#miquella more so lol

[yellowplumfruit]

the parallels between ranni and miquella are so good are u kidding me!! both of them want the lands between to be out from under the greater will’s thumb and believe that they need to take matters into their own hands. both of them have done horrible things for what they believe is the greater good. but the difference between the two is that ranni values free will and miquella does not

[wanderingmausoleum]

the opening lines of the shadow of the erdtree trailer remind me a LOT of a certain quote from another game:

and with this in mind, i really hope that the direction they go with miquella is less like the manipulative griffith-esque archetype some people are theorizing, and more like N’s characterization in pokemon black and white: someone very intelligent and powerful but naïve, whose honest attempts at creating a better world might bring about more destruction in the end.

[powerfulscribbles]

Hot take: Even though I love that he beat the Miquellallegations, pre-dlc Mohg was so much better and had a lot to go for in terms of power, potential and how conniving and dedicated he was to achieve his goal. I miss him.

Also the premises for a Lord of Blood ending were right there. It would've been an interesting alternative option where you as a player, not only as a Tarnished, are giving up both your role as main character and your quest to become Elden Lord, thus letting someone else seize that opportunity.

I understand Miquella's plan for godhood and the creation of a gentler world (which is still ultimately destined to fail if we intervene and avoid having our heart stolen by him), but it removed so much agency from Mohg in particular, in my opinion.

[art-from-within]

Radagon probably had the biggest “I could never be better than first elden lord” thoughts everyday marika let him swap bodies. Like think abt it. He becomes elden lord, but every one is still. BITCHINg about motherfucking GODFREY. The FIRST ELDEN CHAD. GET IT RADAGON. FIRST ELDEN C H A D. Even Miriel is confused as to how he came abt right? Like yea he was a champion…but the successor to the legend GODFREY? GOD in his name Godfrey? Ehhhhhhhhh you know the ER denizens was shitting tears everytime he walked anywhere. Betting u 100 mil runes ppl were crying abt Godfrey’s exile during his own crowning ceremony

Godfrey is so seductively astonishing in his bearing that he gets passes Radagon can only dream of. Godfrey is tarnished? Dgaf he is top tier. Godfrey grafts? (Serosh) what a madlad. Godfrey wants to genocide so bad he needs a beast to hold him back? That’s what makes him soooo cool. Then comes unkown radagon and all the colosseum fun leaves with Godfrey. And what does Radagon do? What is he cool with? “Magic maths (golden order fudamentalism)” oh. A fucking nerd.

Man becomes concious, right infront of him is a big Godfrey portrait that some dumbass stuck up. Marika probably has wet dreams about Godfrey still. Loud omens (ahem morgott ahem) singing abt Godfrey from the shunning grounds. Serosh symbol everywhere. People don’t remember seconds…they remember firsts. And its quite obvious the lands between still remembers. You have got godrick and his bannermen, well yea makes sense he is his descendant right? Then explain starscourge Radahn having more lions covering his body than red hair cells. Ranni probably hates his guts. Rykard resorts to blasphemy (also probably hates his guts.) Atleast he had malenia and miquella…for a while atleast until Miquella said “your maths aren’t mathing enough” and left him….

sucks to be radagon. But hey, he gets to selfcest atleast. Except Marika fucking hates his guts too because they are polar opposites.

“Hey babe-“

“LEAL hound of the GoLdEn OrDeR”

“Yea….(turns off)”

[blasphemousclaw]

i had to straight up stop watching his elden ring videos cuz id just keep stopping like "thats not true. thats been debunked. theres no support for that. thats your conjecture presented as fact" just all the time. not going to invoke a certain eternally youthful lil bug god but the fact vaati keeps deliberately saying certain tree soldiers are mind controlled into blowing themselves up *when their armor description says the exact opposite* just to provide support for a certain bazonk reference was one of the last straws for me.

