#micolash x rom

[fantomette22]

A nocturne encounter between two students of Byrgenwerth?! It doesn’t seem like they are here to exchange homeworks 😳

Alright thanks wingman Damian! The true mvp!

Half based on this of course and other similar pictures i can’t managed to find.

[mangledskull]

Is this something

Alt without text and original under the cut

Original by @/absolutenutcase162 on instagram

[fareehaandspaniards]

I tried to collect the most popular ships with Micolash :'D

So there are from up to down, from left to right - Laurence, Ludwig, Maria, Rom, Edgar, Damian and Hunter (in my case he is male)

I have a lot of work to do but that drawing somehow happened xd

[pyro-madder]

micorom headcanons post because i heard interest :}

be warned : it starts off silly then gets sad real fast

* Being the same age, they enroll the same year in Byrgenwerth and – alongside Caryll – become fast friends. It will be soon impossible to call them fully innocent due to being part of Byrgenwerth and its dubious study methods of Pthumerian and the Great Ones, but Micolash especially was far tamer than he is now, just… cryptic, and generally a freak /affectionate

Rom, though known for her cheerful temper, was also frequently described as being on her own plane of existence, and so… they hit it off pretty well, pretty quickly. It was frequent for anyone in Byrgenwerth to catch them in the middle of a conversation and immediately go --

They go 3 years, all the way to their Bachelor’s degree (or at least Micolash’s – I may give Rom a slower graduating, alleged intellectual shortcomings and all), and only start dating the following year or the one after that, after Laurence and Maria’s enrollments (with one or both, as respective dormmates to Mico and Rom, possibly giving them a small push). And they’re genuinely one of the most stable relationships in my narrative. weirdo4weirdo.

* I haven’t determined what drives them to follow Laurence – or more accurately, to distance themselves from Willem’s teachings – but they do. First together in the Research Hall, then splitting in complementary work as the respective heads of the Choir and the School of Mensis, stepping up in their research and experiments.

During this era, Rom falls pregnant.

Now this is the blurry part – how would they react to the prospect of parenthood. X) In such a busy and promising time for scientific breakthroughs, I don’t think Mico would be too happy with it… but also, it’s not like Rom fell pregnant by herself ! And one way I’d see it happen is if he was planning to involve the child in their research… on Rom’s side, it’ll depend entirely on me and the characterization I want for her. Definitely tamer than Mico but perhaps with her own Byrgenwerth streak of unethical science, ready to experiment on her own flesh (literally and/or metaphorically) ? I’ll figure it out at some point :v

* Either way, we are in Bloodborne, and Rom enters labor one-two month(s) earlier than expected, in the middle of her duties. It does not go well. After much pain and distress, her child is stillborn, and Rom herself likely only survives thanks to the fact that she was already within Church walls - ensuring fast care by many doctors and fast access to blood to sustain her body. Laurence was by her side the entire time - because it was premature, Micolash was just going about his day in Yahar’gul, and the time it takes for Laurence’s hastily scribbled letter to reach him and then make the trip up, he arrives after the storm.

Needless to say, Rom is shattered. The guilt that’s known to come with this kind of tragedy, and the trauma of forceful intervention on her body – she’s devastated, and Mico is wholly unequipped to deal with that. He also feels guilt because once again, she didn’t fall pregnant by herself. He hovers around her while she recovers but, well… they can barely look at each other. They never officialize it, hardly communicate, but it’s clear to everyone their relation died with their infant.

* And so they drown themselves in their research, and this is the start of their respective slip. Exponentially, they progress, get results, and immerse themselves more and more into their respective theories – theories that start deviating from Laurence’s (who is tearing his hair out at the loss of authority in addition to playing their divorce attorney). Micolash remains hidden away in Yahar’gul (chasing after Damian), while Rom can bear less and less being within Cathedral walls due to the memories of her miscarriage ; she shuts herself away with Ebrietas and/or returns to Byrgenwerth(? I don’t have the exact circumstances of her ascension yet). Anyway, this culminates in said ascension – again, wholly independant of Laurence’s will – soon followed by her physical death. Micolash slips further.

* Fastforward of many years to the Mensis Ritual – as the Nightmare opens and Micolash is sitting bound to his throne, skull splitting, brain frying - he gets a vision of Rom, human Rom, embracing him, bound again beyond death. Perhaps the cries of an infant, calling for a mother, beckoned her ?

And Rom’s spell hides away the Ritual, until the Hunter, assisted by Damian, releases their souls.

In the Nightmare of Mensis, a hunter brave enough may retrieve a crumpled letter tangled under layers of Apostles webs that, despite its apparent torn and burnt state, clearly projects the following words into one's mind :

Rom giving birth - UCW

~Lau

[synthwayve]

Who are your FIVE favorite Bloodborne characters and also why? (Yes sorry there are three more to choose from besides Micolash and Laurence 😞)

Thank you for the ask!! This really made me think tbh

1. Micolash (to nobody’s surprise)

He was actually not the first bloodborne boss fight I ever saw, but his fight captivated me nonetheless. His design is just so COOL. I can’t get over it. I always saw him as a gigantic meme but then I got into the lore more and realized wow, this character has a lot to him! Medical malpractice, insanity, possible regret, you name it! I always thought his contrast against what I’d heard of Laurence was interesting too, and now that I’m deep in the trenches it just gets better haha.

