#FROMSOFT MAKES ME LOVE SNAKES

[darkrootmushies]

GOD IM SO HYPED HEYY cant think of a silly caption

[hoarah-babylon]

I had to make a BIG post going over everything that's got my brain whirring after watching the story trailer - it's all my speculation and personal opinion so don't take it as fact yada yada IT'S FUN SPECULATION TIME

(I'll put it under the cut bc this is gonna be a LONG one)

“Miquella the kind spoke of the beginning. The seduction. And the betrayal. An affair from which Gold arose. And so too was Shadow born."

My interpretation of this scene is that we are seeing the creation of the Golden Order by Marika. She plucks grace from something dead and fleshy, and holds it up to the Greater Will, beckoning in her new age. It would make sense to me, considering the voiceover, that this is a dead god that has been betrayed by Marika so she can pursue her Order and claim power. It does like quite reminiscent of Kos from Bloodborne to me. The fleshiness of the corpse also reminds me of the godskins/snakeskin. However, I don't believe this is the Gloam Eyed Queen. From my understanding of the timeline (mainly thanks to @eldenringslut) the GEQ didn't come about until later on during Marika's reign - if we are seeing the creation of the GO, and my understanding of the timeline is correct, I don't think it would make sense for this to be the GEQ. I can't deny different aspects of this do allude to things related to her though - the dusky sky, the godskin-like flesh. But I almost think that would be too 'perfect' for it to fit together like that, especially with how much people want to know more about the GEQ, I think fromsoft would want to keep us in the dark and surprise us. Whatever we are seeing here, Gold and Shadow seemingly came about at the same time.

We get our first look at what appears to be Messmer's army. They appear to all wield spears which ties into Messmer's whole Impaler thing, along with the shot of the person(?) impaled on the steps. I wonder who these people were, if they had to stay in the Shadow Realm after the battle was done (if it is?). I find the design on the helmet interesting - at first glance I thought it could be a tree or roots, but actually doesn't it kind of remind you of the black tendrils that shoot out of Messmer's flame? I think it could be either, or both, or maybe it's a chicken and egg situation and they're related somehow... my first thought when the initial gameplay trailer came out was that the dark tendrils in Messmer's flame could be deathroot or something similar to that. Maybe I wasn't far off?

We get our first shot of Messmer here. His pose pretty much solidifies to me that this is his army - this is the pose of a character commanding an army. It's so classic fantasy, the composition and everything, I love it. Messmer is awesome. I'm obsessed with the snake-like flames flying above the carnage.

"What followed was a war unseen. One that could never be put to song. A purge without Grace, or honour. The tyranny of Messmer's flame."

My take on this is that once Marika had won her battle/betrayed the God we see her pluck Grace from, she had her opponents banished and/or wiped out at the hands of Messmer. I have to say, it does surprise me that it seems Messmer was around and fully grown at the creation of Marika's Order. The implications there leave me with so many questions. Who is his other parent? Marika is Numen, and they seldom give birth. This is not an insignificant thing for her to have a child, especially if the theory of births being governed by the Erdtree/Golden Order is to be believed, and this must have came about before then. It would also go against the idea that Messmer is the full brother/secret triplet of Miquella and Malenia, considering that Miq + Mal were not born until Marika had left Godfrey for Radagon. I find that detail so intriguing... especially because I was so on board with the butterfly theories.

No idea who this is, but they're cool and that definitely looks like the kind of weapon we'd be able to pick up. It just looks like a PVP weapon, know what I mean? Very reminiscent of Vyke as well imo, similar pose to the box art of him along with the billowing cape. This reminds me, I'm noticing an emphasis on hair in this trailer too - I never took much note of Marika's hair before but in this trailer there was a lot of emphasis put on how long it is, how similar it is to threads of Grace, and Miquella's hair too. It's making me think of the bible story of Samson but let me not go too off the rails

Here we have some of the coolest shots in the trailer imo. This posits the Lion/Omens as enemies of Messmer to me - which to me supports the view that Messmer is aligned with Marika. The Lion/Omens always came off to me as if they were making a mockery of the GO - positioning themselves as enemies to Marika/the GO. We get another good look at his Flame, with the tendrils. They almost remind me of thorns actually. That final shot looks like a victory scene to me. It also really hammers home the Impaler thing. The man knows his brand!

Then we pan up to see what hangs above this burned city - this 'shadow tree'. THIS IS MARIKA'S RUNE.

I think we are seeing the origins of her rune as part of the modern Elden Ring here - Grace/blessings dripping from the bough of this tree. I have to say given the imagery relating to motherhood on the run up to the DLC, the rune does look vaguely yonic, especially on the seals. I think references to motherhood are in this trailer too - Marika taking something from a fleshy orifice with a voiceover talking about seduction, I can't imagine that wasn't intentional. So far the main character we have seen is her child, after all. The whole story of Elden Ring revolves around Marika's children. I have a feeling Marika's relation to motherhood and childbearing is going to be a big theme in the DLC.

I remember when the first gameplay trailer dropped, people theorised that this was Ranni's rune, and I was happy to believe that because of the similarities to Rennala's rune. But now I believe it's Miquella's rune, for several reasons, one being it reminds me of Malenia's rune, and they are twins after all. Although Rennala and Malenia's runes are oddly similar, it just makes more sense to me that it would be Miquella's, considering we are following in his footsteps. I think these rune spikes are going to be our DLC equivalents of sites of grace.

