#Playing in the dark with no escape

[cephydeluxe]

imagine being orin (already terrible) and passionately orchestrating your kills to worship your father and god with your art and being constantly shit on for it cause “bhaal only cares about quantity” but then hearing your stupid bloodkin flirt with a stupid banite using poetic violence and shit like “oh gortash when you and i are the last living souls we will wed upon my father’s alter and be forever bonded in bloody death” and still be the favorite child like fuck off i’d be so pissed 😭😭😭

[crowhoonter]

The Moon Presence holds a special place in my heart in terms of souls games final bosses because of the sheer what the fuckness of it all. All of the other final bosses have some kind of build up; Dark Souls can't go one minute without mentioning Gwyn, Nashandra and Aldia are major figures in Ds2's lore, the Soul of Cinder, while never directly alluded to is another example of the converging of time and space in 3, Isshin plays a large part in Sekiro's story, and Radagon is a major lore character with Elden Beast being pretty easy to clock as a manifestation of the Greater Will.

Flora, the Moon Presence, though? She comes out of nowhere. There are maybe two lines alluding to her existence at all, those being the workshop umbilical cord and the lecture hall note. The closest you otherwise get is the references to the terrible hunter's dream, which doesn't immediately conjure the idea of her to mind.

Even better we don't even know what she really wants. Oh sure, there are plenty of theories and inferences we can make. Maybe she uses Hunters like hitmen to prevent infant great ones from threatening her, maybe she's keeping a natural order running, maybe she wants to spread the beast plague, maybe she wants to prevent mankind's evolution, maybe she just plain loves violence. In the end though, its all still maybes. Girly walks on in and her mere existence changes so much about the story, yet she refuses to elaborate on anything.

Another very interesting aspect is, and this is probably a somewhat baseless observation, we don't really know what she is. Everywhere else in the game, Great Ones have some line of text associating them with that status. Oedon, Baby Mergo, Kos, Amygdala, The Brain of Mensis, Ebrietas. All of them have text somewhere that directly refers to them with that moniker, but Flora? Nowhere will you find something calling her a great one. Hell, in the Japanese translation, she is called "Moon Demon." It is probably safe and the intended inference that she is a great one, but the thought she might not be does tickle me nonetheless.

Then there is her role in the story. The Great Ones are said to be sympathetic in spirit, and there definitely is a part of her that echoes that sentiment. The way she cradles the hunter is like that of a mother holding a child, yet she seems to be a lot more manipulative than the Great Ones we see in game. They typically cause suffering not by tricking or making deals, but by being unaware of how they affect the world with their actions. Getting picked up by Amygdalae seems like a curious child picking up a lizard, unaware that they are hurting it. Flora though, there does seem to be a certain level of maliciousness beyond accidental. Gehrman's pain and suffering is clear to see, yet she keeps him chained to the dream because of whatever bargain he made (presumably animating the Doll). She does the same to the hunter should you forgo the umbilical cords. She also doesn't seem to want a surrogate like other Great Ones, maybe settling for keeping humans as pets rather than having an actual child.

She really is one of the best Fromsoft final bosses because of the sheer strangeness and the wrench her presence throws into the game's story. We can get a concept of most of Bloodborne's story with a bit of interpretation and reading between the lines, but she will forever be an enigma. For what purpose did Laurence and Gehrman summon her? Why is she seemingly not worshiped unlike other Great Ones? Does she desire a surrogate or are humans pets good enough? We may never know, and that is wonderful.

Stay enigmatic queen, live your freak life

[atopvisenyashill]

i was thinking more about characters Performing Gender, but not necessarily Transgressing Gender. I wound up focusing on Ned and Sansa bc I feel like I understand them the most but-

Sansa as a hostage is imo the most obvious (bc it’s so well done) moment of someone clearly Performing Gender but not being transgressive in that performance. Which isn’t to say it’s not a complicated performance; it’s a fine line Sansa walks between weaponizing her gender to protect herself without seeming too fake. She’s trying to placate the Lannisters by playing the perfect, dedicated, air headed betrothed because it’s the only defense she has - if she outwardly rebels, she will be punished in a likely violent and/or sexual way (which isn’t even conjecture - when she says “or maybe he’ll give me yours” Joffrey has her struck with an armored hand). She’s not quite successful in being convincing but that’s because it’s a rather extreme situation; despite no one believing her, she does make herself seem meek and stupid enough that no one suspects she’s plotting to escape with Dontos until she’s well away from KL. The fact that she even has Dontos to confide in is because of Sansa’s relationship with gender! When she saves him, she covers her rebellious slip by playing up Joffrey’s intelligence & his role as King; she reaches for “tools” of her gender AND of ~proper manhood~ to save a life and herself from another beating. Her retreats into the godswood and silence are very much Sansa attempting to recharge from these draining interactions, the same way a knight would need to stop and eat and rest after a fight. She is fighting, constantly, by forcing herself to stay within the narrow confines of a specific type of gender performance as a way of shielding herself from harm.

