#i got drifter and operator vibes from this

[asidewalksymphony]

"How do they know that the "real world" isn't just another simulation? How do you?" "Well, I know I'm not dreaming now because I know what it's like being in a dream." "So dreaming lets you know reality exists?" "No, just that my mind exists. I don't know about the rest."

The Animatrix (2003)

[sevastiel]

A Thousand Lifetimes

Drifter appreciation piece :3

[adriftinstars]

I’ve come to ask about your volt and operator!

Do they have any lore of any kind? Or like any headcanons? And your operator as well, would they have any lore and stuff like that? ✨ would both of them have their own story or lore?

Dude omg you asked this like legit a few days after I fleshed out my Operator more :O Apologies for any weird formatting lol, I'm basically ripping this directly from my google doc of headcanons and lore teehee :P also gonna put it all under a cut cuz it's,,,, long lmao

Operator doesn’t really use a name, Alyx is Alyx but he’s not them enough to use their name. 

He sees himself as a distinct person, despite them technically being the same in some way.

Maybe he’ll pick one himself one day, he’s too busy being mega traumatised for that rn

Wasn’t generally a good or bad student, but tried his damned best to keep everyone safe and alive when Shit Hit The Fan™

Had a couple of good friends on the Zariman Ten Zero, but he mostly kept to himself

Didn’t have a lot of respect for the Cephalon teachers, assumed it meant the adults were too lazy to teach them

Surely not everyone had to be piloting the ship << he has no idea how much work goes into flying a colony ship

Doesn’t really understand the whole Drifter situation, Eternalism never really made a whole lot of sense to him so it’s very confusing

Alyx tried to explain it a bunch of times but Operator just gets stuck on Alyx both being him and not being him at the same time

He does understand that they have had fundamentally different experiences past the Ten Zero though, and does see himself as distinctly not Alyx

He’s a bit jealous of Alyx’s escapades in 1999, but also has too much shit to do in the Origin System for it to bother him too much

Also he would never tell Alyx this

Hasn’t met any of the Hex, because he…. can’t, but he loves Quincy for the clothes and Aoi sounds like a riot. 

Alyx has been remarkably… quiet about Amir though.

Has so much sympathy for Rell. He deserved none of the treatment he got on the Zariman and all Operator wishes is that he could go back in time and stop Margulis and the other Tenno from ostracizing Rell as much as they did.

Barely remembers time before the Ten-Zero void jump incident, and wishes he could trade his memories of the attack with ones from before, especially of his parents.

He has the photo of them, but even with that he can barely remember what they looked like, let alone what they were like as people.

Tries to sit as Normal as possible because despite how comfy it can be, sitting weird reminds him of The Man In The Wall which is Fucked Up and Not Cool

my Volt has a lot less lore so far, I'm still kinda getting into Sentient Warframes as a whole concept so I'm still working out his personality and stuff :P mostly he's just there for the vibes though, he's taken a lot of Amir's traits and is super playful in general

[malzykins]

GIVES US THE VOID HAND FREAKS LORE!!! (You dont have to if you dont want to)

OH BOY. well with a nice little request like that how can i say no 😇 

HUGE preface that this is very AU-heavy because. like I got no beef with the actual canon but I just want to play around with my favourite characters like little dollies if that is okay. :]

To even get to the freaks though we do have to start at the beginning of this for it all to make even a lick of sense and to me anyway it feels like a lot.. warning not one centimeter of this is without some form of mental degradation and shameless self-indulgence (<- failing to cope with the lasting effects of cringe culture)

absolutely MASSIVE text post belo im dead serious:

Nothing much really differs from the origin of the Operator/Drifter themselves, all the Zariman shit still happens etc. Operator was kind of a bastard child (shes 12 most of them are, but i digress LOL), very much the kinda person to stick their nose in everyone’s business and try to “fix” all their problems if she thought something could be gained from it (sound familiar?), be it a compensation from the people themselves or from her seniors getting basically surface-level information about it all and being like aww what a good kid!! and gassing her up with all this praise. Most other kids definitely knew what she was doing, or at least didnt like her or the vibe she put off, but it didnt really stop her cause that’s not whose opinion she necessarily cared about the most.

