#old hunter gratia

[bellringermal]

Other stuff I've been working on while trying different coloring and line styles.

I much prefer the cartoonish look, ngl! Anything can be a Disney movie if you believe in it hard enough :P

[gamchawizzy]

Art trade with @katyahina who wanted me to draw Simple Gratia! I hope I did her justice 💪💓

[katyahina]

Bloodborne beach episode!.... the NORMAL beach episode, and not how it went... the last time -_- *glares at monster hunters from Byrgenwerth*

In case if Tumblr ruins the quality, I shared full res on Devi: ( x ).

I've started this WIP back in summer 2021, but I've abandoned it since then, and only this summer decided to actually finish it.. Some errors since that time carried on as a result, and arguably I draw a bit better humans now... But the only true way to learn to draw large 'crowd' pieces like this is to simply draw more of them, hahah; Sizing of characters within perspective is yet to be improved, of course, not to mention that some characters are not drawn quite accurately to my heights headcanons for them but I will be real, it was fun to draw! And I just... really wanted to draw something happy and colorful for a long while, since BB's grim atmosphere striped me out of this fix. At least now there is ER for my bright colors needs lol

(Important: there are no OCs on this piece! The girl under Willem's chair is Rom, guy chased by the seaqulls is Bloody Crow, there is Byrgenwerth gatekeeper being buried in sand by Dores the Byrgenwerth graveguard (canon characters only mentiond in the item most of the players never found), Choirling is Yurie, girl next to Maria is of course Adeline, and the guy with the kite is Caryll!)

[fantomette22]

In celabration of 1 year since i start playing Bloodborne for the very first time…The Old Hunters !

Old Hunter picture :

A framed photograph from the Old workshop of a group of hunters. Surely the very first hunters of beasts in Yharnam. They seems genuinely happy.

Standing behind : Boom hammer Hunter, Saif Hunter (decorative set), Lady Maria, Gehrman the Beast Hunter, Ludwig, Gratia.

Sitting in the front : Piercing Rifle Hunter, dog, Beast Cutter Hunter, Izzy (or the bestial hunter), dog, the future first Master of the League.

And i guess Laurence or Caryll tried to take the picture. I wanted to put more characters originally bit the A3 sheets is not big enough. I had to make some choices x)

Yes the 16/03 is the day that mark 1 year since i first start playing Bloodborne. My first Fromsoftware game. It lived in my head rent free every days since. And my life as never been the same xD I learn so many cool things and meet such amazing people ! Thank you so much ! I hope to continue to share even more ideas and creations ! (Next week is Bloodborne 8th birthday as well… i will need to think of something)

[katyspersonal]

dfhdshfds I will be thinking about Mal's fanart of Gratia, Maria and Izzy depicted together all day ;-; It is all I ever wanted ;-;

[fantomette22]

EXCUSE ME

ASTROBOT WTF

FROMSOFTWARE WE NEED ANSWERS

PLEASE

Cant believe astrobot casually threw at us deep bloodborne lore

[nishihii]

people will call maria feminine despite how in both a historical and in-game universe context she dresses very masculine.

whether it's yharnam or cainhurst she will be seen as rather masculine. there were very few female old hunters- in fact we only know of two; maria and henriett. (and possibly gratia? gratia wears the yharnam hunter set meaning she was employed by ludwig and therefore came after. the same could be said for henriett, though. she wears more modern hunter clothing.) you could claim both of their masculine appearances are due to a lack of different hunter clothing at the time- however, maria's was specifically tailored for her in cainhurst where they have gendered clothing.

the regular knight sets, described very briefly and without detail:

male knight set: primarily blue with red and gold accents, cravat, striped trousers, long coat, low ponytail wig tied by a black bow, boots below knees

female knight set: primarily red with black and gold accents, cravat, shorter coat but features a skirt, higher ponytail wig tied with a far thinner red bow, small hat with a feather on top of the wearer's head, boots below knees

things to note about maria's outfit: primarily blue, features a red accent on the inside of her long coat, striped trousers, low ponytail tied with a black bow

now, please note that the female church hunter sets are different to the male- while the male has trousers the female has a long skirt. the yharnam hunter set is also different- male featuring trousers and an open coat, while the female has a closed coat, giving the silhouette of a dress (it does have trousers, though. yay.)

so yeah, maria would be seen as a very masculine woman in both her home land and yharnam.

in conclusion: maria butch butch butch butch butch butch butch butch

[thebrightestlodge]

Putting both Simple Gratia drawings together because I cherish her. Farm girl from the edges of Hemwick. Tearing apart beasts with farm equipment earned her a spot within the Hunters' ranks as a hero of the common man. A sunny disposition slowly became a silent brutality as she was molded into a sledgehammer given human form. Her last hours of sanity spent trying to repent before succumbing to the seething blood ocean that drowned all the other Old Hunters, washing them ashore into the Hunter's Nightmare.