2. Rom (okay this might be a bit surprising)

As much as I draw other characters, Rom is super close to my heart. Im not the sharpest crayon in the box(and never have been) so her character is very endearing to me: I see her as having been the sort of person who yearns to be useful. To be good at something. Everyone could reassure her that “you don’t have to be smart or talented, you’re kind!” But when you’re surrounded by the extraordinary, the bar of “decent person” just doesn’t cut it. I think she ascended in an attempt to fix this, to be “special” like her peers, and not the sometimes-funny airheaded woman she thinks they take her to be. Also, her design is just very cool x,D

3. Laurence

His character has a lot of sides, which is ironic since he is a dlc boss and has maybe 4 lines of dialogue total lmao. I think that he had good intentions that rotted under the weight of his leadership, and he’s definitely super fun to work with on his own even outside of other character dynamics. If he’s manipulative and bordering on cruel, why is he like that? If he’s sweet but just misguided, why didn’t he give up on the blood before it blew up in his face? Should we feel bad for him? Should we feel angry? There’s a lot to think about- he’s a fun character to both design and interpret!

4. Caryll

I love Caryll’s entire concept, and the Caryll-rune system is particularly interesting to me. I like how many sides there can be to this character! I’ve always been one to heavily reference lore, but not tie myself down to it, so I just like their general vibe and the possibilities of their placement in the story. I’m sure if I stuck to the lore religiously I’d actually like them a bit less, since to me, the mystery around them is a big part of the character! I like to imagine their relations with the others too :)

5. Edgar

This was really hard to pick between him and Damian tbh, I put them at about the same level. Edgar is very flexible as a character but he has solid lore points that can’t be easily ignored, which I really appreciate! His possible dynamic with Micolash is always super interesting and I love the juxtaposition of a very accountant-coded character lugging around Ludwig’s Holy Blade with the full intention to punt you into the moon. As for Damian, I just have a particular soft spot for characters that are “right-hands” to a leader, left to mourn or act in their absence. The coolheaded assistant type has always been appealing to me, and I like that both of them have a very short presence in game but the fandom has widely made them bigger players!

Thanks again for the ask! It was a lot of fun to think about :) I love a lot of the BB characters honestly, narrowing down to top 5 made me *sweat* haha. If we had a top 6, Maria would be next!

[katyahina]

Okay but why THE heck Byrgenwerth leads you to the Nightmare of Mensis?

So, you DO actually see Mergo's Loft (aka Nightmare of Mensis castle(s)) from Nightmare Frontier!

It is not surprising since both locations are accessed from Byrgenweth - Nightmare Frontier from the first floor and Nightmare of Mensis from the second one. Well, by Byrgenwerth I mean the Lecture building:

(Using retranslation document by Last Protagonist ( x )). Like, yes, we can confirm that Nightmare Frontier and Nightmare of Mensis are, indeed, the same location, only one is placed higher than the other in altitude. But this is still interesting that Byrgenwerth is stuck between "reality" and Nightmare, and in either case it leads to the Nightmare realm.

I always felt like the implication that the rest of the Byrgenwerth is, in fact, stuck in the Nightmare (as in, Willem and the scholars could not meet each other anymore) had something to do with Rom! Rom appears to be a kind of a Nightmare Apostle - the 'spider' title suggests that (same as with Patches the Spider), and she is likewise a spider creature with a human head; only that her head is... less human now, it mutated with too many eyes. And if Patches' behaviour is of any indication, Nightmare Apostles are Amygdalae affiliates!

An Amygdala delivers you to the 1st floor of Lecture Building, and you fight one in Nightmare Frontier; meanwhile, Amygdalas are heavily associated with School of Mensis! But also, Micolash says this somewhere within his ramble:

'Sleep could' of course refer to like... sleeping... lol (a nightmare is a type of a dream), or to the sleep of the Great Ones that Pthumerians started to deify, or both. But in either case, the 'Lake' (like the 'Sea') is the boundary between humanity and Eldrich Truth. So, to no longer see the Sea means to... well, no longer see this boundary, I guess? As in, by now he is not stopped by it. Like he overcame that boundary so he now can contact the 'cosmos'!

(Heh... I just thought of something - funny enough, very often, at the first glance chaotic ramblings of a madman actually make surprising amount of sense and logic, once you know the context...)

Rom is in the lake and it is her presence there that conceals Mensis Ritual! Not stops it, that's important, only hides it. It is not clear within the timeline for how long Rom was important for Byrgenwerth, but it is very possible that Byrgenwerth might have been using her powers to be in 'enough' contact with the Nightmare realm for their research! They became an isolated institution after falling out with Healing Church, and whereas there are Slime Scholars in the Lecture Building itself, in the area of the 'real' world there are Gardens of Eyes who surprisingly look like they must be Kin of Amygdalae (not monsters/devotees like Nightmare Apostles).