ALSO HE JUST SAYS RYKARDS A REDHEAD!!!! DO YOU SEE ANY HAIR ON THAT SNAKE VAATI??? CUZ I DONT. what we SHOULD be theorizing about is radahns reaction when morgott pounced on him chimpanzee style when he attacked leyndell

godddd its literally so obnoxious like he just makes assumptions that are either unprovable or provably untrue 😭 either way it’s misinformation… like if you’re making an assumption based on your own conjecture you should be open about what sources of information you’re basing your conjecture on. you can’t just present it like a true statement

“three children were born each with radagon’s red hair” rykard having red hair is an assumption that is not provable. you could point to the gelmir knight helm description (“its red feathers symbolize rykard’s pedigree as lord radagon’s son”) as evidence for why you believe that to be the case and make an argument, but then you also have to account for the fact that he literally does not have red hair in any portrait we have of him. the video this statement is from is presented like a grand cinematic narrative, so of course he goes with the romantic image of radagon and rennala’s three redheaded children complete with art and music and dramatic narration. that doesn’t automatically make it true though

[shame-kink]

*the softened yet punctual thwack of wood being swung violently against flesh*

[baekuras]

Elden Ring DLC is already amazing bc the first thing I did was die so some stealthy screaming naked maniac with gauntlets and the second thing I did was avoid the dog on fire that was positivley surrounded by bloodstains

[girlvinland]

I know people are upset about ER DLC lore stuff, but tbh I am having the time of my life playing this right now.

[drenched-in-sunlight]

I didn’t want to write this out this early because I’m sure there are even more to discover, but people are already reblogging my previous art of Marika and Messmer & saying Marika doesn’t love him, so I write this out as a guideline that all my art is drawn with this theory in mind.

(While the DLC has changed the way I feel about certain events and characters, my view on Messmer and Marika remain unchanged. In fact, I think Marika skyrockets into my most fav in the game now. lol.)

* Beware of endgame spoiler under the cut

Please note that I wrote this without providing the item descriptions I use to develop this theory, because I want to make a proper post later with all evidence after I’ve played through all of the DLC. But those items exist and could be found in game.

Here is how I view Messmer and Marika’s relationship (he is her most beloved child):

For starter:

*the winged serpent - Messmer’s symbol, is considered a wise creature and is his friend. It is NOT the snakes that are viewed as traitors to the Erdtree, since the Serpent Crest shield was even made to commemorate his crusade. It’s also DIFFERENT from the evil snake he was born with.

*this is not to defend their actions, they are still horrible people, but I want to show that they have depths and are well-written characters with stories and emotions. My unhinged mother and son duo 😔✊

—-

I like the poetry in Marika starting the war against the Fire Giants in part as revenge for Messmer (it’s implied the Fell God is the Outer God that cursed him / it’s outright stated that he hated his fire), & now Messmer leading the purge against the Hornsent as revenge for Marika and her people (it’s implied the disappearance of her village has sth to do with the spirit calling rite the people at the Tower were doing).

I actually think Marika raised Messmer in her home village for a while too. She didn’t throw him to LoS alone, she was raising him in secret in her home, fearing people will judge him for carrying a malevolent snake. The two Tree Sentinels before the village dropped Marika’s Blessing. Yes. the Blessing she made specifically for him.

When you zoom in the Marika statue in his boss room, she was smiling when hugging him. I think ppl tend to forget that Marika, like Malenia and Miquella, carries tree/ foliage motif. RADAGON IS WEAK TO FIRE. If Messmer was cursed with fire and it started to manifest around him … of course she couldn’t embrace him anymore. It was physically hurting her, and Messmer wouldn’t have wanted to cause her pain as well. The soldier ghost at Ensis castle was begging Marika to embrace her child again, implying it’s sth that he yearns for. But couldn’t have now. Because of his damned curse.

If you look at the story that way, Messmer’s death dialogue makes perfect sense. It’s his lament that he’s gone from Marika’s precious (presumably firstborn) child, a source of her happiness, to a curse against her (*point to Radagon’s hair as another connection to Fire Giants and their curse). Robbing her (and himself) of the close bond they used to share.

It’s why Messmer alone has more blessings *directly* from Marika than any other Demigods. His army also receives more blessings than any other faction on the Lands Between, and they all refer to Marika as dearest Mother and Fair Mother.

Hell, after Messmer, Marika couldn’t connect to any of her other children again. This is like the ultimate doomed mother and son. Whatever I expected from them from the beginning, Fromsoft cranked it to eleven. Jfc.

[magpie-come-east]

It’s definitely not out of the realm of possibility but it does seem odd that Ansbach is the only one of the SOTE NPCs that is regularly accused of being an unreliable narrator/biased.

The game doesn’t shy away from making Hornsent (NPC) a potentate as well as a victim of Messmers genocide. The game doesn’t shy away from having Freyja admit that Jerren would feel greatly betrayed by Radahn’s resurrection. Leda is cloaked in a veneer of respectability and scruples, but she’s a paranoid murderer- and her weapon and the oathsworn set confirm this extended beyond Miquella’s followers.

Ansbach’s armor only states he wanted to fight for Mohg’s dignity. His scythe says it is brutal but doesn’t rely on trickery. His blood incantation again highlights his incredible fighting skill. Being a ‘good warrior’ isn’t really enough to be damning to me. So was everyone sworn to a Demigod lol. Nothing about him once mentions his and Mohg’s supposed shared goal of making Miquella into a vessel for the FM. He even tells the Tarnshed that he blames the charm for Mohg’s aggression against the Tarnished. Like. Idk man. It seems less like Ansbach has a blind spot about Mohg and more like Mohg was driven mad by the charm.

This is a long ramble. But in the end I suppose what I mean is that people seem to want to reach to make Ansbach a secret snake that can’t be trusted. Because people would rather project an unsubstantiated persona onto a fleshed out character than accept Mohg was worth even a modicum of sympathy.

[wraith-caller]

The way you described artists designing Godwyn to be a boring conventionally attractive man with zero signs of being transmogrified into an Eldritch horror is so funny because that’s exactly what Fromsoft did with Radahn. Despite him apparently going through this harrowing process of being reincarnated into Mohg’s body he just ended up looking like Medieval G.I. Joe 😭 (this is no hate by the way I think both are stupid)

Would it be weird if I said I expected someone to say this lol 😭

While I do understand wanting Radahn to be more grotesque (and I think it would've gone farther to sell Ansbach's words about Mohg being done such a huge disservice being used in this way), I can at least understand why Radahn *isn't* a horror show. He's being remade by Miquella who has passed into godhood. Not much is told to us about this process, so FS is not exactly*undoing* anything by not making Radahn more hideous. They're maybe missing an opportunity, in some of our opinions, but it could also be seen as symbolic of Miquella's compassion being somewhat surface level and shallow - that beneath these noble ideals, there is suffering, betrayal, and cruelty.

Meanwhile, the problem with hot blond Godwyn consort is that it actively denies the base game's lore about him. Miquella has tried twice to fix his horrific fate, with the eclipse and the golden epitaph's prayer to just die already!! But the problem is, Godwyn simply can't die, and he can't be reborn. This is a result of how Marika designed reality, and it's super tragic because she made it this way to (likely) protect those she loved only to unwittingly make it possible to condemn Godwyn to this disturbing and miserable existence. Miquella cannot just wave his hand and fix that, and he's tried very hard.

So when some people come along and condescendingly decide FS has just butchered its own lore by not having Godwyn come back as a pure and golden beacon of conventionally attractive hope is just showing a serious misunderstanding of what is going on with Godwyn to begin with. If Godwyn is trapped in this hideous stasis because of the way reality is currently designed, Miquella can do nothing to help him until he's ascended and can rewrite those rules in some new way, same as our own Tarnished who can change things when we become Marika's lord.

That's my understanding, at least!

[mytypeismohg]

Elden Ring DLC Spoilers Warning!!!

