okay hi anyway its time for a second ask because i still haven't gone to bed. are you. perchance. ever. gonna get into wtf happened with brother vance and brother shay. beacuse the amount of tags and posts you have on here is making me insane. What the Hell and Fuck Happened There (horrified & intrigued)
good morning
in the chapter I’m working on which is taking 50 years bc it’s insane, we learn shahin’s d1 backstory in full. he shares a version of it with lodi that omits The Genuinely Horrific Punchline; the audience learns the truth in a fun way (i hope) (if it’s not fun please don’t tell me to my face).
condensed story: back in d1, shahin wasn't called shahin, his name was brother shay and he looked like this 👇(by @alfheimr)
once upon a time, a very sweet and catastrophically credulous ghost named spanner found his guardian at last within an urn at the lighthouse in mercury's caloris basin. because god died in chicago in 1966, no one protected them from what happened next: brother vance of the followers of osiris was like holy shit guys this is A Sign From The Mighty Osiris, i was meant to find and teach this lightbearer our ways, and one day he will help osiris in a very important quest (do NOT ask me for the details of said quest they're not important they were in a prophecy i alone discovered) and then osiris will finally notice m-- i mean hello. he named the warlock shay, and welcomed him and spanner into the cult with open arms.
brother shay was a model lightbearer and an even better cultist. he was the sole guardian of the lighthouse (leanna and eremac left rather quickly after vance started, um, experimenting on them) and had the distinct honor of patrolling mercury to protect his flock from the vex's attacks. he did this for three earth years.
but not long after shay's arrival, cracks in this perfect lighthouse formed out of religious heterodoxy: a small but dedicated sect of followers wanted to devote themselves to shay, not osiris, because who the hell was osiris to them? most of them had never laid eyes on the man -- they only had vance's word (and their thousands of dubious texts) that he was so powerful and noble and fuckable and meanwhile shay was Right There, every day, protecting them and dying for them. vance didn't like this.
something else vance didn't like: that shay started questioning The Prophecy. not really in a "i am skeptical of your claims and don't believe you" way, but in a "can i please know more about how i am so special and perfect? how exactly am i to help osiris? who is our foe? i just want to know how to be the best version of myself" and vance was like i am SO busy with these MYSTERIOUS TONES, how about you go die in pariah's refuge for the 90th time and leave me alone so i can focus. and shay was like ok <3 yay <3
concurrently with all of that ^, shay was suffering from extreme isolation. vance forbade him from contacting the city/other guardians, and spanner was even more osirispilled than himself so he wasn't any help there. his only other friend, vance, oscillated between lovebombing and confining him to the cellar to copy Osirian Text Number 42,069 in three languages/braille because he was sick of shay "undermining" his authority with his (looks at my notes) occasional questions and sarcasm. aside from clandestine meetings with cayde who brought them supplies from the city, shay had no one to really talk to. he grew desperate to prove himself and to elevate himself in vance's heart.
("but mola," you ask, "what did shay think of his own sub-cult?" he rejected them, very politely, and tried so hard to ignore them. BUT WE ALL KNOW HE SECRETLY WANTED THEM! JUST ASK OSIRIS!)
then, after years of hard work, he unlocked the gate to the infinite forest. he had two specific goals in mind: study enough simulations to restore mercury to the lush garden world it had once been and kick out all the vex for good. that, he thought, would surely impress osiris, and more importantly vance. his second goal: learn the truth of vance's prophecy and claim his rightful destiny as the most specialest guardian that ever lived (after osiris).
he didn't find either of those.
he learned that he was a demon who destroys the universe in every timeline he exists in.
no matter what parameters he entered, no matter how long he searched, every single simulation spat back in his face that shay became a despotic murderer that drowned sol in blood and fire.
vance had lied to him.
when he confronted vance, shay pleaded with his friend and teacher to tell him that there's a silver lining somewhere, that maybe the prophecy had the key to saving himself, that this was all a huge misunderstanding, that maybe osiris is meant to save HIM, etc etc. he still believed in vance's bullshit.
so vance, for the first time since they'd met, told him the honest truth: i used you because i wanted osiris's approval. i thought if i could shape a misbegotten monster into an obedient guardian worthy of the great osiris's attention, i would be elevated to the position of his finest student. it was never about you at all.
then a lot of other things happened, which you can read about in my fic soon. ^_^
my friend bel @thefirstknife has written two enormous lore books about her hunter, dola san, who was also a follower but in d2, and shahin appears in the second book "Conversations". you can read dola's story here if, for some reason, you want a ton more vance OR you want to read about an insane woman who does everything wrong but we stan her because of it!!!!!!!
as a child i assumed that martha’s vineyard was a fancy private vineyard owned by martha stewart and the reason rich people vacationed there was because they were friends with martha
My liege im sorry to break it to you but your advisor that's actually evil and wants you dead turned out to be straight. I know you really wanted to have an enemies to lovers situation with him. Yeah I'm afraid the poisoning didn't hold any romantic intent behind it. The king of the enemy kingdom is bisexual though, I could send him a letter? Yes, I'll make sure to include multiple threats of homoerotic nature. You will have your toxic yaoi, my liege
read marriage toxin where an assassin has to marry for the family so that his lesbian sister doesn't have to leave her girlfriend and gets relationship help from a scammer
if i dont respond to a message from you i can basically guarantee its not because i dislike you. im just getting attacked by imps and shit all the time genuinely.
