#brainsucker

[minespatchart]

T-shirt design for Fromsoftlover on instagram and youtube. They wanted a alternative design that focused more on a great one with tentacles on the floor so I went with Amygdala and brainsuckers.

[ruskatuskapuskasapuska]

[Blorborne-doodlerinos]

feat. few hoontas...

..."i-was-artistically-craving-enemy-designs"...

...and last & totally least: Alfred-corner (and cone!) of shame (I could've dumped these in the hoontas-category, but he's... special. :))

[skullywullypully]

[bornetoblood]

A brainsucker sucking a carton of milk

I offer you Faz-tokens as a bribe

SLUURP

I spent the faztokens on a bonnie mask thank you bim

[katyspersonal]

Another reason why I love my idea that Brainsuckers are basically Research Hall patients who were freed (and starving for a while) is because it also explains why patients' heads had to be covered with the fabric. It is dangerous to let them suck people's brains out in desperate need for Insight!

It is one thing to have tiny hole for them to sip brain fluid like Adeline does (through those tendrils possibly), but another to let them go full leech mode. It also explains what is there under fabric that is so squsheable - well fed Brainsuckers DO get their heads big and wobbly!

Naturally, they become something else after they finally connect with the 'stars', but every other talking patient is still in their 'listening to the sea' stage

[blood-darkened-moon]

Change my mind: The Brainsucker is Bloodborne's equivalent of the Regenerador.

Both enemies are unpleasant, for sure, but for very different reasons. And with a sniper rifle + the infrared vision device, the Regenerador isn’t much of a problem anymore. The Brainsuckers were terrible throughout the whole game. These fuckers freaked me out.

[emrynbird]

listen....sometimes you gotta draw smut with the worst enemy in your favorite game....

full on twit and bsky

[val-of-the-north]

The insidiousness of Kin in Bloodborne

The game makes a clear distinction between the earthly, beastly nature of mankind and the higher, more sophisticated and advanced inhuman evolution offered by the stars, with one being feared and hated by almost everyone but a small group of irreverents and the other being the goal of most organizations in the setting. They crave the superior knowledge that the stars, sea and Great Ones can offer them and in their selfishness they drag the entire population through the mud, subjecting them to the Scourge that turns them into the reviled, de-evoluted monsters that infest Yharnam.

But there’s something to be noted when analyzing the result of their attempts at ascension... most Kin we see are horrifying and animalistic monsters, no better than the beasts that devour the population. Take for example the Brainsuckers. Their lust for insight isn’t too dissimilar from that of blood-drunk men for their precious healing blood. They do everything in their power to feed themselves on more insight, more knowledge... and for what? In their current state, it’s more of a craving than a meaningful pursuit. And their locations are rather telling too, as most of them are found in the base of operation of the Choir. How were these men of science any different than the commoners they deem blinded by beastly idiocy? All those sacrifices to turn into addicts themselves.

We also see the Fluorescent Flowers, beings who are undeniably kin but... there seems to be nothing intelligent about them. They are ultimately just predators, luring in prey with their flower-like bait. Whatever ritual or experiment made those certainly didn’t lead to a greater understanding of the cosmos. The Scholars of Byrgenwerth themselves have long since turned into mindless sludge who attacks anything they don’t recognize, drifting away in a Nightmare far from their old world. Gardens of Eyes are also just monsters who instinctively attack us despite their supposed higher intellect.

Perhaps the Celestial Emissaries are the only ones not relegated to the role of mindless fiend yet even that is debatable. While we see their individuality still persist somewhat after the transformation (Arianna even remains passive and never retaliates unlike the others) as shown when we breach into Iosefka’s Clinic from the backside, for how long will that last? The other Emissaries we see are exactly like all other Kin, attacking us on sight and sparing no grace for anyone who approaches, showing no sign of their past humanity. And even if they do retain their intelligence somewhat, the same happens to certain beasts, like the Afflicted Beggar. Despite his condition he is capable of complex thinking, more complex than even most Kin we see, and he is able to feel things too.

Other attempts at evolution fail spectacularly and turn people into hungry monsters. Adeline, the only patient of the Research Hall conscious enough to address us is starving for Brain Fluid, and her hunger gets ravenous fast. The fact she is restrained as hard as she is seems to hint that she’d get violent, and we see many patients getting violent and even animalistic at times.

Or think of the Nightmare Apostles, once cultists of some kind, now turned to mindless spiders. The only one with a head on his shoulders and a brain to match is Patches, though he seems to be an explicit exception to the rule. [x]

No matter what, the thirst for knowledge remains the same... a thirst, a primal urge. Beastly idiocy goes both ways, but the stuck-up researchers of Yharnam don’t see it, and that’s their fatal mistake.

