#i drew so much mohg and miquella

[dmitriyuriev]

My 2022 summary of art! You can see how quickly I became obsessed with Mohg/Miquella after the release of Elden Ring. I think this was a good year for me, I tried a lot of bigger pieces (and still have one in progress that I won’t finish in time, but hopefully next month?) I hope to keep improving in the upcoming years!

Links to individual pieces below (Jan and Sep are comics)-

Jan

Feb

Mar

Apr

May

Jun

Jul

Aug

Sep

Oct

Nov

Dec

[marina-the-witch]

MAJOR Shadow of the Erdtree Spoilers!!!

Alright I need to get this out, so here goes.

Promised Consort might be the single most conflicting boss in Fromsoft for me, and I need to talk about it. Firstly, I want to say in full honesty that I don't really mind it from a narrative standpoint. As much as I would have loved to see Godwyn get his time to shine, seeing Radahn in his prime, especially after he got beaten out quite hard by 4 other bosses in base game when he used to be my favorite after some consideration, is very cool and I don't personally think it assassinates either of the 2 characters involved, as it doesn't contradict or invalidate Miquella's previous actions nor does anything point strongly towards Radahn willingly being involved in this. However, one complaint I do have is that Mohg's involvement feels quite irrelevant and ignored by both the fanbase (aside from the dedicated Mohg club) and the game. Promised Consort has a couple horns slapped onto his arms and a SINGLE move that is reminiscent of Mohg, that's it. No shared weakness, no cool wings or scales or anything, hell, why not make Mohg's shackle work to make this difficult fight a little bit less over the top. On that note, I would like to address the fight. Aside from a wonky hitbox or two, I think, on paper, Promised Consort has a very solid and fair moveset in Phase 1 that's fun to learn and exploit, even if the openings do feel aggressively tight. Phase 2 on the other hand...Why? Why, instead of giving this conceptually sound and interesting boss an actually new moveset do you just slap frankly annoying AoEs and weird Dragon Ball bullshit ass afterimage attacks and the ability to fucking toast your CPU on what could have easily been the best final boss fight in Souls thus far if you had just TRIED. Many people have expressed they feel as though Promised Consort doesn't "try" narratively, that he's just a cheap, shoehorned attempt at fanservice like Soul of Cinder What who said that instead of providing an actual final boss to cap off the narrative, and I don't fully agree with this even if I did find the ending cutscene a bit underwhelming. But I do feel as though Promised Consort isn't trying to actually be challenging in a fair and fun way. Just kinda, overtuned. Aggressive. Unfair. I had my fun with the boss, no doubt, but I didn't feel good about beating it, especially not after the only way out I saw was summoning a tanky spirit who drew all the aggro while I tried to do literally anything in Phase 2, when no other boss in the DLC or in the game at all has ever made me that desperate (Note that i don't mind summons in general but don't personally enjoy using them as it takes the excitement and rewarding feeling out of a boss fight for me) (Also note that while i am fairly good at this game, I am extremely easily overwhelmed by too many bright visual stimuli as part of my ADHD/Autism, which is part of the reason I struggle with Fortissax and Bayle every now and then, now imagine that but tenfold for Promised Consort). This boss needs some sort of nerf. Not one that completely neuters it, Radahn has had enough of that already, it just needs to be towned down. The speed, the damage, I don't know, hell, toning down the visual clutter of phase 2 would probably be enough, so you could actually SEE what the boss is doing half the time, just do something to not make this fight as unfair as it is now. I don't know if I'll have the same experience I've had with this boss as I did Malenia, where after several attempts that ended in a mere , underwhelming, unrewarding "Glad that's over", to thinking its the worst thing ever to it being my favorite boss, I kinda hope it will, but for the time I can't say I'm excited to fight this boss again.

Stan Metyr and Romina instead everyone, we love weird nasty girlies <3

[sealer-of-wenkamui]

I CAN understand why Mohg's character would make people uncomfortable. I admit to being a bit hesitant on the character myself.

But in the end, the design drew me in. I tried to like the character without acknowledging that particular aspect.

"... You know what, it's a part of his character. If I am to enjoy this character, I'm gonna have to acknowledge the good and the bad. I've done it with Eddie Gluskin, and I've done it with Ramsey Snow."

And it DOES make him an interesting character! Doesn't make it right with what he did.

But the thing that buggers me is that Mohg gets a ton more hatred than Seluvis or Dung Eater -- and those two, imo, are worse...!

I'll give Seluvis credit for having that really fancy Sombrero though.

I don't blame people for being uncomfortable, even if objectively speaking he's not necessarily worse than any of the other demigods (all the murder, torture, grafting, etc.) sexual violence on a whole tends to make people more uncomfortable to talk about, and that's pretty heavily implied to be a part of what he's doing to Miquella (between his one-sided, possessive "love" for him, being inside of his body, the overtly sexual wording of the remembrance, wanting to start a dynasty with him, etc- even if you take a more generous reading of the situation and think there's no actual sexual contact, his violation of Miq is still very much framed as a parallel to sexual assault. Bedchamber is a very specific choice of words and JP even refers to the bedchamber of a married couple, and there's some level of violation of his body going on, even if the specifics of how much are up to interpretation.) People who are fine with depictions of murder and body horror often still find the topic upsetting, and on top of it, its also incest and Miq's initial appearance being childlike definitely doesn't help the situation either.

And I too think his design (and theme!) are some of the best in the game! I don't think anyone that's genuinely upset by these darker aspects of his story should explore them or anything, its most important to take care of yourself after all, I'm more just bothered by people that try to deny them completely or say how dare GRRM "ruin" his character like this! Because it IS part of his canon character and part of what makes him interesting.

It's as you say, if you want to fully appreciate his canon character, its an unavoidable part of it. And it's fiction after all, liking a character that has done truly creepy and atrocious things doesn't make you a bad person, its a place where you can explore these darker topics safely. I find Mohg in particular interesting because of the fact that he's doing everything from his idea of "love", and its likely his own rough childhood that influenced how he behaves now. It's fun to think about how someone could hurt the object of their affection so deeply because of "love". The FM's influence is a gift in his eyes! He is pleasuring his lover! He constantly is by his side, why wouldn't Miq come to appreciate that? It's really twisted, and yes, he's tragic but it doesn't excuse his actions in the least, but it does make for a very complex and interesting character! That's why I hate to see him demonized as PURE EVIL or his atrocities ignored (if we're talking about his canon character)

Oh yeah for sure they're just as bad if not worse, and they even both have the creepy sexual violence implications in their story too, so it can't be people just thinking Mohg worse for that?? Making living people into your own personal puppets and intentionally trying to curse everyone by doing things so unspeakable that a hardened criminal is deeply afraid of what's gonna happen to him you would think would get more hate (and its not just with one person but multiple people they're doing this too) but I dunno! The only thing I can think of is I guess Mohg is a more important character? Or more charismatic and appealing so he gets more attention in the first place?? Or else people are bothered by the incest/underage (though Miq doesn't seem to actually be a child so that's not even true) thing specifically?