#yharnam archaeology au

[ofstormsandfire]

yharnam archaeology??? 👀👀👀

hi I forgot that the blog I was rbing that from was a blog I followed for bloodborne stuff LMAO

okay so. this is heavily inspired by

Me being an anthropology student (who got into it because Cynthia pokemon is an archaeologist and I adore her, I took one (1) class and then got really invested, the important thing is. Archaeology go brr)

Me taking a very interesting class this semester that focuses on paleopathology, which is as my professor put it "the study of ancient suffering" but realistically is figuring out whatever you can from human remains. Whereas archaeology as a whole is about human culture from material remains, which can be actual bodies but can also be other things like pottery and building foundations.

Me teetering on the brink of being way too into Bloodborne for my own good despite not normally being much of a horror fan or a fan of particularly grimdark things. I Don't Know What's Different About Bloodborne. (it's probably that I'm a lesbian and I like lady maria, sue me)

Anyway. I got to thinking one time after class. That archaeologists would be SO FUCKING CONFUSED BY YHARNAM.

I'm tentatively placing Bloodborne as somewhere in the nineteenth century based on general vibes (according to my dad and his deep passion for weaponry of all kinds, a lot of the things in the game would have been derived later, but tbh if I lived in a place that constantly had to deal with people turning into horrifying beasts I think I'd innovate the hell out of things to get better weaponry so I didn't die too) and this theoretical au would be set in the modern day. so it's been a Hot Minute since the game ended and I think I was considering Yharnam Sunrise as the ending for. Reasons.

There's this group of researchers who end up heading to Yharnam, bankrolled by some rich heir or something who's got more money than sense (he dies or possibly turns into a beast from stupidity very early on) and possibly they're the last in a bunch of groups who went there and died because even hundreds of years after the horrors there are still So Many Ways For It To Go Badly? Undecided on that front, I'm still trying to figure out what (if anything) would actually be preserved.

Highlights of my vague plans:

The team finds Gilbert's journal. They all get really attached to Gilbert because that just kind of tends to happen. Which is unfortunate because they know damn well he probably didn't survive very long after the last page in his diary, but they didn't find a body, so...?

It takes a while for them to realize that the very canine skeletons have human DNA. At which point everyone is just. Very fucking confused. And also are realizing that maybe all those writings about the beast plague weren't actually about rabies (which does not leave a trace on the skeleton, fun fact! I wanted to do my project on rabies but I had to pick a pathology that had an effect on the skeleton. Alas)

There are so many arguments over who that grave behind the Hunter's Workshop belongs to. SO MANY. (I personally think it's very likely that is Maria's, but the team won't have any way of knowing that! If the headstone is unreadable by game times it's not gonna be any more readable centuries later!)

You determine whether something is bone by licking it. Someone finds an Amygdala skull and somehow, through the sort of stupidity that only happens in horror movies before people realize they're in horror movies, someone gets dared to lick it. This results in a very horrified Insight increase and the revelation that the weird fucking thing is made of bone. Also, that Amygdala's ghost is interested in the team now. Oops. This probably will go fine, right...?

What the FUCK are they going to think of all the statues of Great Ones. Probably (reasonably) that they are statues portraying something with great cultural significance to Yharnam, and possibly religious significance. Less reasonable is the fact that Great Ones... actually exist... and that SOMEONE is going to get enough Insight by the end to see those Amygdalas. Possibly the whole team tbh.

There is going to be so much arguing over how the fuck to cite shit. How do you cite some guy who supposedly disappeared centuries ago and is still hanging around in another dimension that you honestly aren't sure how to leave But You'll Worry About That Later, The First Hunter Is A Primary Source!!! How do you cite a ghost. How do you cite hallucinations and visions.

Possibly the Doll sneaks onto the team by pretending to be a survivor of a previous expedition, because tbh I think the Moon Presence can do what it wants and I think it would be VERY interested in these new bitches rocking up to Yharnam after a while. And, y'know, that goes fine until someone finds a picture of her. Or of Lady Maria. (Or until they reach the Abandoned Old Workshop, depending on the situation and if there's another version of said doll there to be found.)

Every. Single. Member. Of the team. Has some connection to Yharnam. Almost none of them know this originally. They will find out. Rip to Rom the Vacuous Spider's great-great-grandniece who discovers the hard way (finding Byrgenwerth's paperwork) why she was the first in her family to graduate uni, just not the first to attend it.

(Notable exception to this rule is the person who is convinced that his great-great-great-probably a few more in there-grandmother is Lady Maria. This gets very funny when the descendant of the player Hunter trips into the Hunter's Nightmare, which still exists due to said player Hunter poking their head in and wisely dipping immediately, and who manages to prevent a bossfight by blurting out "oh shit you're Jerry's great-grandma!")

(There may be lesbianisms involved. And some light necromancy. Idk I like Lady Maria a lot and I got enabled too damn much and I think it would be very funny for the group to return to civilization with an extra person. Or two.)

In summary, I have no plot (yet) apart from archaeology and being way too invested in the game, but I really want to write this someday once I actually finish said game. And also I'm having a grand old time coming up with characters to put through the Horrors. The archaeologist is named Cynthia Parker and. Well. If you remember the superhero identity of a certain character called Peter Parker, you might be able to figure out who she's distantly related to.

Other ideas include: player Hunter descendant, someone very distantly descended from a Cainhurst exile, and Jerry who is 100% certain his great-several-times-great-grandmother is Lady Maria of the Astral Clocktower and is 100% wrong about that. Jerry is the single party member with no actual connection to Yharnam and we love him for it.

Thanks for the ask I'm incredibly flattered that you were intrigued enough to ask about this from my tags given that I followed you for your BB fics :>