In the end, they were no better than the poor population. Just as clueless and obsessed with the very thing that was eating away at their humanity... but while the commoners despaired at this fate in the case of beasthood, these madmen wanted it and ruined countless lives to achieve it. Ultimately, it’s hard to feel sorry for them. They got what they wanted in their short-sightedness: absolute oblivion of the self.

[undefeatablesin]

Me and my one working braincell

[beesmygod]

BLOODBORNE LORE Q+A PART 7: CAINHURST RAID, CARYLL AND THE RUNES, LEAVING BYRGENWERTH

part 1

part 2

part 3

part 4

part 5

part 6 (start of lore dump)

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my new adhd medication is working too good.

BLOCK #LONG POST/ TO NOT SEE THESE HUGE POSTS

i will post pure speculation in italics and important nouns in bold. these are created with the intent to be enjoyed by fans and non-fans.

translation source

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from the jump i'm going to add an editor's note that from this point on the timeline is muddled, confusing, vague and occasionally contradictory. people have moved heaven and earth trying to make sense of the inconsistencies, but the truth of the matter is that bloodborne suffered the fromsoft late game curse and was chopped up beyond recognition at the 11th hour for whatever internal development reason. whats interesting to me is the stuff they chose to keep that's complete and utter chaff. there are extremely rare items that do literally nothing but sit in your inventory, or quests that are completely pointless. enemies appear where they "shouldn't" and it difficult to tell if they are trying to impart some kind of information or if we're just getting dragon-assed in lost izalith again. its very odd and i think thats what draws people back again and again. such as....me......

i can give you overviews of these events in the approximate order that they happened but there is no guarantee that they happened exactly in this order or in this fashion.

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from this point on, there will be a distinct delineation between "old hunters" and "hunters". old hunters are from the time of byrgenwerth and have survived into the modern day as a result of old blood injections or can be summoned from the hunter's nightmare using the old hunter bell. a distinct characteristic of old hunters is that they no longer dream (the bell description reads: "The old hunters, who have long passed from the dream[...]"). notable old hunters include: gascoigne, alfred, djura, ludwig, gehrman, and maria.

regular ass hunters are new on the scene and usually belong to a recently established institution such as the healing church, school of mensis, or the choir. or they might just be common schlubs who joined the hunt as part of the neighborhood watch. [points at the camera] that's you. eventually. not yet.

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as perfect proof of what i'm talking about with regards to contradictory timelines and being chopped to bits: an unknown time ago, martyr logarius and a band of executioners traveled to cainhurst castle and slaughtered the inhabitants, the dreaded vilebloods. the inciting incident (or so says alfred, a heavily biased source as hes the only executioner in the game, uh, with lines anyway) was an unknown scholar who "betrayed his fellows at Byrgenwerth and brought forbidden blood back with him to Cainhurst Castle". the blood "threaten[s] the purity of the Church's blood healing" although it's not explained how or what the fuck they're talking about. according to alfred, logarius stayed behind to prevent the undying and unkillable queen from regaining power.

i do not know when this takes place. cainhurst royals were "long-time imbibers of blood" who already had a system to deal with the beast plague, implying they doing blood before blood was cool. but eventually ludwig uses the executioner uniform as the basis for his church hunters and it features the modern edition of the hunter's mark (as opposed to the older versions that you can see in this concept art and in chalice dungeons), so it had to be during or before ludwig's time. there are runes associated with both parties that were discovered by a byrgenwerth scholar, so it at least happened during or after their lifetime.

so its kind of vaguely around this time even though they talk about it like it happened 1000 years ago. since this is one of the least comprehensible story-lines of the game, we won't worry about it too much right now.

i need an image to break this up so check out the most fucked up, non-snake related map in the game:

for a company known for its cohesive maps, this is a fucking insane series of choices. i understand annalise needs to be trapped but what the fuck is this room. why is it up here. why is it magic. why is it like a hoarders nest full of the same 4 statues found literally everywhere on this map. this truly is the most mysterious game.

everyone and their mother has a completely baseless and improbable theory about who the culprit was or if there even WAS a rat at byrgenwerth- so of course so do i. let me work my way over there.