So: what if for a while, thanks to Rom's powers, Byrgenwerth was able to go back and forth with the Nightmare realm to do their own research? Basically not only protecting the humanity, but also cleverly gatekeeping everything from the detractors and just naive, ambitious fools (remember that Choir and Mensis are higher echelons of the Healing Church)! And Micolash's mention of "no longer seeing the Lake" refers to him either tapping on that power or simply overcoming it! He might have deliberately done something to be connected with where Rom is, using her as a 'phone' to call Kos xD (since Rom can see everything, and is said to have been blessed by her!) But that meant to have 'access' to Byrgenwerth... And that included messing with its architecture, so Lecture Building could no longer be accessed from what remained of Byrgenwerth in the waking world - including Willem staying there and not being able to see his scholars anymore, who are now trapped between worlds.

Internal filenames of the locations suggest outright connection between the Lake that Rom guards and Lecture building:

My friend @val-of-the-north brought this up, and also correctly pointed out that 'Innermost' in internal files typically refers to the boss arenas (here is also Hemwick Mansion as an example) :

Also, you might be familiar with 'Rom, the upside-down fool' from Micolash's cut content dialogue ( ( x ), at the 0:40), right? This is also the case in Japanese voice acting of his cut lines! Upside-down will be 逆さま (sakasama), and here is Micolash's Japanese dialogue with both used and cut lines: ( x ). You can clearly hear 'sakasama no hakuchi Roma' from 2:41 to 2:45! ('hakuchi no kumo, Roma' is Rom's Japanese title, 'hakuchi' (白痴) means intellectually disabled, idiot, etc, and 'kumo' (蜘蛛) means spider).

(There is a document ( x ) that features Japanese text of Mico's cut dialogue AND transliteration AND a nuanced translation, done by a person that speaks Japanese if you are wondering from which dimension I am pulling these facts from. It is really helpful, and I still encourage everyone to refer to Japanese scripts in your loredigging, as they are actually canon and truthful to the game creators' intentions. In this case, canonical cut content, as oxymoronic as it sounds xD)

Again, mostly it points out to Micolash boasting about how not even Rom's barrier could stop him from accessing the Nightmare! But all in all, Lecture Hall appears to be a 'train station'... that he might have ruined, or turned to his favour. You can see the handcuffed victims in the chairs in Nightmare of Mensis too - a right sign of him having had victims before our Hunter finds him!

I mentioned that in a kind of old post about alternative (and slightly outdated in some parts) take on Edgar's quest as a spy ( x ), but there is also a possibility that Micolash cut the connection between two parts of Byrgenwerth (waking world one and Nightmare one) specifically to not be found through Byrgenwerth by people like Yurie, Fauxsefka etc. The entrance to the part of Byrgenwerth where Rom resides now is additionally guarded by Shadows of Yharnam! Nightmare of Mensis is full of servants of Mergo and also Shadows of Yharnam, so he must have some sort of authority as the one who stole Mergo, right? So that could also have been his doing to send those Shadows over to even further prevent the risks of interrupting the ritual!

So yeah... I've gotten a bit carried away, but you see what I am trying to say! Funny how much, again, can sprout from only a minor clarification for the translation.

[katyspersonal]

3, 18, 24, 29, 32 for Mico :3

(Asks from this ( x ) meme)

3) What first drew you to this character?

Like I said, my first introduction to Micolash was his theme song, paired with a concept art image of him since it was on Youtube. And I already was instantly captivated! My initial impression was that for some reason he was a helpless puppet, and I wanted to know of what exactly! So I've caught up on his lore.... and was sorely disappointed, because back then Fromsoft barely giving information was a novelty for me XD Still, I appreciated the madness, and the mystery. I was really impressed as he felt like someone on much higher level of knowledge, in NO way I felt like he was "silly" or "a joke" x)

18) Do you prefer to see this character suffer or know peace? Angst or comfort? Both?

Both! Imagining him laugh genuinely, not in madness, is one of my most comforting fantasies... ;-; I love seeing him peaceful, happy and, of course, loved! At the same time, I enjoy depictions of him recollecting his humanity only to collapse in tears and horror. Reflecting on how far everything has gone, on the people he had lost (usually Rom), on having lost himself..

24) Do you ever dream about this character? If so, describe a dream you once had about them.

This is... a heavy question. Micolash used to frequent my dreams. There is a whole saga about it, in a way, ahaha! I think my very first dream about him truly bound us. I dreamed about being Rom (even before I knew or created anything about her), walking on the water surface of the lake but it had water lilies, and seeing Micolash's back turned as he was praying. I tried to reach out to him and call him, but got absolutely ignored, then I looked down in the water and realised that although "I" perceived myself as a girl, I in reality became a spider. Realisation made me wake up, strangely with extreme nausea and thirst, even if I was not sick or poisoned.

