#loyal knight of the rot goddess (finlay)

[arx-aru]

the way the cleanrot helm's plume is like. so weird in comparison to other plumes is so cool actually .

listen. it's IMPORTANT okay-

because because BECAUSE-

cuz AT FIRST you're probably disappointed it isn't the super pretty, detailed hair the banished knights and others get but then u realize

it's obviously shaped like hair right. but also it's split into 2 solid clumpy bits almost like

like malenia's weird ass phase 2 hair-wings!!

and their model is definitely meant to emphasize this because the set is tailored exactly so their unique limp walk cycle / idle animations splits the clumps 😭 😭

ft finlay cuz wild cleanrots are flighty(hahaha get it)

and !! the fact the helm ALSO has the 2 feathered white wings, and their full set has a Miquellan unalloyed gold necklace / Miquellan eclipse halo scythe, and obviously the way they favor their left side / wield their sword in their right hand--

forget the item descriptions; their very design says they're all in for Malenia, no matter what sobriquet and form she claims. They're so endlessly loyal they give themselves to the Goddess of Rot, and they share the Blade of Miquella's love of her twin, accepting her choice of subservience, and they're even right beside the Severed in her lopsided form. they hold themselves in her image, no matter how monstrous, crippled, and forlorn she may be

And none of them deserted. Like the Black Knights burned to ash beside Gwyn, they dedicate their being and eternal soul to their liege--and like their successors, their scarce surviving number stride even now with purpose and intent.

They even protect their lord's daughter, be it the illusory Gwynevere or the manipulated Millicent, the vestiges of the world they tried to build.

They are left but ash and rot, yet still they stand, unto the end of the world.

they are, in their chosen fate, triumphant

(what i mean to say is these bitches gay)

[ask-me-about-podracing]

I went feral on discord describing a fic I want to write about Cleanrot Knight Finlay taking Malenia back to the Haligtree. Note, I headcanon them as always having been in a romantic relationship, but this fic is about them falling in love.

Alternately, In Which I Have Very Normal Feelings About Malenia/Finlay.

Finlay starts off in Caelid right after the Radhan fight, fending off knights and sick dogs (no big dogs or birds yet) and Malenia is knocked out. They get to East Limgrave and Malenia starts waking up but can't even move. Finlay makes a better sled to drag her. They get to Limgrave proper, Finlay's getting sicker but doesn't put two and two together that it's the Scarlet Rot is advancing. they have their gay little moment. Malenia tells Finlay about the sneaky side passage around Stormveil. They travel up fighting their way through more difficult enemies as they make their way to the Haligtree.

They slowly break the ice, Malenia asks about Finlay's life, eventually getting onto family. Finlay flips the question, Malenia goes silent. Another night, she picks back up like "you asked about my family the other night" and explains her whole situation. More nights go by, she opens up why they attacked Radhan, so she could release her brother's fate, though it might doom her to get own fate (rotting away in this fic).

There's a moment where Malenia can finally stand on her own but not much else. Finlay is having none of it, telling her she needs to rest. Malenia talks about how indignant it is for her to be pulled on a sled by one of her followers, that she needs to defend Finlay, and that demigods recover quickly. Finlay stands her ground, holding back the Empyrean with a single hand. Malenia's temper flares, the patches of Scarlet Rot become slightly brighter, a crackling is heard, "you dare defy your goddess??" but she can't push through. She nearly collapses, holding herself up by leaning heavily on Finlay's shoulder and resting her head against hers, "what did a rotten being such as myself do to deserve such a loyal knight as thee?" Finlay thinks she's flushed cause she thought she was gonna die, but why is she more flustered after Malenia rested on her, hmmmmm?

Eventually during their nightly talks, Finlay asks if there's any way to stop the rot, which turns out to be a needle that, for the sake of this fic, is in the Haligtree. I'll figure out some reason why she couldn't use it before, maybe one of Miquella's servants finished it while she went on her crusade, ignore that you find it on one of her own commanders who might have been searching for her or something.