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whether due to an ideological difference or the whole fishing hamlet genocide thing, laurence and several of the hunters left byrgenwerth with the intent of researching "the old blood" from the labyrinth. the miraculous healing powers were too enticing for laurence to ignore, but willem was steadfast in his belief that humanity was not yet ready to reckon with whatever it was that was happening here - at least, not without elevating themselves to the same level as those in the "cosmos". his distaste for use of the blood is mentioned off-hand in the rune workshop tool description.

caryll runes side note for newbies: caryll runes are a gameplay mechanic that give you buffs you can switch in and out by using an iron brand on your consciousness. the runes themselves are transcriptions of "the inhuman utterings of the Great Ones". all but a handful of the runes were discovered/transcribed by runesmith caryll and some were explicitly secret ones.

almost nothing is known about caryll except they were a student of byrgenwerth. the workshop tool named for them is found on a dead hunter tied to a chair as the reward for the witch of hemwick fight. people will try to tell you that this schmuck is caryll but that's fucking stupid. caryll was not a hunter and there's no reason why caryll would have the means or motive to pilfer their own tool from the hunter's dream. i dont know why this guy has it. maybe hes just an asshole and stole it from the dream to be a dick. who knows. hes just griefing us lol

all three translations agree that caryll runes "do not rely" on using blood, so its significant when they DO start using blood in the runes. one could read this as indication of caryll's transition from byrgenwerth to the healing church to follow laurence over willem. nearly all of the covenant related runes and the runes relating to oedon are bleeding or "contain a nuance of Blood", as it says in the corruption rune used by the vilebloods.

the executioners have a rune too, "radiance", which is unusual for its description specifying that caryll had already discovered the rune by the time the executioners adopted it as their own. there is no mention of this on the "corruption" page, nor on the remaining covenant runes discovered by caryll.

if cainhurst were to alert their subjects of the already well-known beast plague caused by the miraculous healing blood, the church's newly established grasp on the populace would crumble. if cainhurst could keep the beasts in check, why couldn't they? they already did, after all, in the labyrinth. with the vilebloods gone (or at least, dealt with), the church has unilateral control of the ministration process to the point where alfred, an old hunter, does not understand it in the least. i wonder if a certain byrgenwerth educated runesmith was invited to castle cainhurst or traveled on their own, only to discover during the runemaking process that the "old blood" from the labyrinth and the blood in the veins of the royals were one and the same.

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"eyes on the inside" is a cutesy way of describing "insight", but the byrgenwerth system for deriving said insight necessitated the gruesome acts at the fishing village to obtain an eye-ridden cord, or at the very least, the parasitic creatures and slugs aligned to the arcane found in the village and bodies of the fishing village. willem hoped the cord would elevate his mind, and by extension himself, into a great one.

if we do some reading between the lines on the description for the "spark hunter badge", the description of "a style of inquiry that [...] closely followed the methodology of Byrgenwerth" is almost certainly "expose yourself to it" or "use living specimens" based on, well, everything and their protegees do. its not clear if willem ever actually got the cord; it only says he "sought" it. but he did, at least take part in and shape the byrgenwerth focus of learning away from blood and toward developing eyes on the inside. by putting slugs in your fucking head.

someone on reddit pointed out that the brainsucker enemies are kos parasites living inside the stitched up skulls of...people? pthumerians? i would argue pthumerians due to the fact that these enemies replace the generic pthumerian enemies in a chalice dungeon much later.

we can talk about byrgenwerth's results and fate later. because next time, the healing church is established.

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i cannot believe how long this shit is. kudos if you read it i guess. if nothing else it gets this out of my head, forever.

[funereel]

Getting slurped in the upper cathedral ward

[the0garden0of0eyes]

I wanna learn how to scream so if anybody asks how I started I could tell them: I just mocked bloodborne enemies.

[carriershoukaku]

i honestly have no idea what the fuck american politics people are talking about it when they go "UNIVERSITIES WILL MAKE YOUR CHILDREN INTO TOTAL COMMUNISTS. THERE IS MARXIST PROPAGANDA EVERYWHERE."

i've never involved myself with politics on campus and i haven't gotten out of my way to do so. i literally just stare at calculus for hours and then occasionally visit the high-computing area for my job, i'm pretty sure a lot of people especially away from their parents start mingling and flirting with a lot of political ideologies but they're acting like there's portraits of Mao and professors teaching linear algebra are actively trying to convert you to being a Marxist

[kalloway]

tfw u see the fourth Amygdala you’ve encountered in the chalice dungeons:

[theonlyadawong]

one thing that scares the shit out of me in horror is wet sounds, so being in the sewers is oh so fun

[katyspersonal]

More of the ‘blink and you will miss it’ Bloodborne moments! Still surprised how you can play the game for like 10th time and still notice new details if you think to look at the right thing @_@

My pre established headcanon aside, an idea - what if Brainsuckers are... like this, because their own brains were removed from their skulls? They just desperately look for the new one!!!!!!!!!!