But there were many other dreams a while later after that one. In this order: he invaded my average nightmare about my stepdad saying 'she is ours now' to him; him pulling me down into the sea to drown; him deceiving me with "loving me back" whereas he was hypnotising me to follow into apparently a trap (sort of an attic full of dust, books and mirrors) and I woke up when I snapped out of trance; the dream where he kept tormenting me by putting me through death by Frenzy over and over yet I kept respawning and unable to change my situation, and once I found a Sedative that was my only chance to get out of the 'loop' I've given it to a mother whose child kept suffering the same fate. When he saw it, he spared me and teleported me into a bed to have a rest... while he was very, very harshly scolding me for being "too obsessive" and weirding HIM out, that I was too much for HIM, and that he'd never love me and I was nobody for him?

And the last one in this 'line' was when I was little again, in my room, in the time where a very particular trauma happened to me. Except, it was full of the same fog as Nightmare of Mensis, and Micolash was there, offering to undo it...? Unfortunately, it didn't happen, but I appreciated the offer. Ironic that THE nightmare man would offer to stop my nightmares (or rather, take control over them, as "lesser evil"). And, of course, don't forget semi-regular Micolaurence dreams!

29) Do you get defensive about this character? If yes, then why?

I DO! And sometimes not for a good reason. It is like an instinct! xD Like, at times I am unable to take the joke about him being "just silly unwashed unhinged failure wet cat" fsdhfhds I am dead serious, I actually sometimes pout and want to write a long essay on how WELL AKTUALY he is very complicated and deep and messed up character! This is why other simps don't like talking to me anymore fhshdfshfs

The most defensive I've ever gotten about him was when an anon complimented an artist that (deliberately) prettified Micolash because they liked "aesthetic" or whatever. Anon praised the artist for "fixing" the "ugly" character, without exaggeration, and for making him "actually attractive" :/ But you've been there with me, you've gotten mad at that anon with me, you remember. Saying that someone made the non-conventionally attractive character aKtUaLLy lOoK GuD by replacing him with idealised version true to one's own preferences in appearance.. You know how Gehrman haters say that 'Doll is prettyfied idealised version of Maria crafted to his tastes that in no way reflects Maria's actual vibe'? I think as hard as I cringed at that moment, but in the end, I am able to understand how Gehrman haters feel when gamerbros simp for Doll!

So yeah, after realising that I have this problem of getting too defensive over integrity of my favs, including appearance, I have to restrain myself and rationalise. For example, 'maybe he used to look much prettier and healthier in Byrgenwerth times!' is reasonable! I just... won that trait in 'unlikeable' autistic fan traits lottery. You know, that one. That, if left unattended, will surely one day make the fan completely alone. As anyone is scared of telling them anything in fear of being "corrected". With only the characters they so-much-cherished to keep them company now. What a sad fate. I am sure there will be a better use for it one day than acting as though fictional characters have human rights sighhhhh....

32) If you could make this character a meal, what would you make them?

Well, look at this man, he never eats anything anymore because he's too focused on his research, so ANY meal would be good for him x) But greenish skin tone instantly makes me think of iron deficiency, so I would offer him chickpea spinach curry!

Thank you for asking!!

[galaxirin]

Hi ! Sorry for the late ask x) but i was wondering what is your own view on the bloodborne timeline? If you have one. How many years passed for the characters and between huge lore event? I’m curious to know how you see it! >:3

Omg. Finally. I can finally ramble.

To add some context first to things, Laurence and Gehrman are approximately the same age. At least 2-3 months apart with Gehrman being the older one. Micolash, Ludwig, Maria, and Rom are all within the same age and are a year younger than Laurence.

I will try and base everything through Laurence’s lifetime to make things a bit easier

2000-1000 years ago: Pthumerians lose connection to the Great Ones and subsequently get overrun by beasts. Yharnam and Mergo happen here.

Age 18: Laurence enters Byrgenwerth, meets Gehrman as he is his roommate. The next year meeting everyone else. He and Micolash soon become academic rivals.

Age 20: Laurence (accompanied by Gehrman, Ludwig, Maria, and Micolash) discover the holy medium (the Old Blood) and bring it back to Master Willem, who starts obsessing over it and wants to seek ascension.

Age 21: After multiple arguments and discussions with Willem, he decides to leave months before graduation. Ludwig does not follow him but Gehrman and co do.

Age 22: Laurence starts experimenting on the blood using animals with varying degrees of success. He is still cautious and fears the Old Blood so he does not start human trials. He does start clinics near Oedon chapel (to hide up Gehrman, Maria, and other scholars accessing the dungeons below) which makes him start becoming a local figure amongst the impoverished and the sick.

Age 24: Willem and Laurence reconnect contact only to discuss the appearance of Kos in the Fishing Hamlet. Laurence starts talking to Ludwig, who is back in his family’s estate, to join him in the future expedition.

Age 26: the massacre of the Fishing Hamlet. Gehrman loses his leg after protecting Laurence from a villager. He has no choice but to use the Old Blood on him and subsequently sees it’s restorative powers. This furthers Laurence’s goals of bringing ascension to the people of Yharnam through science and medicine. The curse of Kos is created but no one knows. A Cainhurst royal sneaks the medium to Cainhurst castle to be given to Queen Annaliese.