When the Zariman incident happened, her ENTIRE support group became her enemy and she was left with nothing. She got her just desserts alright and it broke her, like really broke her, like watching a spoiled brat finally get what’s coming to em and she genuinely did like a total heel-turn in terms of personality temperament etc. She became a lottt more prone to acting childish and favoured emotional outbursts over rational thinking, since she didnt have her people that she looked up to anymore, she didnt have her Glue so to speak. She went from main character syndrome to acting how a 12 year old would probably realistically act in a fr life-or-death scenario overnight

Being a child in a traumatizing situation she latched onto really anything she could get. any distraction. desperately wanting something or someone to trust. so when that damnable doppelganger shows its face, behaving exactly how she used to behave towards other kids (not that she had the self-awareness to deduce that at the time), she instantly ate from the hand that feeds. And there was that :)

Nothing strays from canon between this point and the First Dream. Shes still very much a petulant crybaby and kind of sucks at being a Tenno but thats neither here nor there,, in the Dream, though, is when things start to REALLY deviate.

During the years of war and strife and child-soldier-ism with everyone else, she had a lot of time to think. Shes well aware that all this void power shit wasnt possible before their time on the Zariman, and as far as she was aware she was pretty certain that didnt change the moment they boarded. Over time she fights the memory suppression of her traumas to dig up answers and narrows it right down to that moment she shook hands with herself, something clearly odd and nonsensical, now viewing it with a bit more clarity of mind and basically coming to the epiphany of Oh You Motherfucker. theres no way it was not you. theres no way ALL OF THIS (the existence of the tenno and by extension their eventual drafting into the war, and all of the bullshit that follows that) was not because of you. And when they get told that theyre all going to be put into a cryosleep, because theyre more trouble than theyre worth, really, to just to give everyone around them more peace of mind well. shes quite upset about it. She and other kids definitely try to fight their way out of it (they dont make it far) and rest assured theres no shortness of bawling and sobbing, but deep in there there is anger. She starts to get real pissed off about this whole ordeal and honestly just fucking everything that has lead to it, that piece of her old self that had the capacity for rage and ambition bubbling through the surface.

When she was placed into the First Dream, that quickly manifested well outside of her control. She herself was entirely lacking in conscience, but that essence of herself that existed just beyond her own grasp, that metaphorical spirit that whatever youd want to call it, began to fester in some crevice deep in the Void, not having truly left the place after the events of the Zariman unfolded. It festered and festered and grew until every horrible negative emotion that she Could Not experience in her current state snapped free and went on a violent witch hunt for exactly who the hell made her this way and WHEN she found It, that manifestation didnt relent in the slightest as it quite literally beat the absolute ever-loving dogshit out of the Indifference and (taking some of the various Murmur codex entries very literally) lashed its very flesh apart like a goddamn. kindergarten art project.

Once all of her anger was spent and she realized that didnt actually fix any of her problems, and the bastard was busy reeling for a while because, what in the fuck was all that about, she was left just a lonely, sad empty husk. And because of the Void’s receptivity with negative emotion, it did something with that, taking those lacerated fragments and turning them into something greater, turning them into companions to fill that lonely gap, into the Murmur. they are very No Thoughts creatures and dont understand what existence really is, and like most freshly borned creatures they imprint on the first thing they see (the Indifference) though they know at least the smell of who ultimately made them and are constantly chasing that trail to find the source (hence their appearance in reality in the albrecht labs because we dont really Know in canon what theyre looking for in there exactly (afaik) so I’m justttt rewriting that. for me 😇)

Once they inevitably have their cool reunion or whatever (which takes place a lot sooner than the normal story progression, I just am not sure on where to put a pin) Operator latches onto them just as much as they latch onto her, their Maker, and she ends up neglecting a lot of her responsibilities to just run and play with the little freaks all day ^-^ which really pisses off the Drifter. and makes HER take up the Operator’s mantle, a good chunk of the normal questline being done by her instead.