"And so kindly Miquella would abandon everything. His golden flesh, his blinding strength..."

Abandoning his flesh is very reminiscent of Ranni... but why would he need to abandon his flesh? Perhaps after Mohg stole him away? Though I have to say, I'm warming up the idea that Mohg never actually had Miquella, he just thought he did. That might not make sense considering that body in Mohg's palace is how we get to the Shadow Lands, but I don't know, something about it doesn't sit quite right with me for some reason. The line 'his blinding strength' is a bit odd. I can't take credit for this next idea, I saw it on twitter, but someone suggested that this is referencing him potentially abandoning Malenia - his strength, his blade. For Miquella to abandon Malenia though, it doesn't exactly align with what we know of his character. This is the person that turned his back on the GO because it could do nothing for Malenia's sickness. He'd need a really good reason to do that to her. Maybe it was his only option? I'm so intrigued about why Miquella is even in the Shadow Lands to begin with. What are his motivations? Perhaps it's something to do with his proclivity to want to welcome all, especially those outside of Grace, I suppose those in the shadow lands fall under that mantle.

"Even his fate."

Now THIS is super interesting - our first look at St. Trina! In her usual purple - associated with sleep. It does also look like she's sleeping here, sinking... What on earth does it mean to say that Miquella abandoned his fate as we are shown an image of St. Trina? Was he meant to eventually become Trina fully? We don't know much about her, but we do know Trina is an aspect/alter-ego of some sort of Miquella. Considering his parents were one in the same body, it's not a stretch to assume this could be the same case here. But in Marika/Radagon's case, it doesn't seem completely intentional - with the Ring shattering, I always got the impression they each fought to be in control of their singular body. Perhaps Miquella/Trina worked together rather than against each other? The queer part of me can't help but think of some kind of allegory to transition and Miquella having to walk away from it for whatever reason... but I really don't know enough to figure anything out from this.

I saw someone point out that this shot of Trina looks like Trina's lilies too, which is super cool (sorry I don't remember who that was).

"But we are not deterred. We choose to follow. Will you walk with us?"

I'm honestly surprised to see all these characters that we saw in the previous trailer just hanging out, I assumed they'd all be enemies of different factions. But here they look like allies, and from the voiceover they sound like it too, asking if we will join them. I think the voiceover is one of these NPCs. Seeing the fighting guy second on the left has got me super excited, what if he teaches us the hands-on combat we saw him do in the first trailer? I also think the crouching character on the right is the one we saw sleeping in the purple area (Trina?) from the last trailer:

Anyway, these are my thoughts, I hope they resonate in one way or another. I can't wait to come back in a couple months and see how wrong I was <3 yayyy

[swallowtail-ageha]

Hey! Name 10 of your favourite Soulsborne characters! Doesn't have to be in any particular order, unless you want it to be!

SORRY FOR DELETING THE FIRST ONE AND MAKING YOU SEND THIS AGAIN

Also putting it under the cut because goood i love to get verbose and this shit is almost infinite for how long it got

Ok so *cracks knuckles*

1- Shanalotte

My precious girl!! My beloved!!! I have actually found most fromsoft level up maidens (bar her and melina) to be actually  pretty lacking in both relevance and story so she was a nice breath of fresh air! Her lore intrigues me very much like. She was created *specifically* with the purpose of being kindling (or that's what the "created to break the curse" implies to me).

She's one of the most normal looking dragon-human hybrids but it's ALSO implied that she's internally way more fucked up and unstable than them because she was pretty much left to rot alone by aldia in the dragon aerie. She can teleport propelled by the power of a funky feather. She has an emo haircut. Her intentions might not be the kindest as they might seem as instead of lettingherself burn she cultivated SEVERAL undeads to reach the throne instead of taking the throne for herself and she ALWAYS knows what is really going but refuses to tell the Bearer of the Curse anything that aren't the barest informations.

Forever will be salty that due to executive meddling we lost the time travel plot and didn't manage to see her as a child

2-Ranni

I think one of the biggest improvements overall of elden ring's ending questlines compared to the ones in other soulsborne is that they gave us a quest from a scheming character that ACTUALLY explains you what your schemes entrail and lets you through bosses and additional questlines forge a deeper connection to the npcs and Ranni (and her questline) are the epitome of that.

Like i have soo much to say about the fact that her ending is basically the classical courtly love story with the maiden in the tower rescued by the brave knight where the tower guarded by the dragon can both be her rise who is guarded by Adula (whom fights you to death before you can go to Manus Celes and marry her) and the cave in the lake of rot which is guarded by Astel.

AND WHILE PEOPLE MISCHARACTERIZE HER AS COLD AND UNLOVING SHE IS SO FULL OF LOVE. She's yes scheming and willing to do evil acts to reach her goals but she LOVES Iji and Blaidd THEY WERE HER FAMILY BLAIDD WAS HER BROTHER EVEN IF HE WAS ENGINEERED TO BETRAY HER IF SHE WENT ASTRAY AND THEY BOTH KNEW IT BUT THEY LOVED EACH OTHER SO MUCH THAT BLAIDD OVERCAME FOR A WHILE HIS SHADOW'S INSTINCTS. She didn't want you to continue your services for her because she knew that iji and blaidd were doomed and didn't want you to end like them AND YET. AND YET. YOU TRAVERSED THE LAKE OF ROT FOR HER. YOU KILLED ALIENS AND GOD TO SAVE HER. SHE FIRST INTENDED TO GO AWAY WITH NO ONE FOLLOWING HER BUT YOU DECIDE TO DEPART WITH HER. NEVER LEAVING HER ALONE IN THE COLD AND EMPTY SPACE.