Age 30: Healing Church starts its Golden years. The choir is created and begin to have audience with Ebrietas for a better supply of knowledge and blood. Gehrman continues training a small group of hunters that include Maria and Ludwig. Maria however is starting to feel the guilt of her actions in the Fishing Hamlet. School of Mensis is created at this time too. They start kidnapping people soon after.

Age 31: Maria leaves the hunters and becomes a caretaker for those in the research hall. She meets Adeline here. Rom is secretly turned into a Kin as she stayed in Byrgenwerth as a professor. No one knew until it was too late.

Age 40: Ashen blood appears and the beasts start becoming more prevalent. Laurence orders Gehrman to secretly recruit more hunters in an attempt to keep things in secret. In an attempt to find a cure, Laurence and Ludwig go down the Chalice Dungeons but all they find is the Holy Moonlight Sword

Age 42: Maria dies. Ludwig blames Gehrman for her death and subsequently cuts off all contact with him. Gehrman secretly creates the Doll. Yharnam now knows publicly about the beasts. Ludwig creates the Church Hunters in response and creates his own weapons. The Executioners led by Logarius are given enough funding by the Church to start their plans of a crusade to Ludwig’s secret dismay. He sends his family away from Yharnam as a precaution.

Age 44: Cainhurst Massacre occurs. Logarius makes himself a martyr to hide the secret that Annaliese is immortal. Laurence and Ludwig begin to have arguments but both subsequently choose to ignore it now that Logarius is gone for good.

Age 48: Old Yharnam burns by Laurence’s orders. Powder Kegs leave the hunters entirely to create their own faction. Any hunter who participated in the burning develop a chronic cough due to smoke inhalation and turn to the Old Blood for relief, quickening their transformations into beasts.

Age 56: Hunts are a daily occurrence. Laurence, Gehrman, and Micolash decide to summon Flora to find a way to stop the scourge. They get the Hunter’s Dream in exchange of Gehrman to be held as the host. Laurence promises Gehrman that he will come back for him once he finds a way to cure the scourge. Micolash’s sanity begins to crumble soon after due to having direct audience with a fully ascended Great One and plans the Mensis ritual.

Age 58: Mensis ritual occurs. The blood moon is covered up by Rom but it’s effects are still evident. Ludwig and his hunters struggle to keep up with the beasts and Laurence starts to use the Old Blood more than usual.

Age 60: Laurence transforms into a flaming cleric beast. Ludwig is forced to kill him and subsequently loses his right eye from the flames. Ludwig becomes temporary Leader/Vicar for a few months while Amelia is prepared for her role. During these months his mental state becomes more and more erratic (to the point of hallucinating Laurence and co). The HMS makes him more paranoid due to its whispers about the Hunt. Ludwig is killed off by his hunters around 6 months after Laurence’s death. Half transformed into his horse. Amelia is now Vicar.

20-30 years later. An outsider enters Yharnam looking for blood ministration.

[blood-darkened-moon]

Bloodborne

Characters The Hunter | Plain Doll | The Choir | Alfred Hunter of Vilebloods | Annalise Queen of the Vilebloods | Eileen the Crow | Bloody Crow of Cainhurst | Imposter Iosefka | Iosefka | Mergo | Valtr Master of the League | Yurie the Last Scholar | Old Hunter Henryk | Retired Hunter Djura | Mensis Scholar Damian | Arianna Woman of Pleasure | Adella the Nun | Brador Church Assassin | Simon Seeker of Secrets | Edgar Choir Intelligencer | Patches the Spider | Viola | Young Yharnam Girl | Older Sister | Saint Adeline | Master Willem | Gilbert | Oedon Chapel Dweller | Yamamura the Wanderer | Fishing Hamlet Priest | Runesmith Caryll | Lumenwood Kin | Suspicious Beggar

Bosses Cleric Beast | Father Gascoigne | Vicar Amelia | Witch of Hemwick | Blood-Starved Beast | Shadows of Yharnam | Darkbeast Paarl | Rom the Vacuous Spider | The One Reborn | Amygdala | Micolash Host of the Nightmare | Mergo's Wet Nurse | Martyr Logarius | Celestial Emissary | Ebrietas Daughter of the Cosmos | Gehrman the First Hunter | Moon Presence | Watchdog of the Old Lords | Keeper of the Old Lords | Yharnam Pthumerian Queen | Ludwig the Accursed/Ludwig the Holy Blade | Living Failures | Lady Maria of the Astral Clocktower | Orphan of Kos | Laurence the First Vicar

Enemies and Others Brain of Mensis | Kos | Snail Woman | Augur of Ebrietas | Infant Great One | Great One | Messengers | Celestial Minion | Celestial Child | Shark-Giant | Rabid Dog/Crow-Headed Dog | Carrion Crow/Dog-Headed Crow | Bestial Hunter | Winter Lantern | Church Servant | Chapel Giants | Mad One | Enlarged Head Patient | Enlarged Head Giant | Silver Lady | Bloodsucking Beast | Gargoyle | Snatcher | Scourge Beast | Beast Patient | Brainsucker | Wheelchair Huntsman | Maneater Boar | Hamlet Fishmen | Younger Madaras Twin | Older Madaras Twin | Labyrinth Rat