NOW. for what you ACTUALLY asked for. Im so sorry 😭

THESE three bastards: Prodah, Nahkip, Vedah, in that order. In this little AU thing, Murmur fragments have this little bit of individuality to them in the form of those lighter blue stripes or “veins”, which are more like indentations in their skin that faintly glow with their Void energy. The more a fragment has or the more unique they are, the more respected the individual is in a sort of innate social hierarchy system. If a fragment is born with no veins whatsoever, if they are unmarred and “perfect” so to speak, they are essentially bullied and outcasted to some unloved corner of the Great Indifference to wallow alone, and for a faction all about unity and working together that isnt very nice. :)

Vedah and Nahkip are the two I probably have the least juice for. Not that I dont like them (far from it) I just have yet to reeeeally get to them ;; I at LEAST have personalities and such down

Vedah is like a curious naive little dog. It’s very erratic and jumpy and is more often a follower than a leader. It loves games but gets bored easily, and loves trying to make friends. It definitely makes the most racket out of the three, big chatterbox this one (I love the sounds the fragments make... they are such screechy little creatures it's soooo cute)

Nahkip is probably the most “normal” out of them. It doesn’t vocalize often and carries itself in a bit of a high regard (not necessarily in a conceited way, moreso it is aware that it is of a somewhat higher caliber than most and incidentally behaves as such). It’ll politely listen to others and offer input when it’s spoken to, but once all is said and done, it returns to pretending you don’t exist, going about its own business.

Prodah, the last fellow, is (was?) one of those unfortunate veinless souls. It often found itself a victim of many fights, and it quickly learned that trying to defend itself only made matters substantially worse. In one particularly nasty scenario, its ring and pinky finger were completely snapped off by an attacker and ground to dust. It tried to fight its way out of exile often, but eventually succumbed to the hand it’d been dealt, fleeing to some unaccompanied outcropping overlooking the Void.

Vedah found it, eventually, having sniffed it out and tracked it from where it hid buried in the sand for god knows. Prodah of course, very angry and scared and traumatized all at once, didnt take too kindly to the ordeal, but Vedah’s “people skills” and a rare instance of patience helped bring the guy just enough out of its shell to at least stop regressing into fight-or-flight everytime it (Vedah) moved :] Still VERY skittery and non-trusting. just a bit more… tolerable.

Vedah and Nahkip are friends. or. at least Vedah sees it that way. Nahkip tolerates it but could really give or take. Vedah always wants to show around its new friends to its current friends, and Prodah is not an exception even if it really should be (hence the naivety; you can’t “look guys it’s cool dont be mean okay :D” your way out of everything girl)

LUCKILY Nahkip seems to not gaf. At least not in a bad way. No it actually definitely gaf because it’s been ages since it’s last seen a veinless fragment still kicking around (esp since there is essentially no reproduction of these creatures, whatever exists is all that will ever be (unless MITW feels like getting flayed again. for some reason) so once you’re killed or whatever it’s gg) and is very surprised that one is still alive, figured over time it should have just gone feral and torn itself apart from insanity or decomposed on its own, but it didn’t. and Nahkip is a bit of a studious fellow. so it is very interested in this creature.

There isn’t too much coherent lore after this.. lots of bits and bobs and meat and potatoes but not the most fleshed-out explanation for it all? At some point the three become close enough with one another (maybe more spiritually than anything, cause it likely isn’t so apparent from an outside perspective) that they form a Severed Warden like some sort of Digimon evolution or whatever 😇 There is some large gap of time where the Operator does not see them, the entire Prodah arc happening under her nose so when she next greets them they are together as the Warden and shes so proud of em ;; she doesnt really understand how it happened/works but she knows Vedah and Nahkip are in there and they do their best to introduce Prodah to her. After some coaxing it uncurls itself to meet her and she's absolutely appalled to see a friend in such a sorry state (being a Warden didn’t heal old scars), and figured that wasn’t any way for someone to live. so she removes her gloves and gently holds its hand in her own Void-corrupted ones (that I’m sure most Operators have anyway; shes extremely self-conscious about people seeing them but the Murmur are similar to her, in a way, so with them she relents) to offer that connection and comfort with it. In the same motion, some transfer of power takes place and after a brief moment, Prodah finds itself whole again with two new fingers to replace its lost ones, brimming with the light of Void energy. IN TURN, though, not such is without consequence, the Operator now missing those exact same digits that Prodah initially lacked. She quite literally gave it her own (which is why its lighter-colored fingers in the image do not have the standard issue Murmur claws. also this throws the Indifference for a loop because ??? bastard child I gave you that for YOU. not for you to just give handouts to thralls 😐). This is a complete heel turn for Prodah because while it was initially a perfect, veinless creature and demonized to all hell and back.. to receive marks from the Maker itself??? WILDLY different story. Okay we respect you now. like a lot. like A LOT a lot.

