to see the team and lead are tapped for Lightfall. It bodes well. Deliver this kind of quality again and maybe Destiny can start to actually be a reliable yearly release.
I’ve something to write up about how the developments in WQ are also perfectly thematically appropriate for the Light/Sky and how we (as in the Vanguard and Guardians) really should’ve seen it coming. But that’s later.
I know this is similar to some of the other photos from this set, but I just can’t get enough of warriorqueen!Allison drinking mead and looking dangerous
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