I am sorry for the all caps and incoherent rambling but i genuinely love ranni so much. Elden ring in general is very dear to me and her questline was one of the first ones i've ever done in a soulsborne game :3

3-Rykard

Ok i admit that while at first i only liked him for "funny snake" stuff the more i learned about him the more i liked him.

He's like Ranni in the sense that where he did commit many atrocities one of his most overlooked characteristics is how he loved.

He loved radahn so much that he had paintings of him all over his home. He loved tanith so much because he knew what he would become once fused with the snake and offered her a way out of the suffering that it might have caused her (but we know tanith didn't mind) and trusted her so much to let her lead volcano manor in his stead. He loved rennala so much that he left his own Special Torture Device around the academy to hurt whoever wanted to kill her. He loved ranni so much that he helped prepare her great plan and was willing to take the blame and challenge MALIKETH HIMSELF in order to protect her if the plan went wrong. And he loved radagon so much that him abandoning them to follow the GW literally caused him to react so badly that he decided to infiltrate it's ranks as a loyal inquisitor to destroy it from the inside in the way it would hurt the most (like burning the minor erdtree). Also he's bisexual. Miyazaki you might have removed the daedicar's woe item description but he remains bi in the heart of us rykardpilled

4-Tanith

Aside from being the canonically freakiest person in bed in the lands between the whole rykard-tanith-rya storyline makes me go RAAAAH "my greatest distress would be forgetting you" and then she goes on to ask you to unconsensually do to rya the same thing that rykard consensually asked her to do!! Because for her it's better to live a lie than to know the truth!! And the fact that this is likely caused by her feeling inadequate to be a mother (as cut dialogue shows)!!!

Also undying loyalty literally wanting to have someone live on through you by ingesting them... her obsession with rykard and what he represented preventing her to actually move on after he gets killed by the tarnished but also her love for him is one of the reasons WHY volcano manor still stands + the fact that rykard married her not out of pure lust but because he sawnin her a dignity befitting of a ruler AND HE WAS RIGHT.... Miyazaki. Martin. I love you.

5-Nashandra

Ok i might not have papers upon papers to write about her but she's one of my favourites in the sense that she hits the extremely specific archetype of extremely cunty woman who exploits manipulates others but that's because she's an eldritch abomination whose existance is extremely fragile and literally just wants To Live (the other character who fits this is Ma evilliouschronicles and she's like my fave character 5eva).

The concept of the daughters of manus is very cool and i feel like there's some significance in her sharing the "shan" in her name with shanalotte but only miyazaki knows.

I really want to know what her and vendrick's marriage looked like i KNOW they were freaky

6-Maria

MARIA MY BELOVED MARIA... I HAVE MANY THOUGHTS (TM) ABOUT HER and the main one is that to me she is like one of those protagonist from those late 19th/early 20th decadent novels but if they were a girl.

The thing that appeals to me the most about her is how much of an utter failure she was in both life and death like her arc is such a downwards spiral. I am not okay with cainhurst's hunting thecniques? Ok! Let's join the victorian equivalent of the scalp hunters from blood meridian! Oh shit oh no oh fuck i ended up committing genocide and eviscerating a pregnant god and now i am extremely traumatized well i'll try to redeem myself by joining the blood murdercult and by committing experiments based on the evisceration of said pregnant god to help advance humanity. All the experiments i led are for naught and only led to more suffering? At this point i can't handle it anymore every single good thing i did led to death and misery i'm gonna kill myself AT LEAST IN DEATH I CAN'T HARM ANYONE :) RIGHT? :) [cue her upholding the nightmare and its inhabitants suffering and then dying against the good hunter causing them to rampage through the hamlet again]

I think her biggest flaw in the end was to keep denying the fact that her actions slowly got more brutal because she wanted to think of herself as a good person until things snowballed so much that they got out of her control and couldnt do anything to prevent damage from happening. Rip my sweet angel corrado silla and alfonso nitti wouldve seen you as their long lost sister

7-Sulyvahn

HE LIVED HE SERVED CUNT HE DIED. There is something oddly poetic and horrifying about someone who came from a place designed to keep away those rejected by the gods being the responsible of the fall of the gods himself. AND YET none of this came from rightful vengeance or a sense of duty towards his fellow inhabitants of the painter. No. He didn't give a single shit about it and hated the place. He only did that because he was power hungry and skilled and had the possibility to do that.

I am also OBSESSED OBSESSED OBSESSED with the fact that it's implied that he has more than a few grievances with women and i like to think of him as a huge misogynistic creep in the way fanon gehrman is. He is so insidiously manipulative and backstabbing and needlessly cruel he is up there in the alley of my favourite nasty old men. He might or might not have had beef in the past with aldrich which led to aldrich kicking his ass earlier and weakening him enough to permit the ashen one to kill him. We love a villain whose downfall is caused by his constant backstabbing

8- Fauxefka

I know that she's very barebone as npcs go but i am soo fond of her she's my canon oc. There is soo much implied about her aside from the fact that miyazaki considers her one of the only heroic people in game like. She is from the choir (and might have stolen the umbilical cord from willem) while Iosefka who looks exactly like her is implied to have been a defector from mensis so academic beef might be one of the motives for turning her into an alien i have SO MANY THOUGHTS ABOUT THAT and if you send the suspicious beggar to her house he STILL turns into a celestial emissary which means she alone was strong enough to overpower him.

