#Visceral Femininity: A Bloodborne Video Essay

[questioningespecialy]

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YouTube comment that reads from top to bottom... @melon3109 3 months ago Never realized Bloodborne was a period piece. 2.4k upvotes

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[chaosroid]

Watching so many Bloodborne video essayists jump through hoops and do everything in their power to avoid talking about the glaringly obvious female themes in this game is an exercise in frustration. Not like the game doesn't make that stuff quite explicit. I can't even call it subtext anymore. Like omg...just say the word periods!

[serpentmessmer]

i start up a video on bloodborne, i see the content warnings page

i clap with glee because YEAH LETS GOOO!!!!! TALK ABOUT ALL OF THE MENSTRUATION AND PREGNANCY AND FEMININE BODY HORROR IN BLOODBORNE LETS GO

[aevallare]

Hi! I'd love to know your top 10 video essays. Assuming that you watch them, but if that's not the case then perhaps top 10 non fiction books as an alternative. Of course it can be both if you'd like to share ☺️

whewww ok. i actively didn't double up on the essayists.

Every Zelda is the Darkest Zelda by Jacob Gellar

string theory lied to us and now science communication is hard by Angela Collier

Everything Is Sludge: Art in the Post-Human Era by Lily Alexandre

Visceral Femininity: A Bloodborne Video Essay (generally cisnormative verbiage used here fyi)

Why Kid's Stories should be Darker by Tale Foundry

How To Create A Terrifying Protagonist by Film Junkie

What Happens After a God Goes Mad? by Curious Archive

The Insane History of the Warrior Cat Series by Exits Examined (i just watched this like yesterday lmao)

Dishonored, and the Morality of Uncheckable Power by Thane Bishop

Queer Horror: Understanding Gender as Body Horror by RickiHirsch

[demilypyro]

Have you ever watched a Bloodborne video essay calling the game "Viscerally Feminine"? I feel like that would appeal to you.

I've seen it, I've seen it

[annelidist]

(i'm still a little mad about that visceral femininity video essay on gender in bloodborne not even touching on what's going on with lady maria/gehrman/the doll)

[jingerpi]

finally watching that "visceral feminity: a video on Bloodborne" essay or whatever and gotta say so far not a big fan of how it's equating bleeding and birth with femininity. like, I get it, it's not exactly the most classically masculine thing, but can't we just talk about it as a game about birth and blood rather than one about "femininity"? idk maybe things'll change later in the vid but :/ not the biggest fan so far

[vulpinesaint]

I will not ask you to play it because I don't think I've seen you talk about games a lot but I will recommend looking into bloodborne's whole thing and just going insane

I WANNA PLAY BLOODBORNE SO FUCKING BAD. like not actually because i don't play video games really haha but the premise of bloodborne makes me go crazy and i need to get way more into it. i watched that one video essay about visceral femininity and it made me go crazy for real. i just need to get deeper into it to go Insane. every monster design i see from it lights something up in my brain and the central concept of the blood.... oh god.

you know what anon. you've done a good job. cause now i Will actually buy bloodborne and play it i think. there's a sale on the complete edition and everything... i need to get into the blood that makes you more monstrous the more you commit yourself to the holy sacrament but has you convinced that you need more of it to remain healed and pure. shaking a little bit

[foamofthe-sea]

5 day weekend starts now time to turn on the hour long video essay about bloodborne and its visceral femininity and poke at verts for the rest of the week

[elizabethplaid]

daily notes, march 8, 2023

A small chunk of counseling today was info-dumping about Elden Ring lore. Really, it was about the themes of death and rebirth, along with what overlaps with Bloodborne. I watched a video essay called “Visceral Femininity: A Bloodborne Video Essay”, and it got me thinking a lot. Like, imagine a video game that explores allegories and metaphors for fertility, menstruation, and how bodies are affected by puberty (not just afab bodies, too).

I briefly mentioned the stone baby (gross pics, sorry) of folklore and the recent medical case with a calcified fetus (CT scan shown). Forgot to revisit the story snippet I had about how a body rots to protect itself from assault. (Tumors had grown, and guardian spirit-creatures emerged. It’s grosser in-context; trying to phrase it politely for now.) ---------------

In other news, I have a new phase of food fixation: cottage cheese. Good with grapes, baby carrots, or chips. I treat it like a dipping sauce.

I woke up with anxiety-shakes today, after being over-stimulated Tuesday. (That was my first day back after February hibernation.) Tomorrow is library duty, filling in for my friend, so I plan to nap with Gustav.

[ozzmodeus-main]

sorry I can’t go out tonight. yeah a new bloodborne video essay just dropped. yeah it’s about the visceral femininity of the underlying themes and moon cycles and the historical relation of lycanthropy to menstruation. yeah it’s an all night thing.

[smolhoneybat]

Hi! I am about nine minutes and thirty seconds into your essay on the visceral femininity on Bloodborne — and I don’t have words for how vindicated I feel watching it! I cannot wait to finish — but it is such a delight to realize that it wasn’t just me picking up on that! Keep up the amazing quality work!

Oh wow, thank you!! I was so surpised that there weren't many videos on it already? I checked out a couple of lore vids before I wrote because I didn't just want to repeat the same thing everyone else had said but....there were none? Some people mentioned all the pregancy/children themes but then pivoted away to something else but they're really baked into the game's story. Thanks so much for the ask! 💛

[lucifer-kane]

i need to rewatch the Visceral Femininity bloodborne video essay rn

[butchladymaria]

20 and 22 ‼️

revisiting this just, so INCREDIBLY late, but,

OG POST HERE!!!

20. part of canon you find tedious or boring

i love bloodborne but i did not like the chalice dungeons for a few reasons:

the way you progress through them was confusing to me? idk

the randomized ones are frequently just,,, bad? i've had a lot of ones spawn in with really weird or broken structures which went against the generally good level design in bloodborne

they're repetitive as hell. obviously this is likely not a bug but a feature, it's just not my personal cup of tea

so i never actually played through them properly. i'd like to someday though!

22. favorite part of canon that other people ignore

there are SO many things i could answer with here, but i think i'd have to say the themes of womanhood in the game? i know the video is a bit of a darling among my circle of bloodborne mutuals, but viscerally feminine made by @/smallhoneybat has a brief discussion of how, for all the hundreds of lore videos and posts about bloodborne, the overarching themes about womanhood and motherhood are very, very often simply given a one-off mention or overlooked entirely. that video is amazing though, and i wrote an essay on the doll specifically that i wound up feeling really proud of :) it's definitely been something gaining more recognition on here, which is really exciting to see!

[lastofthemessengers]

Watch "Visceral Femininity: A Bloodborne Video Essay" on YouTube

[lauren-ce]

Really glad you're enjoying bloodborne! Based on some of your reactions, I think you would really enjoy a video by Honey Bat on YouTube called

Visceral Femininity: A Bloodborne Video Essay

Only when you've finished the game though for spoilers.

Thank you for this, I've been looking for this kind of stuff exactly! It's in my list now (: