#berserk-distortion

[jakebark]

And can you tell us who's a good boy? @berserk-distortion

“If you’re trying to truth me into saying that, I’m not. I don’t know. I don’t think there is a ~‘good boy’~ in the fog at all actually. Definitely not me.”

[ask-dbd-susie]

🎁 + {a caricature of Legions resident pink haired troublemaker}

@berserk-distortion

“Oooh!” Susie held up the gift, proudly showing it off; despite the rest of the legion members currently not being present. “Thank you, Jeff! You’re the best! Oh oh! Wait, I got you a little something as well!” Breaking off into a sprint, said pink-haired troublemaker jumped over the counter in a hurry, reaching down to grab a bottle out of a cabinet. Running back over, she waved her gift to Jeff around; a bottle of beer.

“Managed to find Frank’s secret stash, was only about to grab one for you though. He would’ve gotten suspicious if more than one was missing.” Susie playfully whispered with a wink.

[the-game-warden]

"Local saboteur, eh? Been working on a new technique for breaking down those hooks and keepin' 'em down, if you're interested in learning." @berserk-distortion

The worst part about trials with a stealth killer was trying to find the sneaky bastards. It got more difficult each time, especially as word got around about what seeing a fifth survivor wielding a knife actually meant.

So when Jeff caught his attention and waved him over, Jake was in more of a mood to listen than usual. There wasn’t much else he could be doing other than circumnavigating the trial grounds for the third time and getting frustrated, so it was better than the alternative.

Besides, Jeff had always been nice. Honestly Jake had been a little hesitant to talk to any of the survivors to this point—He hadn’t exactly had the best experience with them in the past and he had no reason to believe things would be any different now—but he’d never had a problem with the man.

“Sure,” Jake replied, walking over to the hook and looking it up and down.

He’d gotten good at sabotaging them quickly over the years, but his efforts never lasted as long as he’d like. They’d be fixed soon enough for the killer to use them again without much trouble. IfJeff had a method for keeping them busted, that was more than welcome information to have.

[toniodarling]

me when i wake up in the TMA universe and walk through a door that has never been there before

[gummi-ships]

Kingdom Hearts 2 - Nobodies

[brandbiskit]

I'm going hunting, i'm the hunter

[goldensunset]

who CARES if the sky is red

[wanderingsongbird]

🎁 + {a woodcarving of a bucking bronco for Miss. Dancin' Kate Denson}

@berserk-distortion

Fingers trailed over the carved mane and down the back of the horse. Her grandaddy once gave her something like this, but she never told anyone about it. Not here, at least.

It sat on her dresser at home, along with a wooden flute his own father had given him. She wondered, for the first time since the Entity had grabbed her, what had become of those items? It made her homesick.

Her eyes misted as she offered a smile up to Jeff. "Anyone ever tell you that you're the best, sweet pea?"

@berserk-distortion

[amysky21]

Moleman flipping his shit at Rizz, now Quincy going berserk at Fabian.

Clearly something is happening with rage. I still don’t know if I trust Porter, but I’m a little bit less suspicious of him after the conversation that Fig had with him. Although I swear to god if Fig accidentally starts lending power to this distorted summer/rage god…

The red string board is strong with this season I tell ya.

[conostra]

Sexual Abuse in the Golden Age

Berserk’s beginnings make me sad. From the very start, the series was incredible. Great art, a rich world, complex and interesting characters, terrific explorations of motivations and philosophies and relationships and everything you can think of. Even including, despite all the airs around the manga, the intricacies of sexual assault and abuse!

At least, against men.

Casca, Griffith, and Guts all have their lives irrevocably warped by both the threat and pursuance of sexual assault against them in the Golden Age. It goes on to define their various pathologies, influencing how they interact with the world around them. And this is handled with incredible nuance and care, up to and including events like Donovan’s assault on Guts, Griffith selling himself to the Governor, and Casca being sold off by her family to the noble in her town. These events are all pivotal to the development of the characters into those we know and love. But unfortunately, at least in the beginning, this is where the praise ceases. Allow me to expound:

Guts’ entire life, from his literal conception, is drenched in vulgarity and gore. Born and baptized in blood from his mother’s hanging corpse, and rescued by a band of lunatic roaming mercenaries, Guts is far from a stranger to the horrors of the world. Forced to carry a sword for his survival, trained under an uncaring brutal mercenary who gave flashes of approval to a boy desperate to please, who was only truly “fair” to him when paying him for his work of slicing down men twice, thrice or more his age in combat to the death, Guts’ perspective would be warped further still. 

And yet, no matter how warped his perspective could have been, it was not warped enough to handle what fate still had in store. One night, Guts is set upon in his tent, and viciously raped by a member of his own crew. A demon of a man named Donovan violates Guts’ autonomy to the highest order, proclaiming that this was allowed, as Guts’ very independence had been sold out by Gambino, the distorted version of what some would call the only thing resembling a father figure Guts had ever had. 

And this affected Guts in a way that became prominent through the story. He becomes incredibly reclusive and aggressive. Even the lightest of contact from even his hirers, offering extensive gold in exchange for his service on the battlefield, flashes him back to that time and place. Even the lightest allusion to operating under anything other than his own will (or, to some degree, blind allegiance to Gambino) is heresy, and a violation of his autonomy on par with spitting on his face and telling him to wipe it down. This is especially seen in his first interaction with Griffith, where he flat-out asks him upon hearing him speak: 

“Are you a homo?”

And even though he definitely is, it’s almost irrelevant to how Griffith is talking about him. Griffith objectifies Guts here, places him as an item of desire, to own, to wield, and to do as one wishes with. And Guts objects to that to his very core. There is no part of him that does not scream and rail against the very notion.

And in the beginning of his tenure with the Hawks, Pippin of all people is the salt that pours over Guts’ old wounds. While played somewhat casually, Guts still freaks out at Pippin’s casual disregard for his personhood. Whether or not that is Pippin’s goal is meaningless in the face of what it actually does to Guts and how it makes him feel.

Even later on, when Guts has his sexual encounter with Casca, the physicality of the intimacy they partake in flashes him back to that moment with Donovan. It takes him and Casca time to process everything that’s happened to him, for him to finally vent and take at least some of that pain off of himself alone, that allows him and her to finally love each other.

Griffith is not too far from this. Although this life was forced upon Guts, it feels only partially thrust upon Griffith by himself. From the very beginning, his sexuality was paramount to his mission. The fawning of common citizens and women and men and nobility all alike over his body, over his presence, was something he decided he had to exploit in order to do what he thought must be done for him to gain what he knew would one day be his. From his interactions with the Governor, to how he almost leads on Casca, to the entirety of his relationship and the strange power dynamics at play every time he and Guts are alone in a space spilling their guts to each other, everything Griffith plays at is tinged with a man who has, since a boy, been tainted with a nearly-religious worship by zealots of various degrees, including some who have no qualms over tainting the statue they kneel at and pronouncing it to the world as worship. This puts him at odds with Guts from the very beginning, the man he loves, violating his self-sanctity, as this is the way Griffith knows to attain what he desires. 

This plays out further with how he… interacts… with Charlotte after Guts leaves him, and how he treats Casca, uses Casca, throws her back in Guts’ face to get at him. Ownership, dominance, and usage are what Griffith knows. And he knows how Guts feels about Casca. So he tries to, from his perspective, ruin her. The same way Guts was ruined. Honestly, it’s incredible, and would be a great way to handle it- if it didn’t completely strip Casca of her character for the next 300 chapters.

Casca was affected by all these things too. Same as Guts, sold off, but by her actual family. Almost immediately, assaulted by the stranger who now owned her life. Then, a murderer. Then, over the course of the rest of her life, despite becoming one of the most prodigious warriors the very world had ever seen, she was often reduced to the butt of the joke- always laughed and jeered at, not taken seriously by Guts or unfavorably by Griffith. Always caught off guard, always caught weak, or tired, or on her period, always taken advantage of, always on the ground, threatened to be molested, stripped bare for the usage of whatever the army they’re fighting at the time is. Always having her sexuality used as a catalyst for other characters, always used as a damsel to allow another to save the day- her body is a resource pulled at by Miura to cash in on more grandiose moments for the narrative. 

Even in the road to the eclipse, there are at least two separate occasions where Casca is sexually taken advantage of, with soldiers slowly stripping her armor when Guts steps in and earns his title as the hundred-man slayer, and then the Apostle Wyald, leader of the Black Dog Knights, completely strips her bare and literally molests her, only not managing to penetrate because he is murdered by Guts in a stupendous rage.

And then the eclipse happens. There are so many things I can say about what occurred on the Eclipse, but ultimately, it is Casca’s humanity that makes the Eclipse so tragic. Scorned by her infatuation, unable to be saved by her lover, she is finally destroyed the way both of those mentioned prior have been. But this time, there is no growth from this. There is no development. There is no greater story to be told from this for Casca. As incredible as this moment and the development from it are for Guts, there is nothing gained from this for Casca. Her entire arc has simply been to be… what, torn apart for the sake of the boys around her masquerading as conquerors? To be used and abused, ultimately fridged for literal decades, kept around as important but unable to be anything more than arm candy? What happened to Casca is a tragedy, and is great writing as well in full admittance- but with two entire chapters devoted to her violation, a view of her complete degradation from the male gaze, and her complete loss of ability after the fact, it makes me view how she was treated before that with some amount of… anger? Frustration? 

Something. It makes some amount of sense, of course- but if this was her penultimate conclusion, at least for as long as she has remained in this state, I would have appreciated if the other attempts at violating her were treated with the sanctity of Griffith’s and Guts’ encounters, if not even the attempt made at her in her past. You can only have a female character as incredibly skilled & competent as Casca trip herself into a terrible situation and threaten to be raped by the big strong men around her so many times before the singular self-save against the leader of the Blue Whale Ultra Heavy Armored Fierce Assault Annihilation Knight Corp, General Adon Coborlwitz, loses a bit of its luster, no matter how many different variations of the reason you can find.

Ultimately, I’m glad that Miura has other very well written women in the series- after all, even Charlotte is given time to shine, shown as able to play her role and shoot for lofty goals even under the crushing weight of Griffith’s ambition later, and both Schierke and Farnese have great arcs. I just… I’m just glad Miura rectified this later on, all in all.

God damn it lmfao. It was handled so WELL for the boys! and then casca kinda got the "yo isn't this so crazy? she's not a character now btw"

[bellatheinkdemon]

Remember that one angsty "comic" I made for Dark Choco and Berserk Dark Cacao?

Well whether you do or you don't, I may have another concept similar to that.

So basically the plot is that Dark Cacao turns into his Berserk form WAY early in the story than in Canon. (Like before the main story even begins, but after Dark Choco is banished). This (rightly so) freaks everyone in the Dark Cacao Kingdom. No-one can figure how he turned into this form or how to turn him back into normal. And since Dark Cacao is just in a blind rage, destroying anything he sees, any Cookie that hasn't been crumbled by the Berserk king has fled the Kingdom, basically making the Dark Cacao Kingdom a ghost town, minus for a couple of animals and the Licorice Sea.

Speaking of the Licorice Sea, cue act 2!

Since the Dark Cacao Kingdom is no longer inhabited by Cookies (minus you know who), some of the Licorice Oozelings have been playing around, transforming themself into mini version of Cookies. Though the mainly been taking the form of Dark Choco, cause wouldn't you believe it, Dark Choco's portrait is still intact!

(What I'm referring to):

Some of the Licorice Oozelings noticed a pattern in the castle. Non of Dark Choco's stuff has been destroyed by Berserk Dark Cacao. And sometimes while the Licorice Oozelings are sneaking by Dark Cacao, they noticed him just staring at any picture that has Dark Choco in if. So the Licorice Oozelings come to the conclusion that Dark Cacao misses his son. (And since these little guys actually care about Cookies unlike their brethren) They decided to somewhat fuse together in order to take the form of Dark Choco.

"Wait a minute, couldn't the Licorice Oozelings already do that without them fusing? Why do they need to fuse now?" To make themselves the size of a regular Cookie to make their "disguise" believable. And they can un-fuse anytime.

So the Licorice Oozelings, now transformed as Dark Choco, approached Dark Cacao. Dark Cacao notices them, and he actually believes that's his son. He hugs "Dark Choco" and just starts sobbing and is saying words like "I'm sorry" and such in his distorted voice. "Dark Choco" comforts their "father" (Despite the Licorice Oozelings not knowing what Dark Cacao or the actual Dark Choco did.)

And that's all from me for now. Did any of that make sense? Probably not since I suck ass with explaining things. But hey, I have more shitty angsty comic material now.

[texasthoughtsaboutnothing]

Actual thoughts on Canto VI, the most convoluted Wuthering Heights Fix-it Fic of all time.

There's almost too much I want to say. So... bullet points random thoughts.

Distortion Heathcliff being over with so quickly was initially a little disappointing but on top of being a sick design, I think it both sets up how Distortion is firmly on the table and is a perfect representation of Heath's image of himself: a storm of anger and destruction that ends almost immediately but leaves so much pain in its wake. Sad he didn't manifest it as an Effloresced EGO, but maybe someday we'll get Berserk armor Heath wrapped in barbed wire.

Nelly being a traitor seemed pretty obvious, but I'm happy with her reasons. She just an employee at the end of the day, and the examination of the consequences of Mirror tech did a lot to explain how she could end up doing what she did. Also, Mirrors seem terrifying.

Heath and Cathy being a relationship I care about in current year was not on my bingo list but I'll take it. I feel like a resolution to their story is a long ways off but PM is actually big on happy endings so I want to believe he can get her back.

So the Golden Boughs are just fucking magic I guess. Literally containing the "power of possibilities" by which they mean "they grant fucking wishes like a god damn genie." I actually like this development, establishing all the ways this Sci-Fi setting is actually magic is cool.

Erlking Heath is... a lot. Entwinning him with Germanic myth is an interesting choice, I've seen some talk about how it specifically ties into Faust by way of Goethe. Better-read people than me will properly analyze that. He's the obvious candidate for a Heathcliff ID, yet how could such a thing be? Erlcliff has no reason to hunt when there's no Heath's killing no Cathy's because there are no Cathy's to kill. I'm sure they could come up with a reason, but he's also so integral to Canto VI's story is a way that even including him might be a spoiler? Maybe we see something like in FGO where voicelines and ID story are locked until you beat the correct story section.

Called it with the Guest Character, wasn't expecting Verglius. I hope this causes less people to ask for Color IDs so early, but I doubt it. Surprised they showed his EGO, but in doing so I think they've actually set a power ceiling to aspire to in gameplay terms, not just cutscene wins.

I'm sure there's more thoughts to share, but for now I'm looking forward to the new MD and the next event.

[zapplle]

NECROMUNDI

Necromundi is my worldbuilding project, set in a dark fantasy setting inspired by the likes of The Refugium, Vermis, Merrymog, Elden Ring, Conan, The Lord Of The Rings, Kill Six Billion Demons, Nausicaä, Fear and Hunger, Berserk, and others. The Setting takes place upon the Corpse of God, from whose body arose the world we know. God is not an anthropomorphic entity, however. Rather, in life, they would have resembled something akin to an enormous celestial holothurian or Kos from Bloodborne (or even the Lady of the Lake illustration by Zhengyi Wang).

The World is, importantly, not a planet, rather its an enormous area of flat land, illuminated in its center by an unmoving Sun, below which rages the Everstorm; A hypercane made up of dozens of other smaller cyclones, hurricanes and storms, together resembling the surface of Jupiter. Around the Sun orbit the Four Moons, with the furthest and smallest moon known as the Pygmy Moon, while the remaining three moons orbit within the same belt. The further one is from the Sun, the darker and colder the days and nights become, and the pinnacle of this is the Evernight, where the Sun is but the brightest star in the sky. Beyond the Evernight is the Abyss; the eternal expanse of pitch black void and iceflats where no star glimmers and old dark things live, drawn to the corpse like moths to light. In contrast and mirror image of this, the lands directly bellow the Sun are assailed by eternal daytime. The Stars are celestial spores, glimmering in the firmament of the heavens, where they may, at times, bloom into demiurges or miscarried godlings.

The World is at this moment divided into Five Ages, or Generations;

The 1st Age; the Age of rot, recursion, putrefaction, and fermentation.

The 2nd Age; the Age of plenty, chaotic growth, and abundance.

The 3rd Age; the Age of calcification, stillness, and dormancy.

The 4th Age; the Age of distortion, metastasis, and disparity.

The 5th Age; the Age of dread, uncertainty, and the Fear of the Unknown.

The world is also meant to be akin to a sort of speculative evolution playground for myself.

(Below is in relation to the 4th Age)

There are no flowering plants upon the Corpse. Rather, forests are made up of towering conifers and gingkophytes, shrublands are made of mosstrees and fernshrubs, and the plains are comprised of lycophytes and grassferns. There exist no insects in this world. Rather, springtails and crustaceans reign sovereign in their place. Following this trend, there are no true spiders, mammals, or birds. Rather; mites, trigonotarbids, therapsids, and flying suchians called drakes exist in their stead. The biota of the 4th Age is meant to resemble that of the Triassic, Permian, and Carboniferous periods, though nothing is a 1:1.