Also her voice gets me sooo <3333 and add that with the fact that she was brave enough to gobble down an umbilical cord without a single thought she's a lunatic but also probably the sanest person in yharnam and i'm here for it

9- Friede

Friede is another one in the halley of pathetic women like yass girl... doom a world where you found comfort in to ruin because you are so traumatized by your first death by burning that you refuse to let it happen again despite it being a good thing so she parallels nicely with gwyn.

Another thing that i found interesting is that aside from that she is ALSO motivated by love for the inhabitants of the painting but is willingly blind to the love wilhelm and yuria had for her

Side note but i found a really good wilhelm/friede fic where mid fuck she removes his ring that prevents him from looking like a beef jerky and muses that he'd never do that because he's too loyal for her and is happy of the power she has over him and that is sooo good i'll just incorporate it in my headcanons for her

10- Gwyndolin

I already joked about him being the joker for trans men but like. The tragedy of his story makes me go insane <3 Imagine being reviled by your father for literally every single part of your being. You have your older siblings. They are your father's favourites, THE golden children. And yet one by one they leave you all alone, one being kicked out and erased from history for siding with the enemy and the other flees as she always does whenever she encounters trouble. Your father who hates you throws himself into the first flame and leaves you alone with massive abandonment and gender issues and you spend literally every single moment of your life trying to continue his legacy even to the point of living in your father's tomb. You revile him and how he treated you especially regarding your gender so you try to be independent. To throw away your old identity he forced on you and finally live as a man and a king of your own right BUT you'll always be desperate for his love and will never separate from his shadow down to the bitter end. You raise what is your sibling or niece but also instead of actually making her independent you keep her naive and sheltered, every single place of power is purely symbolic.

And then the tree guy who works as your knight and whom you might or might not be fucking fucking overthrows you imprisons you and your sisterniece in the cathedral and feeds you alive to a guy whom you sent to his death by burning ages ago to continue the cycle your father started. Life really be like that sometimes.

So... here it is! I am sorry for how long it got lmaoo

[slavonicrhapsody]

Still mad that bikard (bi rykard) is cut content

Fromsoft WHY

LITERALLYYYY like I understand that the revised Daedicar’s Woe description makes more sense for Rya’s quest but come on they could’ve referenced Rykard’s previous lovers elsewhere. Make that random ghost knight his ex. Add an extra line in the Ghiza’s wheel description. Don’t tease me like this Fromsoft

Ok, but putting my Serious Lore™ hat on, like I said in the previous ask I answered, I still think that cut content has some lore relevance… re: Rykard, the identity of Daedicar has been changed and thus the specific scenario of the old description is now explicitly non-canon.

However, Daedicar’s identity is the only thing about the description that now contradicts canon; everything else about the description still feels in accordance with Rykard’s character: The description implies that Rykard was frequently sleeping with people in his employ during the inquisition era, which absolutely tracks with everything else we know about him — his manor is decadently decorated and he dresses extravagantly (even as a snake), and he seems to have a vain, self-absorbed streak (owns multiple portraits of himself and hangs them on his walls)… this man is a hedonist. Plus, his relationship with Tanith makes it clear that he’s into nasty violent freaks like 1.0 Daedicar would’ve been.

So, if the other character-related details of this cut description are still in accordance with Rykard’s character, then it isn’t a stretch to believe that his bisexuality is also an established facet of his character intended by the writers. His sister Ranni is also textually bi, as she can fall in love with the player regardless of gender. So basically Bikard may not be explicitly canon in the text of the game anymore but it’s still Real. In my Serious Lore™ opinion

[clarissaexplainingitall]

elden ring bosses ranked entirely based on how fun they were for me to fight

a completely subjective take, but my take nonetheless. from least fun to most, featuring my rationale and also a whole lot of spoilers so be warned

disclaimer that this is absolutely influenced by me being gay and i am extremely biased, and will probably skip a lot of the less lore relevant minibosses (i.e. tree sentinel, night’s cavalry, grafted scion, tibia mariner etc. May come back to those in a separate post) or just straight up forget shit, but here we go

25) Valiant Gargoyle

Okay this is clearly (according to my friend group) a controversial take, but my main qualm with this fight boils down to some of the key elements of gank fights that work in Fromsoft games, and how this fight throws most of them out the window:

1) Appropriate spacing and cover. O&S had pillars, Prowling Magus had the pews, these guys have.... nothing. There’s no way to use the terrain here, which is less of a problem when they don’t have ranged attacks, but is a problem when you consider the next point:

2) There’s no varied speed. You generally need to be able to have some strategy to manage aggro well for a gank to not feel like a chore, and this fight doesn’t have that. Gargoyles are both fast, can hit you with extremely long weapons, and can also swan dive at you from the other side of the map.

3) Relative aggression. Demon Prince did this very well - generally ganks are more enjoyable when you can be focusing on one and keep tabs on the other(s), but that doesn’t really work super great in this fight. Still, the gargoyles are better than the following one on this single factor.