Ships/Groups Ludwig x Laurence | Gascoigne x Viola | The Doll and Maria

Others Bloodborne Kart | BB Trivia | BB Meta | BB Weapon

[val-of-the-north]

Name your 5 favorite Bloodborne ships and justify your opinion! (Also if you take too long to respond this ask I will cast a curse on you that will make every pizza slice you hold to sprout pineapple pieces from within AHAHAHAHA! When I am late to reply - this is stress and busy life, when you are late to reply - this is being lazy booboo the fool xD)

This is a hard one for me!!! I am not the shippiest of people (I am more for different scenarios than fixed ships more often than not), but I shall try my best! They aren't in any particular order.

5) Gatekeeper x Dores

This one makes sense but basically no one ships them because they are two obscure characters that don’t really impact the story all that much. Fully reasonable lmao. Sadly, I am ALL for obscure characters so they did not escape my radar. I just think they’d have a very fun dynamic, seeing as she is feral and creepy while he is incredibly paranoid and strict. They are into some weird ass shit too, after all they are both insane lol.

4) Damian x Micolash

It was pretty much one of the introductory ships lmao, and it makes great sense too. I view Damian as one of Micolash’s greater enforcers and perhaps even enabler. He is kind of Micolash’s muscle because the scholar wasn’t particularly strong back in the day, and his power only comes from close contact with the Arcane. Damian was probably the least disposable of the people in Yahar’gul which is saying something when it comes to Micolash lol. This one doesn’t end very well though, as the two of them part ways after Damian finally listens to his conscience...

3) Brador x Laurence

This ship has some veeeery good angst potential, and that is one of the aspects that draws me to it. Brador would do anything for Laurence, and the vicar is incredibly greatful for it, despite this attitude somewhat spoiling him in the long run. However, I don’t picture this ship as reciprocated, Laurence only views him as a close, devoted friend, and Brador accepts this despite wishing for so much more... of course he is driven mad by having to kill Laurence, and vows to keep his name and legacy clear for as long as he lives and even beyond. It’s some inhuman dedication that Laurence will never bear witness to.

2) Rom x Ebrietas

It’s one of the more “abstract” of these ships since it’s probably really hard to understand a being like Ebrietas... however, she seems to have a connection with the Rom-like body, mourning it. I believe that to be Rom’s real world body, meaning Ebrietas had to be fond of her at some point. This becomes even more interesting when taking into account that all clues point to Rom having been human(oid) at some point and ascending. A being like Ebrietas caring for something so insignificant to her... even the Choir seems perplexed, wondering why she'd even weep for something like Rom. I think that’s really sweet, if not incredibly sad too... (I do not ignore that Rom could also be her surrogate child of sort, but Great Ones marrying mortals isn’t something entirely new, so who knows for sure?)

1) Two particular Yurie ships

Lol lmao. I could not choose between the ones I have. I’ve always appreciated Yurie, and thinking back at some of these ships makes me feel a bit fuzzy inside. They go waaaay back! The one that makes the most sense is of course her relationship with Rom. I imagine them being very close, and their bond being one of the reasons why she still protects her in Byrgenwerth. If Rom had any importance to the Choir as a whole, they’d probably send more of their ranks to protect her, but it’s just Yurie on her own. Another one is with Damian, and this one is pretty strange I admit ahah... it was a crackship of sorts, but I could ALSO see the potential in it, with both of them having fled their institutions to find themselves in the emptied halls of Byrgenwerth, reflecting upon their mistakes and perhaps bonding over them. Of course the only thing she CAN’T give up is Rom, so when Damian shows up with a curious hunter in tow, she knows what they are there to do and she won’t allow it.

Well, you may have noticed that these ships are all tragic (except Dores & Gatekeeper lol) and DON’T have happy endings... yeah that sounds about right for a Soulsborne game ahah, wish I could be less of a downer but the source material won’t let me :(

[katyspersonal]

Ah, shoot, I did not mean to say that Mergo is Paleblood! I meant to say that Mergo was the reason 'Paleblood Sky' has been active all this time ever since Mensis Ritual!

It doesn't seem like Rom has been hindering/stopping Mensis Ritual in any capacity - only concealing it! (+ Interesingly, Willem urges us, a hunter, to get in the Lake, most likely knowing we will hunt her, so I think Rom's concealment existed before School of Mensis did their thing) Since at enough Insight, we can hear Mergo cry even before killing Rom. What seems to be happening is - Bloodmoon is a strong trigger of beasthood and hunt cycle, and it subtly influences people even through Rom's concealment. Like kind of a sound you can't hear but the waves still cause effect on you biologically 🤔

But I agree that largest part of it is Moon Presence. But also, Kin in general, it seems? Marine Kin (like Brainsuckers) and celestial Kin (like Living Failures, Celestial Emissaries, Ebrietas, Fluorescent Flowers etc) bleed "blood" that appears to be blood devoid of red cells! So, metaphorically and literally, their blood becomes "pale" in worship and evolution under Great Ones. Willem and Doll bleed colorless blood too, but their is not so grey; rather very white and "shiny". Interestingly, Amygdalas and Flora bleed normal red, and Rom bleeds red from her body but grey from her head. But only in the lake! In the dungeons version, her head bleeds red too. (more pictures in this ( x ) post).

