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Greetings, Guardians! This week in Destiny… oh wait, that’s a different one. How about, today in Destiny we are thrilled to bring you the next chapter of our Community Focus series. Our focus for today is a wonderfully talented creator who has been on our radar for quite a while. This former bartender is also a cat lover with over 3,000 hours played in Destiny 2. That alone is enough to make us love him, but it’s his wonderful lore, story, and news videos that caught our eye. We are pleased to introduce StickyMz.
| Name | Channels | Content Focus |
|---|---|---|
StickyMz | Lore and News videos |
Hi, StickyMz, and welcome to the blog! Let’s get started with who you are and where you’re from!
My name is StickyMz (he, him), and I primarily do Destiny lore and news on TikTok.
Saying where I am from is a tough one, as I have lived on almost every corner of the United States, but I have spent most of my life on the East Coast. I have been playing video games since I could walk! Growing up in the ‘90s, I was able to see the start of console gaming with the NES and SEGA. My first introduction to gaming was original Mario Bros., Duck Hunt, and the notorious Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game.
What got you into gaming and content creation?
I had some rough years and decided to focus on myself. I wanted to take a different path in my life and started creating content that I wanted to see. I was never a “content consumer,” so I didn't really know what I was doing or where to start, but I knew about Twitch so I downloaded the app on my Xbox, plugged in a $15 camera, and went live on my first stream on January 20, 2020.
It was around a year later that I uploaded my first Destiny lore video. I noticed I never saw Destiny content outside of clips. So, I decided to start this series called Weird Destiny Facts. which ended at around 64 videos. I started to notice that each video I made was getting higher than average views of any random content I had done previously, so I changed my whole account to fit this new direction. I love reading and writing and went to college for film and screenwriting, so doing story content was perfect for me.
How did you find Destiny, and when did you start playing?
As a longtime Halo fan and player, I was very interested in Destiny from the very start. While Halo 3: ODST is one of the few Halo games I've never played, I knew about the Easter egg “Destiny Awaits” poster and couldn’t wait to hear more news!
I started playing Destiny about a year and a half after release. I believe it was around two weeks before the April update that gave us the Blighted Chalice Strike. And I’m going to be honest, I’m glad I had some friends who had been playing from the start because I had no idea what I was doing. I will admit they made fun of me for panicking the first time I heard the “beep” from splinter mines in Prison of Elders. It didn’t take long before I was the one annoying my fireteam with all this story information you could only find on the Grimoire cards.
What type of content do you like to focus on? Do you have any advice for players looking to improve their skills as a player?
My content is different depending on which platform I am working on. My largest platform, TikTok, is all about the lore and story of Destiny, and I've moved over to doing Bungie and Destiny news as well. On Twitch, I primarily do story content and end-game activities with viewers. I run raffles for GMs, dungeons, Exotic missions, and raids. I find it really rewarding when I get the opportunity to help someone get through their first raid ever because I know personally that raids can feel intimidating.
A lot of people think the end game is only accessible to the best of the best players. I used to feel this way myself! But one of the only real differences between early and late game is knowing which mods and perks to use. I will have people join me and they are struggling, and I go to inspect them and see they are running PVP armor mods.
Everything about end game can boil down to two things: 1. What can I do to keep myself (and/or my teammates) alive longer, and 2. How can I use my abilities more often? This also can be applied to aspects and fragments. You shouldn't just use a fragment because you see the +10 stat. If the fragment is not directly helping your build, that stat boost is mostly useless. I'd rather have a single or double 100-stat build than force a triple-100 build while the rest of my build suffers. One other piece of advice I can give is take things slower when you move into end-game activities until you have done it several times.
What’s your main character and favorite loadout?
I am a Hunter main! I will be honest… I give Titans a hard time in my content, but my very first main was a Titan in the original Destiny. I love running Solar Hunter with Conditional Finality and Calus Mini Tool. Mix those with Calaban’s Hand, and it's a never-ending wave of fiery explosions and making orbs and fire sprites. I do find myself running Arc Hunter more often though, with Conditional Finality, Ikelos SMG, and now Song of Ir Yut. It’s a lot of fun to see Liars Handshake and the Jolt take over the battlefield. As much as I enjoy Solar, Jolt is one of the most useful things in Destiny right now in my opinion.
I’ll be honest, I have not changed ships on my hunter since I started doing content. I call it the “sleeping bag ship,” but it’s the Last Flight Home ship from doing activities on Europa. I tell my community that if I’m going to run a bunch of raids, the least I can do is fly into them relaxed. You can’t be stressed in the level of comfort the sleeping bag ship provides. My main Ghost shell is “tiny boat” or HydroFoil Shell, and I’ll be honest, the Bumper Boat Sparrow is amazing.
What is your favorite lore book and pieces?
