Drifter and Eris have been my favorite characters since I started playing D2 in 2020, and the subject of the majority of my fan art since... only fitting to draw them again now as D2 retires 💫
My Guardians, my Acolytes, my friends. How can I express all that may be said after everything we have achieved together? I will try. I must.
The Hellmouth did not end for me when I reached Luna's surface. It did not end at the death of Crota or the Taken King. It was relentless. I could not see beyond it. My nightmares persisted and I suffered their torments.
I thought that usefulness would save me, to endure despite all, to make meaning from my fear and isolation. But that did not save me.
That did not quiet my anguish.
It was you, guardians, you who have been by my side through my grief, my pain, my vengeance, and my joy, from the hatred of the Hive to the wonders of my throne.
For that, I am grateful, eternally.
So think now of love, the love between you and your ghost, the love between you and your fireteam, and the love I have for all of you.
🏔️An intimate moment between Eris Morn and The Drifter as they leave the world around them behind in favor of the one between them.
For @imonthemoonitsmadeofcheese’s fic "Steam and Snow" (Chapter 2).
The steaming pool they found themselves in had a partial ceiling up one side but the entire other side of the cave opened up completely. They were in an area facing a valley in a ring of mountaintops. The side of the mountain visible across the pool was far enough away that they could see it in its entirety. It was covered in larch trees for the bottom two thirds, and then the top was all rocks and snow. A small trickling waterfall spilled down the rocks into the hot water on the opposite side of the cave they came in from, splashing playfully into the steam, causing ripples in the moist mist that hovered above the surface. The sun glistened on the foaming water as the geothermal bubbles burbled up from below and snow fell lightly down, melting in the steam before it could land on them. It was breathtaking.
See more of my work here and support my work on Patreon :3
For context: this came out in 2011 in Australia. Same-sex marriage would not be legalized until December 2017.
It was only legalized in 8 US states (the 8th only a few months before), and wouldn’t be legalized nation-wide until 2015.
It was only legal in TEN COUNTRIES in 2011. We wouldn’t hit 20 countries until 2017. (Australia was 23rd)
As of today (April 14, 2026), I believe only 38 countries have fully legalized same-sex marriage. Out of somewhere around 200 countries in the world. That’s only ~19% of countries.
if we're doing destiny but star wars and freezing drifter in carbonite (stasis) then I'm allowed to imagine soggy trembling drifter getting rescued by eris
They reverted it but said they still want to fuck with how reblogs work.
Everyone already has a voice.
You know who doesn't? Algorithms. Automated accounts. Corporate interests.
Keep the content curation in the hands of the users. That's literally why we're here.
So much broken on Tumblr with the excuse of too few resources to fix it and they go and spend resources to "fix" something that isn't broken that nobody wants.
You can start by fixing whatever out of touch idiot is making these boneheaded decisions and put a sane person in charge.
Stop trying to turn Tumblr into something it's not. Fix the transphobia and bigotry that's enabled in how you handle your account reporting, adequately staff your abuse department with human employees, stop equating even mildly erotic art with porn, remove your genAI partnership bullshit, and for fucks sake fix the fucking search.
Stop trying to introduce ways to allow external factors to shape our experience. You want to "fix" Tumblr? Fix what's actually broken and let us keep control of what we see.
I wrote this last year for the Sword Logic Zine. It is seasonally appropriate for me to share it with you on this, the Tumblr holiday of stabbing.
Cultural Appropriation
"Why didn't he just say 'you're gonna get stabbed?'"
Link to Ao3 if you prefer to read it there.
"Hey, Moondust! You ever hear of the Ides of March?"
"That is oddly specific, highly literary, historically relevant, and entirely outside of your normal zone of influence and general knowledge."
"So you do know what it is?"
"Yes. Do you?"
"Haven't a clue but apparently we're supposed to beware 'em?"
"Now I am absolutely intrigued. Where did you hear this? Also, what day is it?"
"Uh... like... calendar day?"
"Yes."
"I love how you know so much shit about so much shit but you never remember what day of the week or month it is, and it's like pullin' teeth to try an' get you to so much as look at a calendar."
"It is not usually information that is relevant to me. Although, I will admit, your knowledge in this area and assistance with... time management... has been invaluable. I do not tend to think in terms of dates and days of the week and other things that are..."
"Relevant to human society and living in things like cities with people?"
"Hmmm... yes."
"Anyway, it's March fifteenth today."
"Ah! Timely."
"Timely for what?
"The Ides of March."
"Ok but what is the Ides of March?"
"March fifteenth, the day, is the Ides of March."
"You realize that don't make a lick more sense than it did at the beginning of this conversation, right?"
"It is a literary reference."
"I thought you said it was March fifteenth, the date."
"It... it is. There is more to it than that."
"I'm assumin' that since I still ain't got no clue what in the hell we're talkin' about any more."
"Have you ever heard of William Shakespeare?"
"Shake spear? Like... the weapon? Is that the guy's name?"
"Yes it is his name."
"He's named after wavin' around a pointy stick?"
"It does not matter what he was named after. He was a famous writer."
"What'd he write?"
"Plays."
"Like... theatre? Acting? On stage?"