4) We’ve done this fight one billion times already, and my biggest qualm is that I don’t know who thought making the camera also a boss was the Single Thing that gargoyles TM the fromsoftware fight was missing.

24) Godskin Duo

Frankly the only advantage they have over valiant gargoyle fight is that this isn’t a camera boss. Otherwise, everything still applies. The music slaps though, and at least the designs are creative. Would hit harder if I hadn’t had to fight them three times before this point though.

23) Commander Niall

God, the competition for the bottom is really strong. Classic gank fight issues. I really don’t like his adds. Wins bonus points for not being mandatory ever and his first form being highly cheesable. He also gets bonus points and a third lowest place in part because his prosthetic absolutely SLAPS. That attack is extremely cool.

22) Rykard, Lord of Blasphemy

I hate him. I’m sorry. I love his design, I love the concept of his apocalypse death attack, and I love the edgy little skulls and the fucked up arm sword and the creepy snake face but this guy just straight up kind of sucks to fight. The biggest issue for me is the speed combined with the lava shitting - one would feel fine, but combined in a surprisingly small arena for the dude makes it feel like I need a meat shield to avoid becoming lava paste if I charge an attack for 0.5 seconds. Also his music hurts my ears (affectionate, but pained nonetheless).

21) Godfrey, First Elden Lord / Hoarah Loux

God. This man is just like. He’s not my jam, it’s very funny but also I found myself going what the fuck the whole time, his voice actor really was not the pick, and while the WWE smackdown was... entertaining? I didn’t enjoy the fight. I just did not find it fun, and the rationale felt very like... shoehorned in there. Frankly, I’d rather have fought another Morgott reskin.

20) Red Wolf of Radagon

Sif reskins. Except this one is super DUPER fast and has magic. No thank you. Please stop hitting me sir.

19) Astel, Naturalborn of the Void

Okay, listen. There’s a size-speed balance component to bosses, and there is a range of sweet spots in the middle. The teleport attacks would be good if either 1) they did not INSTANTLY go into his near-one-shot grapple-bite, or 2) they did that, but from the front. He’s really fond of the laser, but not pushing unfair, I guess? Idk his design is cool and the arena fucks but I wouldn’t say this was a fight I particularly enjoyed actually playing more than I do watching it now.

18) Elemer of the Briar

More interesting than the next couple but frankly the annoyance factor of his telekinesis in the room full of shit I have to break before i can strafe past won out over the fun here. That said, he kind of fucks and I love him conceptually.

17) Gideon Ofnir, The All-Knowing

There wasn’t too much going on here. His spells are cool. I kind of pasted him too quickly to give it much thought, but I think if his HP was scaled up a bit it could be a really fun fight. Maybe in NG+...

16) Regal Ancestor Spirit

I actually enjoy 90% of this fight so much, but the 5+ heals really just baffled me. I think it may have been a buggy run bc the wiki says he caps on 3, but who even knows. Can’t really place this one yet til that gets sorted, but that aside, the aesthetics absolutely carry what is mechanically, a fight that is not all that exciting by itself - but wow do they elevate it.

15) Rennala, Queen of the Full Moon

Yeah, she’s more fun than Elana Squalid Queen, but the bloodhound really threw a wrench in what was other a relatively enjoyable fight. Also the ankle-biting actually managed to unnerve me enough that it impacted my experience somewhat. Still, kind of fun mechanics to figure out, and I absolutely love how they used audio cues and the soundtrack here.

14) Fire Giant

Simple, funky, and surprisingly fast. Cool to look at in a way that a lot of the giant bosses generally aren’t, for Fromsoft. His attacks being well telegraphed and slow helps offset his massive damage output, as does some good places to use Latenna’s ashes and the fact that you can do this on horse. Overall solid fight.

13) Godrick the Grafted

He wins over Rennala and Giant for three reasons: 1) his soundtrack also fucks immensely, 2) he’s surprisingly nimble and fun to fight for a guy we’ve seen in almost every trailer for this game in spite of us guessing dragon-arm phase two, and 3) he doesn’t summon a bloodhound knight.

12) Loretta, Knight of the Haligtree

Her aesthetic bangs, but more importantly, she was a really fun challenge when it came to weighing my options of melee vs ranged, I like that her damaged is balanced nicely with hefty magic resistance, and her patterns are extremely consistent but she can alter mid-combo. She’s a good challenge that doesn’t feel too busted about it for a boss that is consistently a stepping stone on the way to Cool Lady.

11) Mimic Tear

Pog. Listen. Listen it’s a great time I know it’s cheesable but it’s so FLEXIBLE and I was so delighted to find the little bastard and that was before I knew it became a summons.

10) Starscourge Radahn (Ranged Build)

Listen. Listen I know this is going to be controversial but hear me out. Yes, the beginning of the fight sucks ass when he snipes you with a rail gun from 25,000 light years away up in those stars he’s busy holding back so he can kill you with his own damn bow. But. I got him the first time I survived the initial arrowspam, and it was a delight to run around on my little horse firing off my own spell shots and summon my MVPs alex and gutsberserk to tank him for me, so I really enjoyed it in spite of the rough start. If I only used a sword this would absolutely suck ass though so YMMV big on this one.

