#I kicked around the idea of Red integrating a sort of half-projection of Felwinter a while ago

[sundayswiththeilluminati]

Have you got predictions about how Rasputin's meeting with other people from his past might go? We already got some very insightful morsels regarding how Osiris and possibly Saladin feel about it, but I'd so love more more more exploration of how Red feels about it... and maybe his meeting with Shaxx also (I am filthy Shaxxwinter shipper). There is so much introspection and self exploration potential and I want all of it.

There are so many possibilities. There always are when it comes to Rasputin! That's part of what makes him so delicious as a character.

First off I think Osiris/Saladin/Shaxx/anyone else will take some time to get used to the idea that Felwinter is back to some degree and it's not just Rasputin mimicking or puppeting dead memories. Being distributed and able to fragment and rejoin means Red’s concept of identity and self is more fluid than humans/Guardians are used to - we're already seeing that with the subminds - and Osiris, Saladin, and Shaxx will need to deal with what's not quite the person they once knew, but what is also not just a recording or hologram. Felwinter's experiences are now part of the huge shifting web of thought and connection that is Rasputin proper. Red seems to have been desperate to “wake up” in time to warn us about Clovis’ deception, and as previously noted Rasputin is terrible at talking to people, but Felwinter figured it out, so in order to communicate Red probably integrated Felwinter a lot faster and more fully than he otherwise might have. So we might see some turbulence as this new complex of thoughts and memories settles in as part of him, and that’s going to look weird to us non-distributed entities. Seeing how Red deals with the other subminds will help Osiris understand how Rasputin’s consciousness differs, but Saladin will probably call it malicious or insulting to Felwinter’s memory without understanding how much Felwinter and Rasputin overlap.

Once they're over that hurdle, it's time for the difficult emotional journey of Felwinter's past comrades squaring themselves with what and who Felwinter really was. Osiris acts like he's hoping Rasputin learned from Felwinter without letting himself acknowledge the idea that maybe a lot of the traits he admired in Felwinter and values in himself - fearlessness, intensity, tenacity, independent judgement, a willingness to cross boundaries - came from Rasputin in the first place. I don’t know how that’ll shake out for all of them long-term. 

On Rasputin's side of things, right now I think he doesn't care how mad people are as long as they're talking to him. For a being created to be a singular authority and tending by nature to solitude Rasputin feels loneliness quite keenly. He forms connections despite himself, same as Felwinter, and those connections give him strength. He needs friends. Once upon a time he had a lot of friends, and they all died, and then even when one or two came back it was just one or two, and then he got gut-punched into a box and trapped barely conscious for a while, and so now Felwinter has sort of automatically brought in new friendship bonds that Red wants to keep badly enough to forge through a minefield of pain and guilt. So he'll probably keep talking to Osiris, and either try to talk to Saladin or split off a process to listen to him rant if he doesn't want to talk, and perhaps even say hello to Shaxx and Efrideet, partly because he feels an obligation to talk to those affected by his actions but also because Rasputin is lonely and scared right now and these are people who once mattered a great deal to part of him.