I absolutely had plans to include The Fragmented One in my little repertoire of creatures as well :3c For this I’m going to pull directly from my brief lore document instead of just reiterating what is perfectly fine to copy-paste instead, if no one minds:

“To make an example for the Operator, the Drifter assists Loid in secret in purging the Laboratories of Murmur presence, but ends up slaying the Warden of Vedah, Nahkip, and Prodah in the process. The Operator’s heartrending grief at their passing draws uneasiness from the Indifference itself, and her dormant, volatile energy involuntarily wrenches forth their fragments from the afterlife, as if they had never perished at all (this is unknown to her; her döppelganger is the one to impart this information, yet not knowledge of their whereabouts). She dedicates restless hours to searching for them, neglecting her own health, too nerve-wracked to properly eat or sleep. It is after a week’s passing that the Operator discovers an odd formation within The Great Indifference and, upon touching its surface, the structure breathes in new life, lost fragments rising from beneath the sand to create the One. Upon spotting Vedah, Nahkip, and Prodah atop the bow of the amalgamation, she becomes overjoyed at their revivification, triggering a transference of power between them; the Operator’s Void energy unknowingly begins to bleed over into the One, a deadly power donation creating an impossibly cataclysmic entity with capabilities yet to be measured. In anointment, the Operator honorably dubs the creature Fronrein—’tandem roar’—and it is forever at her beck and call.”

this Fragmented One is no stronger than the one you face normally. I just wanted to squeeze in something for my lore that could possibly explain why that fucker is SO god damn brutal in Steel Path.

Lastly (thank Christ right), something I haven’t yet fully fleshed out is that I want to pull the consciousness of the main fragments into the Operator’s warframes. Likely happened at some point during Fronrein’s birth. it’d be neat for these friends to exist in two places at once :) seems totally feasible to me given how freaky the Void gets. Vedah inhabits her Wisp, Nahkip her Protea, and Prodah her Harrow. None of this is planned, it just sort of Happens. the fourth arm of the One also gets dragged into this (dont have much for it. similar mannerisms to Nahkip I know at least), being placed into the Drifter’s Chroma, and she is NOT happy about it. very peeved actually. She hates these fucking things and to now have them basically be sentient frames walking and (telepathically) talking around the ship MUST be some sort of cruel divine punishment. She mellows out though, after some grueling amount of time, becoming a bit more platonic with her Chroma after slowly letting her own defenses down and just bonding and talking with the guy (now that these Murmurs can actually do that), but still is a bit standoffish with the Operator’s frames.

Operator thinks it’s cool as all hell. She’s brainstorming what all frames she could possibly get next and then try to shove Murmurs into those ones too. MUCH to the Drifter’s chagrin. god help them.

ANYWAY. I dont want to beta read this again I just hope it makes sense. Above all I hope it satisfies your ask ;; this is nearing 3,000 on the word count and actually took multiple days to write LOL /// thank you for giving me the opportunity to spill about these guys :’]

[sarthak2405]

My top 5 Video game soundtracks

As a gamer i very often end up vibing to soundtracks present in video games whether it is the main menu , durimg some chase scene or some action scene. There truly are some one of a kind soundtracks of video games and i will tell you my top 5

5 - The batman arkham series

The batman arkham series does have some of my favorite soundtracks all credited to Nick Arundel. Some my favorites include "in the batcave" , " batman arkham city main theme" and "Inner demon" .

4 - cod black ops 1

This game holds a special place in my heart for two reasons, this was the game that got me into the whole cod franchise and second reason being the song in this game by the band called the rolling stones, it features a song called " Sympathy for the devil" this song was perfect for the boat section of the game in my opinion

3 - infamous 2

My very first console game ever on the play station 3 the game featured 2 of my favorite soundtracks called " Cole MacGrath" (who is also the main protagonist of the first two games) created by Jim Dooly and "Get Bertrand" created by JD Mayer.

2 - doom eternal

i think we all know what song im going to say, if u dont well lets just youve been missing out. the song is called " Rip and Tear", created by Mic Gordon. there are two thing im going to say about this song. First off is that you sir ( Mick Gordon) have created a masterpiece secondly did you know this song features a freaking metal choir tell me something thats more cooler.