Miquella, the "kind" lmao. Manipulative little siren. I guess the Griffith analogy was kinda right. Basically everyone is controlled by him, the Haligtree was deliberately left to rot??? Why??? So why did he even do all those things, did he just give up and go crazy or was all of it just part of his mind games? Poor Mohg, he was made to be a "creep" against his own will just so someone would come and defeat him. Malenia, the Haligtre soldiers, all Miquella's followers, possibly even Radahn himself are all being played like chess pieces by Miquella. I hate to say it but I had a bad feeling after looking more into Mohg’s story. The great Lord of Blood was known as someone fearsome and worthy of being served, he seemed to be quite active too, then he "somehow" accesses the Haligtree and then IMMEDIATELY he...changes. Now obsessing over Miquella, now his entire Dynasty revolves around him desperately trying to wed Miquella at any cost, seemingly forcefully. Except it was made to seem that way...to get someone to come and "save" Miquella. To end Mohg, who most likely was never interested in him to begin with. Was Radahn even interested? Is he also a master manipulator? Or is he just another toy for Miquella? Miquella played everyone, but my question is...why? Is he a lunatic that believes its "for the best"? Or is he just truly wicked and selfish? As bad as my heart aches for Mohg, I feel worse for Malenia. She's loved and known her "dearest brother" since childhood, only to be led into a war that nearly took her life and then left at the rotting Haligtree like trash along with all the soldiers....hoping Miquella would cone back to save them. Except, he just ran off with the very person who nearly killed his sister, and what's worse...Radahn is probably being used as well. Miquella should rename himself Damien lol. I guess Miquella is like Marika, except while she uses war and fear, he uses "love".

[mohgreal]

How I think the elden ring demigods would cope with grief / mourning because i'm fucked lol also this is revenge for how much ive died to them . warning for grief unhealthy coping and all that but that's expected

Morgott: you can't even really tell, he still looks and acts stoic. looks slightly more sad than usual. still does work as normal, but he thinks about []'s death often. He isn't truly close with anyone so it doesn't affect as much but he's still affected by it, depending on who is just how much. He's slightly slower at doing his everyday tasks for the golden order & lyndell, and you heard through a rumour he keeps visiting churches and staring at the wall sadly while praying. But that's just a rumour, right?

Mohg: Obligatory demigod to put here of course. Also isn't super close to anyone in particular, but similar to Morgott is still affected by it, but it's more obvious and less repressed. More irritable, though he actually does more work than usual as opposed to being sluggish as a distraction. Still well composed in public, mostly just cries a bit in his bedroom. There's also weird music playing...? And candles...? And...is that...blood...? Wait, he isn't trying to do a ritual is he? Is he sobbing? Wait, no, he's chanting. Fuck— [NIHIL heard in distance]

Radagon: Not a demigod but I'm adding him here too because of all my attempts trying to beat him. He's always been stoic, expressionless, does he even have soul? His chest hurts a bit whenever he has to sleep because there's a window right beside it and he sees the full moon & hears the sound of crickets. Than the morning comes and he has to deal with the rays of the sun that remind him of the golden order, and birds singing like they sung when he woke up next to her once. Very silently sad, as he is silently everything else. EDIT: forgot to mention my headcanon of him not eating pre-his-body-getting-shattered. enjoy that as well. (thank you to run cried the wolf for giving me this depressing idea)

Miquella: It hurts him even when it's someone he doesn't even know, because he loves. He did love everything, everyone once. He abandoned his love though, so now you'll find him attending flowerless graves zoning out. It's hard to remember something you let leave your chest, right?

yeahhh ill do more later i think. feel free to add to my misery :)

[blasphemousclaw]

i love how hornsent (npc) is unnamed and how it seems that in hornsent culture names are maybe are only for those of high rank (elder inquisitor jori is the only named hornsent, hornsent calls his family "mother, wife, and child" and refers to leda as "the woman" despite leda clearly having introduced herself to her other comrades and also announcing her name before the enir-ilim battle, but calls marika and miquella by their names, then calls messmer just "the impaler" before clarifying his name) and how it makes you address your ability to have compassion for someone who doesnt like you and doesnt want to be your friend and doesnt give his name. but also its so difficult to talk about hornsent (npc) and hornsent (people) because of this. do we call him the hornsent man??? do we keep going hornsent (npc) forever. to be clear i dont want to him to have a name but its so awkward..

yeah I think it’s super intentional that Hornsent doesn’t have a name; I don’t think it’s because that’s a part of hornsent culture tho because we do have a few other named hornsent of varying roles in society… in addition to Jori there’s also Curseblades Labirith and Meera, Divine Bird Warrior Ornis, and we don’t know if Romina and Midra are themselves hornsent but they’re at least culturally aligned with the hornsent… the Curseblades were not well regarded in hornsent society at all, and were in fact imprisoned before the time of Messmer’s invasion… so I do think that all hornsent did have names in the past, and the reason we don’t know a lot of them is more for thematic reasons

in one way I can see the lack of named hornsent as a testament to how thoroughly they’ve been decimated and erased from history, but I think even more importantly, we have to remember our character is grace-given, so living people like Hornsent and Hornsent Grandam have every reason to be suspicious of us and withhold their names! both respond to us in a very guarded and standoffish way, with good reason!