"Yes. Mostly very violent and often funny or tragic with... highly convoluted plots and archaic language... which became increasingly difficult to understand the further human language progressed."
"You mean like how when we find stuff that's pre-Golden Age it's damn near incomprehensible because it's so old they talked real different from how we talk now?"
"Yes. Exactly."
"Ok, so it's very old."
"Yes."
"What's that got to do with the Ides of March?
"There is a play written by Shakespeare which references an extremely old event from the Roman Empire."
"Roman? The pillar guys with the long drapey clothes?"
"Yes. You... you know of that? I would not have thought you would have been familiar enough with written history to have this awareness."
"Heh. First of all I do sometimes read shit but uh... it's more I lived somewhere that had the pillar guys with the drapey clothes like... carved into the stone."
"You lived in Rome? Impossible. You are not that old."
"I mean... I didn't live when they carved 'em. One of the many places I lived in the Dark Age was ruins... well... everything was ruins in the Dark Age... but those particular ones were super old and had the drapey guys. I think it was maybe a gallery or something at one point... lots of stuff in glass boxes and display cases... although when I was there we basically took anything that wasn't nailed down and kit-bashed it into something useful."
"You pilfered a museum."
"Look, when everything's tryin' to kill you, you use whatever you can to survive. We burned the paintings and books for fuel, we used old stone bowls that were probably super priceless and ate outta 'em, I remember findin' arrowheads and stickin' 'em on arrows and shooting them because we needed weapons... Old knives... Whatever we could get our hands on, we took and we used. I'm sure someone's right pissed about it but I'm still breathin'... and they ain't."
"I am not criticizing. I am intrigued. And yes, the Shakespeare play references the 'pillar guys with the drapey clothes'... the Romans."
"Ok what does that have to do with... you're gettin' to that..."
"Yes. The play detailed a political assassination which happened during the Roman Empire."
"Oh well now I'm interested. How'd they pull it off?"
"A group of senators which... were a bit like the Consensus? Lesser politicians who formed a group to advise their leader... they murdered the leader, Julius Caesar."
"Julius Caesar! I know that guy."
"What?"
"Yeah. He's famous for bein' a dick an' gettin' stabbed by a bunch of people."
"Yes. The stabbing happened on the Ides of March."
"Wait... What?"
"The date that the stabbing occurred is called the Ides of March."
"Why's it called that?"
"Nobody knows. Much has been lost to time but current scholarship has concluded William Shakespeare made it up."
"Before or after the guy got stabbed?"
"Long after. It was a detail in the play, which is, itself, a dramatic re-enactment of the stabbing."
"Hold up. Is the whole play just a bloodbath?"
"Leading up to it and the aftermath, yes."
"That's disgusting."
"It is considered a great work of Literature."
"And people wonder why I don't read more. Yikes. Had enough of that shit during the Dark Age. Don't need to watch more of it."
"My understanding was that you inflicted much of it as well."
"Just cuz half the time I was the one doin' the stabbing doesn't mean it was a good time. Hate that shit."
"The artistic rendition is likely very different from the experience of actually being present during traumatic events."
"Still. Seen enough of that already. No thank you. Messy."
"Well, that is what the Ides of March are. It is a date Shakespeare made up for his play."
"Ok fine but... Why do we have to beware 'em?"
"Because in the play, on his way to the Senate, Julius Caesar is stopped by a haruspex and warned to beware the Ides of March."
"Haruspex? I thought that was your job."
"It is one of my titles, and the term I have given to those Guardians who were especially loyal Acolytes during my godhood, yes. It references divination and foretelling doom."
"So some guy... stops the guy who is about to get stabbed... on his way to his own stabbing... and tells him to beware the Ides of March?"
"In the Shakespeare play, yes."
"Why didn't he just say 'you're gonna get stabbed?'"
"It probably would have ruined the dramatic tension and given away the plot."
"Huh. That's bullshit but I don't know shit about shit when it comes to plays and literature so... whatever."
"You still haven't explained where you heard it."
"That's the thing. It don't make any sense. I heard it from the Lucent Hive."
"What?"
"Lucent Hive in Gambit's always yellin' stuff and past few days they started yellin' different stuff."
"That is why you wanted my book on Hive language."
"Yeah. I looked up what they're sayin' and they're sayin' "Beware the Ides of March" as they're tryin' to kill Guardians in my game. I don't know what in the hell that's supposed to mean."
"I wonder if it is a cultural appropriation."
"A what?"
"Compared to many other human historical dates and remembrances the murder of Julius Caesar is most akin to an enactment of Sword Logic."
"You think this is them like... reachin' out? Like the Hive version of inviting someone over for Dinner during the Dawning?"
"It might be. If you think about it, the act of stabbing a leader to death does indeed disprove their right to exist. It would easily be one of the most understandable human historical celebrations to the Hive."
"So this might be them... tryin' to find common ground with us? Through... stabbing people?"
"It... might be... You have games running today, correct?"
"Yeah. Wanna come... talk to 'em?"
"No. But I should like to observe."
"Sure... wanna make it a dinner date? We can get take out. There's that new place in the Tower with the fish tacos. You'll like the fish tacos. They're delicious."
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