Basically I think that Paleblood Sky is cosmos and its effects in general, so Mergo being the reason for Bloodmoon hanging low would mean Mergo summoning Paleblood with their cries! So, pulling the Bloodmoon down, into mortal world, rather than being it. It seems that Flora / Moon Presence has not... really been a problem after Laurence summoned her? She took Gehrman, but implication was that what summoned her to begin with was a cord we find in the Workshop (so, an Great One infant)! My luckiest guess is bait-and-switch. And since then, every full moon night, there would be a Dreaming Hunter to help. But from Nightmare of Mensis, it seems that Wet Nurse would be the Great One that came for the call, and took Mergo; Micolash and his victims with her too it seems, because that's what crows do in this lore. And when Bloodmoon is revealed, Oedon becomes active, making Arianna (and very likely Fauxsefka too) pregnant.

So it is more like uhhh... Paleblood Sky IS Moon Presence, but also not...? There is this Bloodmoon thing as an occurrence, when the two realms interact and Great Ones will be more active, as well as beast transformations getting dialed up to 11, or people just go insane. And there is Moon Presence that occupies this thing + can be replaced (that our Hunter does in one of the endings). But Flora resides in the Dream with Gehrman, Doll, Messengers and whoever is the Hunter of the night; meanwhile, everything in the game hints towards the fact that the reason Bloodmoon hovers over Yharnam and has been hovering for a long while is Mensis Ritual, not Laurence's... 🤔 "The Mensis ritual must be stopped, lest we all become beasts". Source of why everyone is still becoming beasts, no matter how many you kill or contain is Mergo's crying (which is Mensis Ritual)!

Basically, there is nothing to 100% confirm or 100% deny. According to Miyazaki, Paleblood can be "many things", and I think it put it the best in a way

funniest thing in bloodborne is still that if your insight is low enough micolash can't use his mirror teleportation trick. most other insight related stuff is still there if the hunter can't see it like the amygdala can still fucking GET you no matter how much the hunter doesn't believe they exist but the hunter CAN develop a "magic isn't real idiot" forcefield powerful enough to just disable micolash's funhouse mirrors

[fantomette22]

Prom Night, Goes Wrong (part 1)

The scholastic year is coming to an end. During the ball to celebrated the end of their examinations, a student accidentally made a disturbing discovery in a place were they shouldn’t be normally allowed.

Push by curiosity and concern, a little group decide to investigate.

One question is on their mind. What dark secrets could possibly hide Byrgenwerth ?

And here’s another little bloodborne story set at Byrgenwerth i hope to tell and write one day !

Characters (all students at the time) : Damian, Micolash, Rom, Maria, Charles an « oc » (he actually fit in the lore), Caryll, Ludwig.

Alternative versions :

[mangledskull]

All-nighter

[fareehaandspaniards]

Explanation for shitpost

One of my favourite ships is Laurence x Rom

So this was born. Shitpost:

[pyro-madder]

So for the ask game, what about Gehrman and Laurence? :D

*already frothing at the mouth* sure thing ! :) gonna try to group them both at once

favorite thing about them :

- G : probably his fight. It looks like a movie ! The beautiful scenery, the mentor and student clashing their weapons in the same fighting style, and of course the MUSIC ! (if i lack sleep and focus too much on the way the voices go down on "misereTE" i WILL cry)

- L : also his fight ! Despite the difficulty it's one of my favorites. Beautiful music as well. I also adore the calm of his english dub, it's one of the few I really prefer over the french one !

least favorite thing about them :

- G : how little we get to actually speak to him. I understand it's on purpose (we're just another hunter, why would he try to bond with us if it's gonna end the same as with the dozens that came before us ?) but it still frustrates me ! X)

- L : hard to say. sometimes i fear i don't see him as terrible as he may have been, but "may" is the key word here - he's nuanced, how much good and bad there was is up to each's interpretation and I consider this question to be canon-only

favorite line :

- G : "The night, and the dream, were long..."

- L : "EEEAAAAAARRRRRRGGHHH !!!" (+ "Fear the Old Blood" because his voice combined with Willem's sounds beautiful + "Indeed, Gehrman - it won't be long" because ouch.)

brOTP : I accidentally created a Gehrman/Damian friendship by upgrading the latter as school staff rather than senior student. Think about it : Byrgenwerth's groundskeeper and archivist, each finding themselves babysitting looking after their half of the squad (Laurence + Maria // Micolash + Rom, with Caryll somewhere in the middle), and then meeting again in the Dream ! (dissolving emoji) Gehrman parrying Damian's questions about the Doll ! (emoji dissolves harder) and now they're both sad old men who forgot each other yippie

There's also Oto whom Gehrman knew prior to the Workshop's creation and offered a position in ! And then Izzy :) your friendly neighbourhood craftsmen. And Ludwig probably !