I also really like the idea that Hornsent no longer uses names from his past because his old self “died” in the fires alongside his family (@katyspersonal puts it really well in this post), like he’s making a choice to be nameless because he can never be that same person again! (also re: Leda I think he just didn’t care enough about her to use her name LOL)

but I 100% agree on the idea that the hornsent NPCs not having names is like, addressing your compassion as the player… these guys aren’t soft, weepy victims who are looking to be your friend… they’re angry, they’re hurting, and they want nothing to do with you! and why should they? their entire world was destroyed! I really dislike the attitude that if you’re not the “right” kind of victim, you clearly deserved everything you got. which is unfortunately how a lot of people have responded to the DLC

with all that said you’re so right that Hornsent just being called “Hornsent” is really confusing lol… I made a post somewhat recently about Hornsent not being able to heal (using the flasks of crimson tears) and like half the replies thought I was talking about ALL hornsent enemies healing lmaoooo it really is a problem… I try to differentiate by exclusively using capital-H Hornsent for our guy and lowercase-h for the hornsent as a whole because that’s how it is in game but it’s still not super distinct. oh well I guess I’ll have to keep typing Hornsent (guy)

[heraldofcrow]

SOTE haters be like: "boohoo it is all FromSLOP's fault that fans are babyfying Marika and making Miquella a villain, had they not written Marika as an actual person with the story instead of a caricature and had they not put Miquella through tragic descent instead of wholesome hopepunk stuff they literally never did, fans would magically stop ignoring obvious canon clues to make a character into what THEY want instead!!! Bad writing!!!" 🤦‍♂️

So, "good writing" is writing characters like bland caricatures that have nothing to do with how real humans and world we live in are? Honestly I have no idea what's going on in people's heads when they blame realistic writing (nobody is BORN evil @ naive idealism doesn't work on humans so you either give up or force people to be friends) for the takes they dislike

There is this thing that happened in the Elden Ring fandom that keeps reminding me of the DS2 backlash, but it’s not gamer rage over mechanics and the physical experience of the game — it’s that newer (?) (probably not) wave of nonsense that is permeating countless other fandoms that people recently blame on “puriteens.”

Basically, those younger people that haven’t had enough experience to see the world beyond black and white, Tik Tok-based morals; where everything has to be moderated and pure enough, progressive enough, GOOD enough to meet some high standard of ethics.

I’m honestly relying on the Soulsborne fandom as partial proof that this issue HAS gotten worse in some ways because of Elden Ring…but I wouldn’t be surprised if it started and flourished in places like the Undertale fandom, where the game itself trying to teach a valuable moral lesson resulted in younger people that played it becoming extremely hostile online towards anyone who dared to take the Genocide route to see the outcome.

People who wanted to see the end of that route were going to learn the lesson of the game. They were MEANT to learn that lesson and find out why it was the morally unsound path to take within the context of the story. There were also people who could take that route every time just to enjoy the tragedy of it or simply because it was more interesting.

That was absolute heresy to the puritan fans who wanted to control other players and condemn them for even thinking of committing that crime against the poor characters. They didn’t want the “lesson to be learned,” because in their minds, who would ever willingly go kill to learn that killing was bad?? Oh no, anyone who would do that is evil already!

(Forget that all of it wasn’t real of course…or that the Genocide route was essentially just a regular video game lmao.)

And even since then, I’ve seen this blossom in so many big fandoms.

“Just because I like doesn’t mean I condone blah blah”

Nobody should have to say that statement ever again.

Nobody should have to rigorously defend the satire of “my mass murderer did nothing wrong.”