Ned yelling at Cat is another big one, and I’ve seen the scene referred to as Ned using his patriarchal power to scare Cat, which is a great description. It feels like a Performance because Ned is putting on this terrifying Lord Stark mask in an attempt to get Catelyn to stop asking about Jon (and Lyanna). This is not how he usually acts with those he loves! When Ned is with His People, he is welcoming of questions, curiosity, emotion, even transgressive thought (to a point! the idea that Ned is a feminist because he lets Arya learn to fight is Not accurate but you can’t deny he allows significantly more flexibility wrt gender expression than most of the fathers we meet in this series. the bar is in hell tho). Yet when Cat asks him about Jon’s mother, Ned scares her so well she stops asking & still remembers the moment bitterly over a decade later. And if that snippet we see through Bran’s eyes of Ned praying that Cat will forgive him does come after she asks (like it’s suspected), it’s clear not only that this is a performance he’s putting on & weaponizing against Cat, it’s one he does not like using as a weapon against someone he is close to. After using the power his gender gives him to cause harm, he retreats to the godswood and silence to pray and rest, much like Sansa. A spiritual cleanse, the way a soldier may pray after battle, to reset and reconnect Being A Proper Man to Being A Kind Man.

I think there’s something interesting in that two of the characters most widely defined by how well they adhere to Westerosi gender norms both dislike feeling like they had to weaponize their gender. They are exhausted by the performance, because it’s a performance. This isn’t Sansa getting excited over tourneys, or Ned teaching his sons to fight; it’s toxic masculinity, it’s structural misogyny. It’s something they’re good at, excel at, and connected to something they enjoy but when it’s paired with violence, whether done by Ned or done to Sansa, it crosses over in their minds from an innate part of themselves (The Gender) to a performance necessary due to survival (The Gender Role). And that after these performances, both retreat to nature & god as a way of resting and cleansing from the experience.

[himejoshiangels]

do you know how fucking infuriating it is to go into the duke tag for posts abt one of my favorite characters only to be met with post after post of people who don't gaf abt him but want to pretend that they do by deciding to project their lack of interest in him onto the story itself. by saying over and over and over and over that the only way he fits into the dynamic of his family is by being fucking "normal" when that literally isn't the case. like it's fully entirely made up. pick up one comic with him in it, any at all and that's disproven. he only exists to juxtapose their chaos, their trauma, their quirkiness. I think that reply pissed me off so bad I reached my breaking point. it's already so hard to find any content of him at all but the stuff people make is always, always discrediting him entirely.

[wildflower-otome]

Young woman: 'Eek-......!? Y-You mean you really are the ones that they're—' Lively woman: 'Oh my....but isn't he rather handsome?' Yuhiru: (.....Huh?) Claude: 'We're wanted on false charges. I don't want to cause a commotion here. .......You understand me, don't you?' Lively woman: 'Ah......yes. Um, we'll keep quiet......' Young woman: 'T-Take care......' Yuhiru: (W-We're safe.....! And it's all thanks to Claude's looks!!)

[pardonmydelays]

i don't wanna go to work, i wanna stay home and play stray

[missfiorear]

Silly storytime because I'm bored. My interest and love for FromSoftware games is thanks to my uncle, who was a huge fan of video games. I used to watch him play until one day, in my innocence, I told him I wanted to try.

That’s why, whenever someone asks me about forms of child abuse, I’ll say forcing an 11-year-old girl to fight Sister Friede with no summons and a terrible build is definitely one.

Thanks, uncle. To this day, I can still hear the sound of that scythe on my back.

[queensparklekitten]

time princess players how do y'all picture the MCs of every story

like since every set and piece of official art has a different hair colour, length, and style with every picture of them, and sometimes there's descriptions that don't match the images, which one do you go with

and do you make half of them look like your avatar or have your own designs

[ennaih]

Every Film I Watch In 2023:

235. Witchfinder General (1968)

[clea-dessendre]

talking to heinrix in the pit after his romance scene is so funny like his post-nut clarity is just post-nut rage

[rawr-mortgage]

HE'S SO FREAKING BEAUTIFUL GOOD LORD😭

[lovingherwasgay]

I'm sorry RYAN MURPHY ???!??? PRINCE???????!!?!!!!!

[ilkkawhat]

no no but really, now that i'm already three drinks in tonight and just feel like sharing, there is just something about the koskela commercials that add to this weird sense of nostalgia when I play aw2, added in with just the general beautiful scenery, listening to the pat maine radio show and hearing filth by national nightmare in that early part of the game...it just makes bright falls feel like home in a way that i never quite expected, esp given that i never played any remedy verse game, let alone alan wake (though like many things i get utterly obsessed with, i was at one time exposed to it i think during the peak of my twin peaks hyperfixation), and to just have that much of a connection to a game i got into literally at the end of november (the 23rd of 2023 to be precise) and maybe it's just because i have been so desperate for an escape and that's what this game gave me and not just that, it has inspired me so much to the point where i'm fucking drawing again--something that i was like traumatically discouraged from at a much too early age--and giffing and making graphics and writing when i swore i never would again...just fuck man. i feel like i have a few "cornerstone" pieces of media that have impacted me on such a highly personal level to the point where they might even change me a little but this....alan wake, remedy-verse, ilkka, all of that is just......something special

[risingsunresistance]

[infizero]

random thought but i just. arggrhgh i love the vibe toby fox creates in both undertale and deltarune where despite all the silliness and fun and joy, there's this constant feeling of sort of repressed sadness that permeates the whole thing as well. its something that i really really love

[1tsjusty0u]

actually while im at it. flowey undertale. im getting his stupid fanclub pin because unfortunately i am a fan