They have a big fight cause Malenia did something stupid trying to defend Finlay, even though she's an incredibly capable warrior. "You've spent your entire life caring for everyone else! Why can't you accept that someone wants to do the same for you?...Why won't you let me care for you?" (This'll be a much longer speech directed at not-me, a person who constantly shoulders the burdens of others) Cause I hate seeing others suffer "And how do you think I feel seeing you suffer?"

And so, Malenia learns she needs to accept help and be vulnerable with others and has wicked gay sex.

As for the finale, it'll revolve around the looming Scarlet Rot threat in Finlay. Malenia eventually finds out that Finlay is basically dying and doesn't know what to do. They're in the consecrated snow fields and she's rushing to the Haligtree, nearly at full strength herself (what are you talking about, her emotional healing isn't reflected in her physical self) but still suffering from Scarlett Rot, maybe decimating everyone in her path, maybe escorted by the wolf ladies. They reach the Haligtree and one of the servants remarks that the gold unalloyed needle is in her chambers.

They reach the chamber where we fight Malenia, they arrive just in time. Malenia grabs the needle, assures Finlay she'll be okay, when she gains some lucidity. Finlay caresses Malenia's face and whispers (while surreptitiously taking the needle) "why don't you ever think about yourself?" boom, jabs Malenia's chest with the needle. As it works its magic, Finlay starts to pass out and Malenia freaks out, grabbing her so tight that the other half of the needle pierces Finlay's chest. They stay there until the magic ends, and a little more after that. Finlay's heartbeat is soft, her breath weak, Malenia's grip is neither. A gasp from Finlay, relief from Malenia. They separate and the needle snaps (ayyy, sticking to the game lore) but remains lodged in their hearts (shut up, it's magic).

Cue the waterworks and come down. Malenia is both extremely relieved but also upset cause of how terrified she was to lose someone she grew to care for so much. Finlay, "Now you know how I feel." (Not the needle representing the heartache they feel when the other puts their life at risk)

There'll be a gay AF epilogue. Malenia will find out that her brother was kidnapped while she was gone, Finlay's heart will drop, but Malenia will assure her that she's no good to him dead. She'll take her recovery seriously while the Haligtree knights look for Miquella. In the meantime, she and Finlay have a lot to discuss, "knight of my heart".

[lorianbladeoflothric]

Elden Ring Oc Lore Dump

I've got quite a few characters kicking around in my mind, and I just realized the only place I've ever written anything about them is a bunch of scattered notes in a discord server so. Here's something more organized! (Under the cut bc there's like 5 of these guys so it's long)

Nyla and Astrid They're kind of a package deal. A pair of Tarnished who met by chance and have decided to take the Elden Throne as a team! At least...that's what they say. The reality is less wholesome

Nyla was once a Cleanrot Knight who died of Scarlet Rot some time after deserting during the battle of Caelid. Though she was cured of it upon resurrecting, it still affects her mind pretty badly. When Astrid found her, she was graceless. She wandered aimlessly, confused and aggressive, with no memory of her past except her name and some fighting techniques. She was happy to be given a purpose and through their travels, her bubbly personality and some of her memories have returned.

Astrid is a coward, and worse, a schemer. She's been disowned from her warrior clan in the badlands because of it. But whatever, she's here now and she's here to become Elden Lord and ideally not die trying. But as someone who isn't good at fighting and tragically can't rely on her spirit summons all of the time, that doesn't seem possible. Enter Nyla, a tarnished who can't become Elden Lord, desperately needs something to fight for, and, well, is kind of a dumbass. While traveling together Astrid becomes less shitty, and the two build an actual friendship, but it very much does start as her wanting someone to do all the fighting for her.