While it's hard to narrow down to just one, I think the book of Unveiling (Inspiral, Shattered Suns, Ghost Stories, and Dark Future are also in my top 5) stands out the most to me. I know there seems to be several lore “factions” stemming from this book. Is this book all a metaphor? Has this book been retconned? I find the different factions interesting because there’s similarities to actual religious texts in our own world, and different people have different perspectives and understandings. I personally hold the book of Unveiling as truth, and what is metaphor is clearly stated within the book itself. The Traveler has been called “the gardener” several times in-game, and the Veil has been called its opposite with similar power, which would make it the Winnower. The Witness adopting the First Knife persona and cutting away what they feel is unworthy seems to make the most sense in regard to the information we have been given thus far. I did once believe the Witness was going to be the Winnower, but between the revelation of the Veil’s existence and the Lore passage Winnowing in the Inspiral lore book, my perspective changed.
As far as individual lore stories, I've always loved Azirim in the Dreaming City lore book. This story gives perfect insight into the workings of Ahamkara, from false humility and lies baked in half-truths to capturing the partying Awokens with his enchanting tales leading them to their deaths. Trust and empathy. It was because they wanted (maybe going as far as to say internally wished) for Azirim to be better, they allowed him to have power over them.
What is the Witness' plan?
What got you into Destiny lore?
I’ve always been an avid reader and would immerse myself in the stories I experienced. As I got older, I would create my own stories, so I went to college for fiction writing and film. I found myself wanting to know more and more as I journeyed through the original Destiny story. I would go to places on the internet where I could read the Grimoire during slow times at work. I may have been the last of my friends to start playing Destiny, but I quickly became the annoying friend who would constantly tell my fireteam the story details only found in written lore. I love Destiny lore so much that I even applied the summer before Forsaken’s release to be a writer. I wrote I think four or five DLC ideas, but looking back at them more recently, I realize how embarrassingly little I actually knew at that time.
I think the Destiny story is fantastic. The world the Bungie writers have created is by far one of my favorites. I know Destiny can’t hold an entire universe within the game files, but there are so many places I hope to one day be able to experience in-game. What’s going on with the space station Cocytus? Will we ever see the Vex home world, 2082-Volantis? Can we recover all the artifacts Calus logged in his Athenaeum Worlds? The universe in Destiny is so big, and we only see a small fraction of it in the game. It leaves so much wonder and call to explore.
What's next for you and your community? Anything fun coming up or any events you are particularly excited for?
We’ve seen a lot of growth over the past year in our community. I am happy to say the community I foster is welcoming and helpful to newer players. In my Discord, we have one of the fastest growing sherpa programs helping people through their very first GM and raid clears. Our goals are first and foremost to keep the integrity of LFG and sherpa systems we have in place while also being able to meet more players' needs. We spent almost two years trying to perfect our program, and it finally started clicking about six months ago. The second goal would be to get as many people through end-game content as possible. I love hearing stories and comments on my videos about how helpful the leaders we have put in place are. I believe we have nearly 300 people signed up on a spreadsheet just for Divinity runs. So, while I don't have a lot of upcoming community events planned, knowing that the community members are actively sharing my vision of helping more and more new players is something that I am very excited about.
What is something you want to make sure every New Light knows? What’s a piece of advice as they join the Guardia ranks?
Destiny is large, and there is so much to do that it can feel overwhelming at first. I know because I felt that way when I started in the original Destiny. The best advice I can give someone is to have a friend or make a friend that can guide you. There’s a lot of information thrown at you when starting out, and having someone who can make sense of it goes a long way. Destiny at its heart is a social game, and you’ll find you have a better experience while playing with others. Joining Discords and communities that specialize in helping people and following creators that give insight to the game are great ways to understand Destiny better.
How did Shaxx beat an Ahamkara?
Where can people find you?
If you are interested in Destiny lore, story content, and news, my TikTok page is the place for you. If you want help in end-game content—be that raids, GMs, dungeons, Exotic missions, etc.—or if you just want to joke around and watch me miss my Gathering Storm (more often than I should), then my Twitch is a great place. If you are looking for a good community with friendly and helpful people andwant to have moderated LFGs and a well-developed sherpa (end-game helpers) program, then come join my discord (11,000 members and growing). I don’t post a lot outside of Instagram Stories, but I keep up with personal and community milestones on my Instagram. I do have a YouTube that I haven't been super consistent with, but I have plans in the works for there as well.
You can find me on TikTok, Twitch, Instagram, and YouTube under StickyMz. If you’d like to join our Discord community, you can search in Discord for Muffin Lounge.
Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@stickymz
Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/stickymz
Discord: https://discord.gg/muffinlounge
Insta: https://instagram.com/stickymz/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@stickymz
Anything else you want to add?
As a longtime fan of the games Bungie has produced, starting all the way back to Halo CE on the original Xbox, I am happy that I have found a place with you all doing content. The friends I have made and the amazing members of my community have had a wonderful impact on my life these last almost three years. So, for those of you who have been a part of this journey with me these years, I appreciate you a lot and am very thankful that you are a part of my life. I wouldn’t have been able to do all this without the other wonderful creators I have met and my amazing mod team.