And more people should understand that even the worst of the worst!!…the… *gasp* justifiers!! of fictional war criminals are often just viewers swayed by the villain or antihero’s philosophy or reasoning for revenge. Or mayhaps they were charmed by devilish good looks. How could the young ladies do this??? /s

The people screaming “Thanos was right!” or whatever, are usually….90% of the time…not mass murders in real life. Some of them might be assholes or creeps, and sure, you might have to smack them upside the head with “Hey! Your justification of this character within the story is a bad interpretation and rooted in bias or misunderstanding!”

Yeah, that can be a problem. Those people can be troublesome in the heat of fandom drama. But then again…toxic fans of any kind can be this way too. Toxic shippers are often some of the cruelest, most actively harmful members of fandoms, and even then…cases where people start getting murdered en masse is rare, mind you. Lol.

Fiction is not what affects reality in a negative way, it’s people’s IDEAS about fiction that affect reality in a negative way…IF they choose to not be responsible with how they react or behave.

That’s it.

Their interpretations, their takeaways, their decisions on how to engage with it or be inspired by it, all of this CAN be negative, yes.

The Genocide route in Undertale did not inspire anyone to go commit genocide, but it did create a wave of fandom puritanism that caused harm to others. And that’s ironic isn’t it? That shouldn’t be the case, right? A story that intended to share a moral lesson about why harming others is wrong ended up inspiring people to harm others in fandom. How does that make sense?

Well, it doesn’t if you blame the game and story.

It DOES make sense if you observe how people were choosing to interpret it. The story itself does not have to be taken seriously, engaged with, or even acknowledged. It only has as much power as you give it.

FromSoftware being blamed for people CHOOSING to treat Marika like she did nothing wrong or people not seeing the signs of Miquella’s downfall is taking the responsibility away from fans for how they engaged with the story.

Now, having said all this. Bad writing does exist and authors absolutely can mislead an audience. That’s a fair complaint and that’s one case where fiction causing people to react negatively lies partially with the fault of the writer, but it’s a spectrum in that situation as well. As fans, we still have a responsibility to not act like animals or treat each other poorly when bad writing upsets us.

I don’t believe the DLC was badly written. I think Marika’s story was beautiful and Miquella’s downfall was built up to reasonably well while still creating a nice mystery for us. I think FromSoftware is smart in leaving gaps in the story for us to fill, because that leaves us with room to decide what we think happened.

But even if they didn’t. Even if the DLC was objectively just bad…it sucked ass….that still in no way justifies what’s been going on this fandom since it released. That still would not be something to blame for people justifying the Hornsent genocide or getting too heated about interpretations of Miquella.

“Honestly I have no idea what's going on in people's heads when they blame realistic writing (nobody is BORN evil @ naive idealism doesn't work on humans so you either give up or force people to be friends) for the takes they dislike.”

Why do people blame writing at all for the takes they dislike? Why do they blame writing for OTHER people’s views and reactions?

Because of everything I just said. They shift responsibility off of others and themselves and blame it all on the story.

Video games cause violence, kids.

[agdreamtale]

Not an ask but I just want to say I love your interpretation of dream, ink and nightmare :). So many asks I come across come off as really fanon but you seem to know your stuff lol. It's refreshing to see dream as something else than a defenseless, flustered, feminine softie. Also your art is great!

thank you! we take inspiration from different media rather than fanon - not that fanon is bad, we just love other stuff too and want to sprinkle it on utmv characters (like dream taking inspiration from miquella and the concept of white lies, ink from varre and kaveh, killer from denji and teen gojo, nightmare from mohg and margott + concept of the dark truth) and there's a lot more characters we're planning on introducing and possibly have arcs on this blog.

and yes, agdt dream retains the same positive and optimistic outlook on life but being a dutiful guardian, it's his strength to have a soft and kind heart- not a weakness, hence i try to avoid interpreting the trait of him being kind as defenseless. he makes mistakes and had his kindness taken advantage of in the past but that doesn't mean he'll stop spreading joy and comfort! after all, his mother entrusted him with the responsibility, he would never want to let her down... even if he already did.

-wyllaztopia