Below are some sophonts of the 4th Age;

Magic does exist in the setting, as do gods and spirits. Some were born during the very moment of Gods death, while others predate the death, existing only as ambient nonentities of the Abyss before their enlightenment after the death of God, and yet some have been manifested and born countless ages after the death; originating from thoughts, wills, attachments, perception, dreams, phenomena and apotheosis. The death of God released the substance that became ideal forms - absolute entities that produce all things and phenomena. The ambient substance, separate from worldly matter and living creatures, exists in a state of superposition with the material world, as if in its own realm that can't be seen. Magic itself is an immaterial substance that ideal forms and spirits are made from. Divinity itself is a spectrum.

Expect irregular updates concerning Necromundi! I sincerely hope you all will enjoy!

[dustedmagazine]

Royal Trux — Twin Infinitives (Fire)

“Map of the City,” a song on Royal Trux’s terrific Thank You (1995), includes these lyrics: “I’m drawing up a plan for the city / Filled with ten thousand crooked stairs / Some lead up to heaven….” If we freely allegorize and think the “plan for the city” as an account of the Royal Trux’s strange career and the “crooked stairs” as their many, many songs, then some do “lead up to heaven”: “Back to School,” “Ray O Vac,” “Blue Is the Frequency.” We could go on. But as the lyric notes, only “some” lead up into the beautiful blue, while others descend into decidedly more disordered, berserk domains. For a map of those abject regions, you might consult Twin Infinitives, the band’s 1990 double LP, which has been reissued by Fire Records.

Some may wonder if the world ever needed the initial release of Twin Infinitives, much less a reissue (available as a “limited edition Double Silver LP,” natch). It’s a notoriously difficult record, and there are audiences that liken its racket to the relative “unlistenability” of other perversely audacious double LPs: Trout Mask Replica (1969) or Metal Machine Music (1975). Twin Infinitives lacks the poetic spirit and structure of Captain Beefheart’s songs, and it doesn’t have the conceptual rigor of Lou Reed’s infamous noise project. Mostly the record seems to document the bodily rhythms and psychological extremities of dope addiction, which Neil Hagerty and Jennifer Herrema were deep into during the album’s creation.

There’s some relevant historical context there, if we recall the early 1990s period of so-called “heroin chic” — we might summon the seductive image of Vincent Vega (John Travolta), high as hell and cruising LA freeways in his cherry red ’64 Malibu, from Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction. The junkie vibe suffusing the Royal Trux’s early records intensified their scuzz-punk rep, but there’s nothing superficially sexy or effortlessly cool about the music on Twin Infinitives. Songs like “Yin Jim Versus the Vomit Creature” and “Lick My Boots” are too ragged and distorted; they sound unhealthy. If the heroin chic amounted to a sort of cynical slumming in vicariously hazardous aesthetic territory, Twin Infinitives feels too urgently dangerous. It’s the sound of minds purposefully reducing themselves to wreckage.

For all that grim junkie detritus, Twin Infinitives has its moments of musical power. Most compelling is “(Edge of the) Ape Oven,” a fifteen-minute tour on the road of excess. It never clarifies into anything vaguely song-like, but it has ideas about musicality that provoke. The bursts of cowbell, Hagerty’s guitar tone, the spectral organ that occupies a space out in the distance of the mix: the track feels assembled with a variety of idiosyncratic artistry.

Listening back to Twin Infinitives, one has the sense that the run of excellent records that followed, from Untitled to Sweet Sixteen, owes something to the cauldron of infernal weirdness Hagerty and Herrema baked in for a while. Check out the mutant blues of “Move,” the spooky vibe-out of “Driving in That Car (with the Eagle on the Hood),” the pacing of “Shadow of the Wasp.” They all bear the traces of the chaotic welter of Twin Infinitives, and for audiences still engaged by the best of the Royal Trux (in spite of all the messy drama), it’s sort of interesting to track the band’s work through the 1990s, as they stitched songs and their souls back into more coherent forms. Just watch your step on those crooked stairs if you’re headed down the other way.

Jonathan Shaw

[duckapus]

What I imagine the in a nutshell chat shenanigans during the Pokémon Movies are in the Streamer Ash AU.

First movie: Actual chaos because wtf is going on. Also chat gets traumatized when Ash legit dies for a moment.

Second movie: Also pretty much chaos, but also members of the chat realize that the prophecy is referring to Ash the actual person so now Ash is known as the kid and actual prophecy is about.

Third movie: Everyone is terrified of Unown now. (Also referencing the entire Larvitar arc, imagine if due to Unown being bullshit chat is able to see Larvitar's mindscape. And like, in their memories whilst Ash's phone is colorized, his screen is grey scale because people.)