Primrose Morne

Another Cleanrot Knight. Prim is the bastard daughter of the pre-shattering Castellan of Morne (which means it's technically not her last name, but she uses it out of spite) and Finlay's childhood friend. Her mother was a servant of Castle Morne who died when Prim was young. Her only wish was for the girl's father to care for her, a wish he granted by hiring Prim as a maid to "earn her keep". In her time serving her father's house, she befriended some of the Misbegotten slaves, coming to think of them as family. Eventually, Prim heard about the Haligtree and set out on a journey to it with her adoptive siblings. There, she would become a Cleanrot knight. (Though she arrived a couple years before Finlay, they both got knighted in the same cermony, due to Prim’s lack of battlefield discipline and Finlay’s tryhard-ness)

Marion Marais Marnie

Another cleanrot knight! Marnie says she’s an orphan from a house of no renown, and that she used to be a perfumer. As such has quite a bit of knowledge on medicine and poisons. She's very soft-spoken and proper, but is oddly fixated on her Lady, some would say beyond how a loyal knight should act. She’ll fight anyone who she feels is insulting Malenia.

Her prized possession is a locket she recieved from her father shortly before he passed. And if it was in the game, this would be the description. Healthy Child's Heirloom Raises dexterity and faith at the cost of immunity. The heirs of house Marais are sickly born, but their daughters are spared the affliction. While her brother worshipped from afar, Marion pledged her life to their goddess, taking up arms in her name.

Elizaveta, Melancholic Mother

A Tarnished that has risen to the status of Sanguine Noble. In her previous life, she was married into a noble house in Leyndell and treated very poorly. Her husband wasn't physically abusive (at first) but it was clear that she was only there to give him children and was otherwise meant to stay silent and be pretty. Things went well for her once she became pregnant with her first child....until he was born an Omen. Despite his curse, she wanted to keep him and desperately cried out to be able to at least hold him as they took him away. Her husband's family considered her to be cursed after that, and her inability to provide an heir afterwards was all the reason they needed to have her killed so they could keep their reputation. When she awoke as a tarnished, she was easily swayed to join the bloody fingers by the promise of unconditional love and the opportunity to see the order that stripped her of her happiness and son burnt to the ground.

I kinda wanna make an oc for most factions in Elden Ring bc it just sounds fun and I'd probably get to know the lore better that way, but for now it's just these girlies (i...should make my next one a dude probably)

[on-stained-glass-wings]

Headcanons: Miquella and Malenia are really bad royals

--in that, while they’re very effective at running a kingdom, they’re horrible at living like royals and don’t want to even make an effort to do so.

 Granted, old habits are hard to break, and their first few years in the Consecrated Snowfield were hard, long, and left no room for pomp and circumstance. Yet even after the Haligtree was firmly established, the two still cleaned their own rooms, mended/made their own clothing, did their own shopping, chopped their own wood, and prepared their own meals.

When Loretta arrived with the first albinaurics from Liurnia, she basically went ‘bitch, you live like this??’ and finally convinced them to hire some housekeepers, because for god’s sake, you don’t have to wash your own clothing or chop your own firewood. You have a populace that adores you that would kill to assist you in menial tasks. Also, it would help the economy. Think of the jobs you’d provide if you jet let someone do your laundry. It would also free up more time to do ‘running a kingdom and subverting god’ things.

So Malenia and Miquella relented...to a point. They don’t have handmaidens to help them dress or bathe or anything. They still make their own meals unless they’re receiving a formal visit, at which case they’ll relent and hire a cook. While housekeepers now help them keep their residence clean and neat, the two insist on taking care of their own rooms. Someone does their washing for them, but Malenia insists on mending their clothing, if only so she can maintain her fine motor skills. They let Loretta and Finlay go to the market for them, not only because they insisted, but it’s amusing to think of them bickering like an old married couple the entire time.

Finlay has taken it upon herself to either select fish to buy from them at the market or to catch some herself. She is the daughter of a fishmongers, so she knows her way around a line, and she nearly had a fucking heart attack when she saw that Malenia’s method of catching fish was to just. Go into the river or ocean and snag them with her bare hands (or teeth, on one memorable occasion). It got a little less weird when Finlay learned that Maliketh and Blaidd had been the ones to teach Malenia how to fish, but she absolutely insisted on teaching Malenia the ‘proper’ way to do things. Malenia still likes to catch fish bare handed for fun, but she finds fishing...surprisingly medatative, as well as an excellent way to spend quality time with Finlay. They have a lot of sunset sea fishing ‘dates’ that just involve them sitting in quiet companionship while they wait for the fish to bite, Malenia resting her shoulder against Finlay’s as the knightess sings a sea shanty under her breath.