9) Mohg, Lord of Blood

Okay, while this one is fun, he’s got a couple huge drawbacks keeping him from reaching his True Funness Potential for me. The first is the triple bleed being only avoidable if you get the very specific crystal tear from a seemingly unrelated questline in an area far far away. The second is also related, in that I think with healing bosses (yes this will come up later, yes this may seem contradictory at first), there needs to be some kind of “check” - Mohg’s healing could be considered checked by being able to damage him during that window, but the player may be taking triple bleed. I think this fight would’ve been so much closer to perfect if using the item reduced the amount of HP healed. Because in theory, he succs that life force out of the player. The existence of a comparative shackle is also very cool, so he does rank fairly highly. But Morgott is also higher because his dialogue is cooler than Mohg, who is just interested in being a creepy motherfucker.

8) Lichdragon Fortissax

I’m not entirely sure what happened here, considering it seems that generally, he poses a lot of trouble to people, but I frankly had more issues with Fia’s gank trio than him - it might be because I’ve got a pretty solid strat for From’s dragons considering how long it took me to kill Midir that first time with my fucked up arm. But I really do enjoy the spin Fortissax puts on the classic formula - his cool twinspears are neat, the telegraphed death clouds limit movement in a way that adds to the challenge but also are not entirely horseshit, and he’s a very cool design in a game that has so many dragons certainly some would be boring. Also the music and arena fuck hard.

7) Elden Beast

Extremely shaped. Very fun to look at, some cool attacks (especially the elden ring rune blast), nice music, but his arena is simply too big for him? A friend mentioned it didn’t feel exactly earned and I kind of agree - it feels like something stuck halfway between a setpiece and a mechanic-focused fight, but it is still very fun to do.

6) Dragonlord Placidusax

Fromsoft finally made a dragon I actually enjoyed fighting? The two heads was SUCH a fun way to mix up the usual recipe for how to fight these guys (see the lichdragon) in a game with a lot of dragons, and the becoming the storm segments are both punishing but really cool because you can tag the guy with frost to try and parse him out amidst the clouds before he pastes you. This is where we’re getting into some of my absolute faves in this game.

5) Margit, Fell Omen

Listen. We knew he was gonna be up high on this list. But he’s such a good first major boss for this game in part because he’s a great teaching tool for the New Hot Theme of Elden Ring, which is roll-catches and delayed hits in combos. His attacks are all extremely well telegraphed, and his level of aggression is very high to match. Great skill-check, has a nice balance in that you can go get his item to buy yourself emergency time to heal or punish, and he has by far the best OST in the game.

4) Morgott, Omen King

OH MAN this guy fucks. God. He’s such a wonderful revamp of Margit’s fight, he hits like a truck and he just doesn’t stop, and his OST is very good too. Love the NPC summon for this one as well, Melina can hold her own and makes the fight feel more viably like a two-on-one duel. I love the fucked up little texture of his sword. Only reason he’s not higher is that I feel like homie gives us no room ever to breathe, but that feels like a fun vibe. Sometimes.

3) Radagon of the Golden Order

Okay this was a close one actually, because I actually do like the physical mechanics of both this fight and Morgott’s, but the immense creativity of how this fight was designed was amazing and ekes it out over the top. Music, ambiance, design factors.... very good. It was only missing a second phase of trans your gender in my mind.

2) Beast Clergyman / Maliketh

Goddamn. Once again, a guts berserk fight I can’t even bring myself to hate. He’s so cool, he hits hard, but nothing in the game moves quite like him. I completely missed how the fire in phase 2 limits max HP but that is really thematic and clearly didn’t annihilate me hard enough to warrant this something that detracts from the fight, at least for me. He’s so fucking aggressive, but ash balances this out to make it feel feasible, and I really appreciated seeing something so creative fresh out of the one billionth godskin redux.

1) Malenia, Blade of Miquella

I’m a lesbian.

No, in all seriousness, Malenia must have killed me upwards of 200 times. I was stuck on her for what may have been almost two weeks straight. She killed me in so many completely bullshit ways and some extremely valid ones as well, but I... really enjoyed the fight, and I can’t really say that for a lot of the bosses that pasted me into the ground on so many combos, and I swear this is not just because I absolutely love how they did her design, so let me try to explain what I love about this fight:

1) Her aggression is beautifully balanced, which Fromsoft often has trouble pulling off. She gives adequate space, every single time, at the start of the fight for the player to call ashes, and then even to heal if you use mimic. She moves towards you, but slowly. The fight almost always starts on the player’s terms. Moreover, she’s extremely fast with some of her combo hits, but they’re generally (except phase 2) well-spaced. She also swaps aggro extremely reliably which is critical here - I could time hits so that when she was gearing up for her next smackdown, I could redirect those towards the mimic in case it was Ball Of Make You Swiss Cheese.

2) The aesthetics of phase two went hard enough to make me actually forgive some of the most horseshit attacks. In over 200 attempts, I think I “dodged” the seven hit clone attack combo ONCE and only because the first two and a half hits went towards my ashes, and that was the attempt I got her, but goddamn the oily butterflies? The residual flower petals as her AOE rot instead of some cloudy aura???? The explosion being a combination of the above? They made some of her meanest shit extremely gorgeous so I have no choice but to enjoy looking as my character falls to the screen and accumulates rot even after they have bled out.