1 - uncharted : Drake's Fortune

This song again needs no introduction to those who have played the games but if you havent first of what have you been doing with your life, if you have a playstation i advise you to spend money and play all 4 games. the song is called " Nates Theme" created by Greg Edmonson and this song has one of the best main menu songs that u can think of, i think this was the only song i ever waited to finish and only then hit play.

Bonus fact im actually listening to one of these songs right now :)

[thelaithlyworm]

C-drama Roundup

Because it’s a while since I’ve done of these.

Currently rewatching DMBJ/The Lost Tomb series, which is a wild, picaresque roller-coaster with way too many characters, and really intense friendships/bromances/queerplatonic relationships/’they don’t kiss on screen but they’ve really got that vibe’/like a sister from a different mister/by god i am going to find out what happened to my little uncle if it kills me/good buddies, and it doesn’t matter where you start in the series because there will always be scenes that don’t make sense without context from somewhere else, and also, the female characters have been known to fight bears.

I recommend it wholeheartedly.

Am currently in the second half of The Lost Tomb 2 (the Heavenly Palace part) and enjoying myself hugely. This version of Xiao Ge really looks like an ancient, hyper-competent immortal who’s most commonly known as the Chinese equivalent of ‘Kiddo’ and he is incredibly sweet. And I love the cinematography in both parts of LT2 - it gets that cartoony/actiony vibe, but also really brings out the grittiness - the snow crystals, the puddles, the scruffy houses in the back end of nowhere. And the beauty, too.

-

I gave Mirror: A Tale of Twin Cities a go, but tapped out around ep 12. It’s a high fantasy setting with an interesting premise (three kingdoms, one fell 7,000 years ago and the survivors have led a shitty existence ever since, one of the other kingdoms is being invaded - can they make common cause? there’s a lot of bad feeling there). And the central love triangle is made up of three thoroughly decent people who are all Doing Their Best In Difficult Circumstances. (Chen Yuqi plays the FL and she’s just lovely.)

But...

I suspect it’s a production or money issue, but they are filling out a lot of the airtime with repetitive conversations that neither advance the plot nor explicate character. Maybe the scriptwriter didn’t have time to fill in something more interesting? I dunno. But it happens a lot and it is boring as fuck.

-

And I’ve also started Age of Legends, starring William Chan, because William Chan is very... Very.

A good call!

So a Nice Young Man heads out of town because his father was murdered and he’s having a meltdown. Makes friends with another drifter, they head off to ‘M-Country’ (not!Malaysia) to make a living, and get caught up in a drug-trafficking operation. This all goes Extremely Badly for the nice young man. He finally gets away, but is then recruited by a bar-owner/undercover operative to go back in as an informant. This has... mixed results. An operation catches a lot of drug-trafficking capos, but Undercover Mentor is now dead and Nice Young Man fell overboard, hit his head, and lost his memory of the past eight years. 

That’s the prologue.

Much of the story takes place in Nice Young Man’s home town, where he’s trying to rebuild his life after an eight-year gap, with his grief for his father all fresh again, no money, enough scars and mysterious tattoos that he looks seedy as fuck, and also - a lot of impoverished parts of the city are under the thumb of organised crime. By some cruel fate, he’s run into Undercover Mentor’s bio-daughter (she’s in the police), and his old friend who made it big in drug-trafficking is settled in as a Legitimate Businessman. *now set blender to high*

One of the things I love about it is how much socioenomics are explicitly and implicitly in the narrative - living areas range from huge and pretty and nice, to cramped little spaces; we’re constantly looking at how lack of money drives people to shitty choices; we’re also seeing the towering pride and sea-deep kindness that some of the impoverished have.

I like the Female Lead - she’s feisty, bright, competent, has stuff going on in her life that’s not romance and she’s really, really cute. And William Chan moves his affect effortlessly between the nice boy his character used to be, to a traumatised wreck when a few memories slip through, to an interesting combination of a nice man using the organisational skills and canniness he picked up in his hiatus. He’s certainly very... Very.

[alteredsilicone]

NEW WAR SPOILERS!

Gonna put together a rough post of my thoughts about the quest and such, ALL UNDER THE CUT:

Kahl and Teshin were underwhelming playstyle wise, since they just felt like clunky and unwieldy warframes. Also Kahl's portion was confusing visually because everything was tinted red. :^) I died twice lol, had to get used to the mechanics. Teshin's part was, in his own words, too easy. But not frustrating at least.