(Miquella’s also learning to fish. He’s just not very good at it, bless his heart. He’s either impatient or so patient he forgets he’s even fishing and slips into a meditative trance.)

[on-stained-glass-wings]

OOC: I may not have the energy to reply much at the moment, but I somehow have the energy to do a semi-serious shitpost about how the fandom portrays the Finlay and Malenia romance. Specifically in bed.

(Read more for fandom snarkery and NSFW/T talk. The following is my personal preference and I absolutely believe that all interpretations of the Ultimate Lesbian Ship:tm: are valid as fuck even if They Don’t Cater to My Particular Needs. I’m also going to use yuri terminology because I’ve been on the internet for over a decade.)

Okay, so like, am I the only one that kind of balks at the way most Malenia/Finlay fics are written--specifically in terms of sex scenes? Like, nothing draws me out of a Finlay/Malenia story like a sex scene, because it’s either Malenia acting like a mommy ojou-sama figure or her just becoming a full-on wilting submissive. Finlay, meanwhile, is nothing but an eager ‘imutou’ like figure, just so happy to be with Malenia-senpai that she’ll just do whatever her mistress wants. And Malenia’s almost inevitably a sex goddess if she’s not an eager little minx submissive. it’s just.

So.

Boring.

It’s like I’m watching a really outdated yuri/shojou-ai story from the 1990s/early-to-mid 2000s. Or Cinemax. People can’t seem to find a middle-ground to Malenia’s contrarian personality (in that she is somehow a BAMF, determined, assertive GOAT as well as passive, reactive, and surprisingly chill), and Finlay seems to have no personality aside from stern knight or ‘omg senpai i would die for you’. The sex scenes inevitably suffer as a result. Like, I get so many of us are desperate for that good Malenia/Finlay WLW kush, but come on. Give them some personality. Stop falling into banal yuri tropes.

I realize that part of the problem is that Finlay has no canonical personality outside of absolutely devoted and BAMF motherfucker who loved her boss enough to drag her across the continent on her back, but like, the fandom can’t seem to decide if she’s an eager uwu senpai type or if she’s a stern knight, and like. It’s like they can’t seem to find a happy medium in personalities for EITHER of them.

Please. Please. Try to diversity in both sex and character portrayals. I don’t want to feel like I’m watching Strawberry Panic when I’m reading an Elden Ring wlw fic.

 (For anyone who is curious about my own portrayals, Finlay would die for Malenia, but she is also an uncooth, snarky, incorrigible little shit, and her antics either leave Malenia laughing and smiling against her will or doing the emotional equivalent of ‘rolling her eyes’. Finlay definitely likes to joke around in bed and Malenia’s like will lightly smack her head or tweak her nose and be all ‘look are you gonna keep making puns or are you going to go down on me already?’ Malenia’s on the bottom 80% of the time, both because A) it’s really nice to be taken care of when your entire existence revolves around you being an unshakable protector, and B) she suffers from chronic pain and mobility issues, so not only can positioning be difficult, but having sex with your metal prosthetic arm and leg on can be a bit of a buzzkill at times, so she’ll occasionally take them off. She can move around fine without them, but topping when you can’t balance yourself over someone is...tricky. They do a lot lying-on-their-sides sex.

Also, their afterglow is always affectionate but often peppered with Finlay’s  puns or random questions. Like, they’ll literally both have just come down from orgasm, and Finlay will be like ‘hey Mal, if a tree falls down in the woods and no one’s around to hear it, does it make a sound?’; and Malenia will resist the urge to smother her (lovingly with a pillow) and be all ‘of course it does, Finlay; just because you can’t hear something doesn’t mean it doesn’t obey the laws of physics.’ And then Finlay’s like ‘okay, but how do you know for sure if you’re not there to hear it?’ and Malenia DOES bring the pillow out and start to smack her on the head as Finlay cackles maniacally.)

[on-stained-glass-wings]

Headcanons: About (Default) Finlay

Note that this only applies to the Finlay that appears in my general posts. This obviously does not apply if I ever RP with a Finlay mun.