3) Fromsoft has also really beautifully distilled the essence of what I like to call “highly aggressive greed-punishers,” which is a type of boss that I include maria, orphan, friede, and isshin on. They’re all fights where the player has to carefully manage their own aggression with being able to provide a high enough damage output that they minimize the risk of making the mistake that fucks them in the end. And has taken some of the best elements of each one - like Maria, her aggression can be countered by staggering her or breaking poise for a visceral. But the healing adds a really interesting element to this for me - a picture perfect defensive fight (fucking impossible, but hear me out here in this hypothetical) could actually take malenia down significantly faster than a balls to the wall, outdamage the hits taken approach, because the healing punishes greed in a secondary way that won’t just let the player vigor-tank through it. It makes the fight so much harder but is a really interesting new element to thinking through windows of attack, and openings. It makes trading hits no longer a viable strategy, the way it is sometimes with friede, and can be for some of orphan’s less-instakill combos (due to bloodborne’s rally mechanic).

4) Fromsoft has also finally made a naked boss that doesn’t make me want to [parody redact] someone. Like, straight up, everything is Out There, but it doesn’t have the leering camera angles of Quelaag’s gentle titty caress, and it’s certainly not about titillating the heterosexual male audience.

5) God, what a great continuation of the sad music in a white flower field fight. I think this might be the first one where the person you fight is so completely in the dark - usually the tragedy stems from you both wanting the same things but the perspectives being irreconcilable or someone being bound to something. Here, Malenia has no idea what the fuck is going on or who you stand for or even what is left that she does. It’s nice. Love that sicko mode is not within her control, either - it just seems to happen when her body is near what would be death for a mortal.

[turbobyakuren]

I'm terrible at thinking of distractions, so I can only offer terrible distractions. All my brain can find right now is: have you seen the Elden Ring strange snake lady that's been going around recently? People really do seem to like her for her strange and awkward demeanour. I feel like that sort of character doesn't show up much, so maybe it's a new type of snake girl. Perhaps there's hope in people adopting the funky snake amidst all the despair. (May you now think about snake girls)

You're making me think of snake girls and i'm now hereby looking for ways to include Snake Girls into mine own OCverse. I already have a Naga, Serpopard (does half-snake even count?), Tsuchinoko, Hydra (not a snake? but it's snakey. that counts) and Grootslang amongst others and i definitely want to make Uraeus and Cychreides (greek dragon that i plan to theme around snakes due to connection with demeter (who is snake coded (too difficult to explain))) and moooooore the way snakes are treated in mythologies is always fascinating.

BUUUUUUUUUUUUT i digress.

I do agree that Rya and her snake form (i assume this is how it goes?) are incredibly fun character at least from a design perspective. Her human form is really great. I love fromsoft girls because they either look conventionally attractive (in its own Fromsoft fashion) or look utterly miserable. I love the picture where it's like GIRLS LOVE HER FOR HER BAD POSTURE. I love her for her bad posture.

Also thinking of Snake girls

Kronini.

[katyahina]

What do you think vermin actually is? I've seen it portrayed as the actual physical embodiment of infection or smth that only grows inside strong beasts/enemies. Maybe they're not even "real", since Hunters have to choose to actually see vermin, and its just there to give encouragement and incentive to kill. It could also just be whatever the person deems impure too. What do you think?? Do you think it could be a combination of all this? Vermin is whatever the person thinks it is?? Why are they centipedes!!??

Mainly what makes this really interesting for me is because Yamamura just saw.. an ABUNDANCE of filth. Wayyy more than the average confederate. This makes me think that maybe since he was a foreigner, his untainted influence of Yharnam and different background made him really see how fucked everything was💀💀😭(??)

Oh well, that's a good question actually! Not gonna lie Vermin as a concept drew my attention from design alone (as centipedes are the best insects, after butterflies of course), plus I love metaphors! So yeah, as for 'whether Vermin is real or an illusion' question, I just...

Basically, I think Vermin is a real thing, but what is questionable is the PURPOSE of even seeing it. Well... You cannot really last long without a purpose in this shit town tho, so fair enough. Let me grab a few excerpts from what we can say about the concept so far (very cranky wording warning, because I am using the document (X) by Last Protagonist for more nitpicky wording as always)

This one is from description of Impurity rune, however yes, originally it is named 淀み (yodomi), and IS, in fact, associated with water that is not 'moving', thus it becomes dirty and all kinds of things can settle in it! I kinda owe this one to Last Protagonist again as he explained implication of water comparison in his essay (X) in a way that clicked with me, because I do understand things better through nature metaphors, and symbolism of fire in pursuit of evolution just was not cutting enough of my questions so yeah. Give me a second...