Fourth movie: Someone realizes Sam is Professor Oak from the past at the end of the events of the movie and promptly tells everyone. Also everyone has a new appreciation for Celebi and Suicune. And Celebi's temporary death sure was traumatic!

Fifth Movie: Everyone is traumatized by Latios's death and it fucking shows.

Sixth movie: So the fake Groudon was certainly a thing. A thing everyone is glad was dealt with VERY QUICKLY.

Seventh movie: Due to Deoxys destroying the power supply chat did not know anything that was happening until the very end when the robots went berserk and now they have questions.

Eighth movie: Good news. Aura guardians now know Ash has a powerful aura and thus can help train him. Bad news, the entire thing at the Tree of Life is traumatizing as fuck.

Ninth movie: Chat is screaming at Ash to have a sense of self preservation, and also Manaphy is now the favorite Mythical Pokémon of many people.

Tenth movie: During the distortion bubble everything was cut out, but afterwards chat was filled in and now people have a new appreciation for the Darkrai species.

Eleventh movie: Shaymin's sass promptly becomes a meme, Giratina becomes wildly respected upon everyone learning this Legendary is ensuring their world doesn't break apart, and that's about it.

Twelfth movie: Chaos and confusion and chat becomes concerned upon realizing Ash, Brock, Dawn, and Sheena accidentally rewrote the timeline.

Thirteenth movie: Plus side. Grings' control over the news via editing is very hampered by real time streaming. Bad news, dude knows this and is actively trying to suppress this and kill Ash.

Fourteenth movie: Everyone was so, SO HAPPY when Victini was revealed to be alive.

Fifteenth movie: The general reaction is "So, that certainly happened didn't it?" And also there's a new wave of respect and fear of Kyurem.

Sixteenth movie: The reveal of a second Mewtwo gave long time watchers flashbacks, and also the one friendly Genesect quickly gets declared a bean.

Seventeenth movie: Pikachu's temporary death gave everyone trauma again. Also there's a new appreciation for Diancie.

Eighteenth movie: Everyone has decided Hoopa needs therapy after everything that happened.

Nineteenth movie: Everyone is happy that when everything was said and done things were relatively calm.

Twentieth and twenty-first movies: All chat knows is that things happened and that they'll be given the basics later.

Yeah these seem pretty accurate. Apart from 19 because that's the Volcanion and Magearna movie and giant death ray powered by Robot Soul is not at all calm. Though in the case of the final three movies (I Choose You, Everyone's Story and Koko), they're blatantly noncanon to the main timeline and thus also blatantly noncanon to the Streamer Timeline (unless I can find somewhere to sneak ES and Koko in, but given how heavily ICY relies on being an alternate interpretation of Indigo League it's definitely out)

Also there may be butterfly effects from the Streams being a Thing that affect what exactly happen in the movies, especially the later ones.

[soul-engraver]

Inspired by October's prompt, I made a malfested version of my Conduit, because turning into one was her biggest fear for a good portion of Libra of Soul.

Prior to the events of LoS, Elfreid never faced malfested or any enemies of that caliber, so her first fight against these creatures made her terrified of them. Glowing red eyes and patterns, grey skin, distorted voices, screams that make blood run cold, sheer speed and strength of their attacks combined with all-consuming bloodlust made for an intimidating impression.

However, berserkers have all these traits too, and yet she fears malfested more for one reason - the former are phantoms of already dead warriors, while the latter are living humans that have been transformed into bloodthirsty monsters. Because of this, malfested registered as more of a real threat in her mind.

With this knowledge and the fact that she's been affected by the Evil Seed, Elfried wondered if she could still become one of them. Yes, she remembers Zasalamel's words, but after her encounters with them, especially witnessing someone she knew turn from a kind-hearted person into a crazed ruthless creature (talking about Haoran here), she just wasn't sure anymore. And so this fear manifested itself in the form of nightmares.

In these dreams, she would either fight (or run from) a malfested version of herself or become one, and every time it would a horrible experience. These nightmares were happening regardless of the Astral Chaos related ones, and so they still occurred in chapter 4 (when the Conduit didn't need the astral fissures anymore), although less often than before. Thankfully, her travels with Grøh, Natalie and Dion gave her a lot of fighting experience, so facing malfested in combat is not as terrifying anymore. As to her fear of turning into one... well, it's more complicated, and I might elaborate another time (bc I'm too tired to do it at the moment, and this post has been sitting in the drafts long enough).