The fun thing about Finlay is that we know nothing other than 1) absolute badass, 2) determinator, and 3) lost in the Malenia sauce, so it's free real estate baybee.

So here's my take:

Finlay neither remembers nor cares about her last name, but she does know she was born to a lower-working class family in one of the seaside towns of Limgrave. Her parents were fishermen and she and her siblings sold the catch they brought in. They were a big family and they never had a lot of money, but they made the most with what they had and were happy. Malenia and the Cleanrot Knights passed through her village one day and Finlay basically took one look at her and went 'I'm gonna marry her one day'.

Years later, her village is stricken with a plague, and a now-adult Finlay carried her last surviving sibling (who was stricken with illness) all the way to the Haligtree in search of the legendary healing abilities of Miquella the Unalloyed. Unfortunately, her sibling didn't survive the journey, but Malenia praised Finlay's devotion and offered her a new home in the Haligtree. Eventually, Finlay joined the Cleanrot Knights, where she discovered that the natural immunity that allowed her to resist the plague that struck down the rest of her family helped her last longer against the inevitable decay of scarlet rot.

Finlay is salt-of-the-earth: not very book-smart, but practical and clever, and she can smell bullshit from a mile away. She's irreverent and surprisingly casual with Malenia whenever such behavior is allowed but knows how to be come the 'yes mam' commander when need be. Malenia fell in love with her because Finlay instinctively knew that the Golden Order was stifling, outdated, and oppressive, and that demigods and gods deal with the same shit as humans. Because of this, while she respects Malenia's power as a goddess and her authority as both the co-leader of the Haligtree, leader of the Cleanrot Knights, and potential successor to Marika, she also sees that Malenia is a person who's not perfect and is dealing with her own issues. She also loves children and understands the strong bond between siblings who only have each other. While Malenia has laid with many women, she never trusted any of them to accept Miquella's prominence and priority in her life, and those relationships never went beyond 'hook-ups' or 'casual flings'...at least, until Finlay.

Finlay also understood (not to Malenia's extent, but far greater than anyone other than Malenia or Loretta) the unique needs of Miquella as a wise, semi-omniopotent, brilliant Empyrean who is also 8-10 years old. This flexibility and acceptance endeared her to both of the Empyrean Twins, and Malenia had Miquella's full (and vociferous) blessing when she finally pursued her second-in-command.

Long story short, they dated for years, and Finlay got her wish when she and Malenia were married by Miquella at the Haligtree Roots a year or so before the Shattering. Then, while passing through Liurnia during the march to Caelid, the two decided to go the official Golden Order route and were married by Pastor Miriel in the Church of Vows.

After the Battle of Aeonia, that same determination that had Finlay carry her dying sibling to the Haligtree aided her in bringing a comatose Malenia back to the Haligtree, even as her own strong natural immunity began to be overcome by the scarlet rot. Despite this, she survived several years after their return, and it was her presence that kept Malenia from succumbing to grief at her brother's loss. When her illness grew severe enough to keep her from traveling with Malenia on her regular searches for her brother, Malenia chose to stay by her side until the end, and it was Finlay's request that she become a spirit ash so she could remain with her lady until the day she herself passes.

Now, Finlay lives on as a spirit, with her ash tethered to both the Haligtree and Malenia's own godhood. While there are numerous downsides to not having a flesh-and-bone body, and the nature of being a spirit ash means that she's tethered to the Haligtree or the near proximity of its holder, Finlay's life hasn't changed overly much. She continues to aid Loretta with the Haligtree's daily operations and is the only one that's able to coax a constantly depression-napping Malenia into taking care of herself. She's also the only one who can make her smile...at least, until Miquella's return.

(In the AU where Miquella is rescued, Ranni forces Selvius to make her a puppet body when the twins visit Liurnia, and she and Rennala are able to successfully transplant Finlay's soul into the artificial body. It's not a permanent or ideal solution--merely a stopgap until Ranni banishes the Greater Will and Miquella is able to force out the Outer Gods and establish his own order--but at least Finlay has a physical presence again, which means she can give Malenia better hugs and kisses.)