It says you can only see them if you want to, which refers to usage of the rune, that is unusual kind of 'specific' Insight? Not unlike how you can only see blood dregs with Corruption rune equipped, and I remind you:

(By the by according to LP, 'impurity' (穢れ, kegare) ties more to cainhurst vilebloods rather than what League finds, but the difference is redundant as concepts are similar, I am only picking on 'stagnation' for easier personal understanding)

Dying wills are literal translation of Blood Echoes, so in this case, you only find these things within blood-drunk hunters. In the original, there is no connection with what 'stagnation' (aka League's concept of 'impurity') is refering to, however I found it interesting that in Hunter's Nightmare, you find Vermin within old hunters whose eyes are not yellow but are like this:

Which is like eyes of Abhorrent Beasts:

I agree that it's too easy to get lost between what's just gameplay element (they did need to mark WHICH hunters you should target SOMEhow!) and what is a legit thing, but yeah this instantly made me think that you should be a biiiiiiit closer to being 'bad' than regular person to develop Vermin, plus when you attack Valtr he screams at you as if you'll have Vermin within BECAUSE you're bad, so. But okay, here is also this:

So what we DO know is that snake had Vermin within and it ate beasts, whereas Impurity rune was discovered within a "forbidden beast-eater", and Valtr is the only person explicitly refered to as such. (Lore says that rune is SAID to have been discovered inside of him, and that him surviving and eating the beast is a 'tale', but it clashes with how I see this character that he'd just assume role that isn't his, so I write it off as FromSoft doing the good old 'did they didn't they' to make us fill the gaps by ourselves. But remember kids, the most walked path is not the only path, so always explore opportunities if you like them more!)

So I presume partially it is self-inflicted. Beasts are humans, after all, just twisted and dirtied by blood into something unrecognizeable and unsightly - so moral questions of TECHNICALLY eating another human aside, Valtr very much consumed a lot of 'filth', thus that might have triggered understanding of something awful. He could have even gotten Vermin himself, but he can tolerate it, really, focusing on killing it elsewhere, who knows.

It is interesting how it says that rune was discovered INSIDE of him, whereas Ludwig and Adeline outright envisioned their runes themselves... And both have/had eyes on the inside, too. Makes me think that someone who COULD envison runes literally leaning against him to listen until they could make sense of the weird sound inside and write it down xD Just handing him the result all like 'wake up beast-eater you fucked up a big time' sdjhdsfds

However:

This one outright calls them 'illusions', I checked several times, which alludes to how they might not even be real! But yeah, with everything I already brought up, here is what I think/headcanon:

Parasites are like, definitive thing within the setting, but unlike Kos Parasites for example, Vermin cannot be seen by just anyone as it is a parasite tied to humans. Basically it's unaccessibility to normal eye - heck, even very insightful one either! - has to do with complexity of what 'humanity' IS. What the line between human and beast really IS? Is beasthood (by extension, 'evil') cultivated or revealed? So yeah, Valtr being able to comprehend the concept like nobody before has to do with his ability to draw the CLEAR line between innocense and sin - ability that he now can pass to others through the rune, but it will still allude to one's personal views. Ability that might be your doom if you are too open-minded, impressionate and sensitive (what happened to Yamamura, but about that later). Yeah maybe do not accept people who are more brain than brawl in the League xd

It has to do with real 'filth' that now almost everyone has - from all the blood-drinking and beasthood and madness and god knows what else, though, but it is evasive as even Great Ones are clearer concept than what 'nature' of human is, whether we are naturally evil and should fear it or whether we are naturally good but reject it. Connotation of beasthood with psychology is what makes Vermin invisible unless you have the rune.

However, Celestial Emissaries are examples of exceptions - being completely 'purified' from curse of beasthood (and from humanity as well...). Think back on how mind is a 'lake' and if water within it stagnates, it becomes a swamp. So speaking with a Great One brought Choir members (at least later ones) secret of being pure - basically imagine it like a river put through this metaphorical lake, but this river rushes SO fast that it is now JUST river instead of lake, and not only dirty things cannot settle within, but good sort of life can neigher. My inspiration was lack of cosmic Kin in Nightmare Realm - they cannot go to Hell! But at what cost..... It is also what drove Fauxsefka insane, as she resigned to 'cleanse' everyone from beasthood with her own hands, even if she has to do it one by one (SIKE she has ALWAYS been mad but you get the point).

It is also the basics of Research Hall experiments - early attempts at dealing with the beasthood and nasty things within humankind in general. Laurence does drop Eye Pendant - and alas, patients were a failure. I mean, their boss variant is LITERALLY called Living Failures...... With more eyes on the inside, they started to get a hunch of what lurks within, but not able to cleanse from it unfortunately. Kinda stuck in the 'lake', unable to reach the 'sea' from it. Sorry, I just get these things better through metaphors.

So yeah, I think Vermin is a real thing, but it is very abundant (if not everpresent) within humans, the only confirmed way to heal it non-murdery way is to "heal" oneself from humanity ITSELF which is a no-no, Valtr doesn't mingle with madmen! And essentially League's mission boils down to destruction of all sentient life doesn't it... But he is a stoic man with more sanity than he lets on, he just does what he must, maybe unable to destroy all 'sin' but not giving up and not taking anything less as his motivation! It is his duty to kill it once it shows up, not questioning it!

Also an idea I had is that Vermin might come in more kin/floral variant - such as Fluorescent Flowers being one of the results to 'heal' people from 'filth' pacifist way, but it led to Vermin within to like... grow so bad that it swallowed original host's body to the point of practically BECOMING it... Not unlike it happens with Snake Parasites sorta. These Flowers always looked resembling of a centipede for me, so why not

It says that he is not able to see Vermin anymore though - which I think alludes to psychology again, how he concluded that literally everyone deserves to die so he doesn't see the 'border' anymore - but when you attack him? His little speech sounds for me as if NOW he can see it again really xD You showed him 'clear' evil - betrayal, something clear to hate even more than Literally Everything Else deserves to be hated, which is fucking terrifying but that's why I love this character so much lol