Veso was REALLY fun and yes I am biased towards Corpus. He was also really cute and I liked his heroic sacrifice in the end. Using proxies to solve puzzles and fight was a cool step back from our usual gameplay, ngl I hope we can get a summoner warframe or have more NPCs as playable segments in stories or events.

The ending of the prologue where Lotus is thrown into the Void (?), Teshin is killed and then our Operator is "killed" was BOMB, it really set the mood and made me fear that heads are gonna roll.

That said...

Drifter play was fun - I am really glad DE made it not too hard but still fun to play and not too grindy. I am a Chroma main so my usual playstyle is "stand in enemy fire and just blast them with your Vex Armor Buffed Damage" so actually having to time my shots reminded me of when I was newbie and actually played carefully by taking cover. :D

FUCK THE FORTUNA SNEAKING SCENE, that was the only time I felt like ragequitting. Also The song was 12/10, it sent chills down my spine when I realized what it was based on.

I got really scared when Ordis said that Vox Solaris "collapsed" under Narmer, felt better when LD showed up... but you know what? A bit upset there is no real aftermath. I ran to Fortuna after the quest and everyone is just vibing there. LIKE HELLO? Cool that Vallis is permawarm now.

I really really really hoped there would be more input from all the NPCs, which is why I liked the intense start. If they can kill Teshin, that means they can kill more NPCs but... nothing really happened. Like, the stakes were high and then they weren't. Plus we never got any follow-up with Teshin, he is just a hologram and we don't even care. Poor uncle.

Yeah, Erra died too but like... I was neutral about him and then he just dies and I'm like ok bye I won't miss you

Other than that - Unum part was fine, REALLY REALLY liked the Zariman stuff and the Operator/Wally/Drifter stuff.

I am really invested in the Operator character so I was very happy that we were given more personality and acted more human and interacted with the world. Also I chose drifter and my Tenno OC is now perma-drifter story-wise. I'll mold the lore later.

I am on fifty tangents now but...

I really liked everything that came after the second Archon fight so I can't complain.

The ending and callback to the Second Dream brought me to tears.

I chose Lotus because I feel that is what /she/ chose too.

Also really wanted to punt Ballas right in his dickless crotch for calling Lotus a bitch. What a dick. Absolute scumbag. Good riddance!!!

Ps. Ordis as a little sentinel is super precious. We can hug him now. ;_;

[pink-beast-rhino]

Minor knit pick: I said Thrax was the Operator not Drifter. And while yes, Dominus Thrax is the doll, they are also the child the Drifter once was. Not in the physical sense but in the sense of their psyche being mqnifest through the doll.

I defend this claim based on the ending where Thrax is reduced to a literal crying child and vibes.

What I didn't quite catch, because I was trying to process the ending, was the relevance of the book decoration.

Conceptual Embodiment is the source of duviri, like you said. However, it would appear actually that ot's not based on their home but on either the storybook itself, or a fantasy world they created themselves. I personally lean to the latter as that implies that we only got the book by breaking out of it, but also because it explains the Cephalon voices as puncturing through a bored childs daydreams in class.

What I still don't quite get is the flashback cutscenes. They didn't contain my Tenno in any way that I could identify, aside from a figure who looked like them but kinda off. Also the hazed out black figure, who are they?

Hmm, if I understand Duviri Paradox correctly, we made it right? The flashbacks and the doll indicate Dominus Thrax, the Child King, is us. The Operator.

Our fears and angers etc. Prior to and then escalated by the sabotaged void jump, combined with the imbument of void energy created the Duviri.

This actually explains Drifter. They didn't have to survive the Zariman because that whole time the version of them we have is the version that was trapped in duviri. As far as a canonical timeline, it would strike me that the paradox is actually Teshin

It makes intuitive sense that the Drifter leaving Durivi would be during The New War. Mentions of the system in ruins etc. Indicate this.

But Teshin dies in TNW and ends up in Durivi. Then later dies in Duviri, presumably to libe in the origin system and die to repeat the cycle.

I could be wrong but it'a fucked how we made a prison pocket dimension and then our older self fixed our toy and gave it back