For Laurence, it's Micolash. Two sides of a coin through and through ! Whether they're working together, making out or strangling each other, there's no filter between them, from their meeting to their separation. World's worst dormmates ! <3

OTP : eachother + Maria for Gehrman and Ludwig for Laurence.

gehrence + ludrence* are a hard tie, following a similar dynamic due to the common denominator, but with their distinct flavor since they happen at two distinct points of the timeline. gehrmaria's a bit behind for now but as I've said earlier I'm hoping to bring it to the same level 😁 They're all so beautifully tragic, with a lot of tenderness but also a streak of unhealthy dependance, doomed through and through. basically i wasn't kidding when calling them the World's Worst Polycule(tm)

*i know the fandom has other shipnames but i don't want to use them for several petty reasons, sorry if anyone out there needs to add my names to their blacklist.

nOTP : for both, none that I know of.

random headcanon : let's talk families ! Wolves have been hunted to extinction in Yharnam's region by the time the story begins in Byrgenwerth, and the person who shot the last one is a relative of Gehrman (his dad probably). On Laurence's side, only his mother is "known" (air quotes because he's extremely discreet about her, like everything in his past). Even in their homeland, she stood out, nicknamed La zorra/The vixen, and that reputation extended to Laurence who looks a lot like her. Her death (unsure circumstances yet) was the final thing that drove him to leave his homeland after getting his licence.

unpopular opinion : for Gehrman it's obvious, for Laurence i have no idea. X) i'm a hermit so if discourse doesn't appear directly on my dash i'll have no clue about how is it over there...

song i associate with them :

Gehrman : Old and Wise by Alan Parsons' Project

Laurence : Found God in a Tomato by Psychedelic Prn Crumpets

favorite picture of them : too much choice ! their boss cutscene, lots of beautiful fanart (@/redzombie's portrait of laurence, @/pupspuppet's gehrmans, @/subzeroparade's gehrences, Raquel Cornejo's illustrated lore...) i'm also fond of the pattern in my own art where laurence does his thing and gehrman looks either confused or tired sdfghjklm

[katyspersonal]

Damn.... Yeah, I agree with you completely that people will be cruel to characters they don't simp for, and most fans with male blorbos are attracted just to men, so... But also her specifically is not a usual case, because the Twitbr female-loving side of Bloodborne fandom did her dirty as well. If someone is really seething at Fauxsefka this much, here is something curious you can easily shut them up with:

Miyazaki HIMSELF resents that people get the wrong idea of Fauxsefka! (from interview ( x )) Evil Fauxsefka interpretation is not blown out of proportion on the significance, but also isn't accurate to the vision of the creator! She is heroic and turns people into Kin not because she is some callous monster, but so they do not turn into beasts instead!

It is a courage of doing something morally fucked up in a way to resist the bigger evil, and this sentiment is actually reused in Soulsborne games!

^ It is not a secret that Rom is not stopping Mensis Ritual but only concealing it and makes it less "painful" for everyone; the 'source of spearing beasthood' is Mergo's cry that can be heard even before Rom dies with enough Insight! But for as long as the Red Moon hangs above Yharnam, everyone in it WILL become a beast sooner or later. Even if they stop taking the holy blood and hunting. Because Eldrich horrors are still summoning the monster within. Yurie, Fauxsefka's friend, is in Byrgenwerth and doesn't let us get to Rom, so maybe Choir people know. Fauxsefka refuses to just do nothing and delay the bitter end of humanity, her intent is not to be an eeeevil scientist but to protect people in the ONLY way left! I will second Zullie the Witch on the thought that if Miyazaki also sees characters like Aldrich or Rykard as heroic no one should be surprised. You do not just sit idly before the world's end and "die with the dignity", but dare to do something nearly insane. In her case, still, "she is like Micolash but normal" is the best way I can describe her x)

Now I understand that enough people might not agree with her methods. For that matter, Paleblood Hunter and Damian are more heroic as those that actually go to STOP Mensis Ritual, but they kill Rom who is innocent, so are they good? Bloodborne is a shit setting where being a 100% good person is impossible by proxy and characters are judged by their situation, perspective and what other choices they had. When the world is ending, does it matter by which means you "protect" yourself and others? But I am pretty sure you've seen enough of similar analyses on male characters, it is just sad that people don't want to give female characters the same amount of thought and understanding.

I think people that hate Adella's guts but excuse Alfred as poor brainwashed baby are a much better example to illustrate the problem; you need to either hate both or excuse both, double standard is disgusting.

dudebro fandoms like bloodborne obviously have a huge problem with misogyny but im really sick of seeing people genuinely hate imposter iosefka when they praise the male characters who did so much more shit than she did. have you considered jumping off a bridge. do it for me. if your male blorbo has done the same or even worse than the female character you love to hate bc she’s just so bad and manipulative and hes so sensitive and clever reconsider. look inside or go to the bridge