[spirngakawening]

Npmd name stuff

Raw notes, can't bother editing

Stephanie (Greek): "crown, wreath"; "that which surrounds"

Lauter (German): clear, pure; honorable

Lautering "is the beer brewing process that separates the mash into clear liquid wort and residual grain" (according to wikipedia)

Lauter can also mean louder, noiser; all, many

Crown Pure

Peter (Greek): stone

Spankoffski (Polish): hhh I spent hours on this and I don't even have a clear answer

-offski = -owski = possessive surname from given name

Like, name/nickname/word > place name > surname

I can't find name meanings/origins for Spankoffski but there are real people with that surname

Could be explained by:

• A change in spelling, because names get altered all the time (similar surnames include Pankowski, Stankowski, Dankowski, Frankowski, Jankowski, Bankowski)

• Deriving from a Polish word that idk – I found spanie (sleeping/sleeping place; maybe Pete had a sleepy ancestor??) – or from a related language (Czech has spánek (sleep/temple) & spánkový (temporal)). Idk. I don't speak these languages

Stone of the Sleeping-place

Richard (Old German): brave ruler (rih + hart; ruler + brave)

Lipschitz (Ashkenazi Jewish): lipa + itz; linden tree + place

Linden trees have a lot of cultural significance (wikipedia)

Brave-ruler Linden-place

Ruth (Hebrew): friend; English word meaning pity/compassion (e.g. in 'ruthless')

Fleming (English): person from Flanders (waterlogged land (i.e. marshes)) – to do with water/flow, also fleeing/flight

Friend Flemish

Grace (English): from Latin gratia; 17th century puritan name

Chasity (English): derives from Chastity (purity, celibacy), Latin castus (cut off, separated, pure), related to chastise

Grace Purity

Maxwell (Scottish): Mack's stream (Mack from Magnus, Latin, meaning great)

Jägerman (German): jäger + mann; hunter man

Great's-well Hunter-man

Additional notes:

Interesting that Grace's and Steph's surnames both relate to Purity - something something neither of them achieve the purity they're expected to

Chastity and castration seem to have the same root... interesting...

Sadly fitting that Ruth's name can mean Pity

Richie's name meaning Brave Ruler,, this is so sad, alexa play the i'm not a loser motif

Max's full name being Maxwell not Maximillian,, he gets to be Great but not the Greatest

Maxwell and Fleming are both habitational names related to water

Fleming is also related to flight or escape...

Pete's surname probably changed from the original at some point. Or I just suck at researching

[sunieepo]

one of my biggest pet peeves with the bloodborne fanbase (from reading fics, mostly) is that everyone assumes that gender roles in yharnam were the same as gender roles in irl victorian england

...but this is textually not true. yes bloodborne is heavily inspired by victorian england but it's definitely not exactly the same. for starters, obviously, yharnamites worship eldritch gods which isn't at all in line with the cultural values informed by following christianity (i dont think i need to elaborate on what i mean by this)

the most obvious low hanging fruit example is vicar amelia, who is laurence's successor and current head of the healing church... and a woman, something that would never be allowed in victorian england era christianity (and honestly isnt even allowed today in many denominations)

the other which is slightly more obscure but even more valuable is that yharnamites are, in-canon, heavily inspired by the culture of the pthumerians. whether yharnam was literally built in the name of pthumerian queen yharnam or if it was simply named after her later is unclear, but the yharnamites evidently hold pthumerian society in high regard. and the pthumerians were almost certainly a matriarchy (female rulers, and only women were embalmed in coffins). i think of pthumerian to yharnam the way one might think of what rome was to the european countries later influenced by it.

other little things are:

the existence of gratia: an old hunter who was a woman renowned for her physical prowess. not very "womanly", yet clearly exalted by the church; item description refers to her as heroic

clothing details: most clothing items have very little differences between male and female hunters. most notable that does off the top of my head is that the church set for women has stiletto heels, which i think falls in line with my belief that most women of the church were blood saints. nevertheless, you do fight a pair of female church hunters in the dlc who seem to have no issue kicking your ass in said heels. this could be said to be due to game dev laziness, but importantly there are sets that Do have gender differences (like the cainhurst set...)

cainhurst: cainhurst is commonly pointed out by fans as the "odd one out" for its matriarchal vibes, so people assume yharnam must not have been. i agree, but that still doesnt mean yharnam had the same gender roles as the ones we have irl. in fact if anything, theres a distinct lack of emphasis placed on gender in cainhurst item descriptions or even alfred's hateful ramblings; although we assign misogynist intent to him, pointedly what he (and item descriptions) take most issue with isnt the #feminism, but rather cainhurst's obsession with nostalgia and bombast.

this isnt to say that yharnam had No gender roles. it did. just Different ones. (and im not saying it was a matriarchy either btw.) the existence of blood saints indicates that women likely were relegated to religious roles in yharnam. women who could not become blood saints probably became hunters of the church. characters like yurie also show that amelia wasnt an isolated case; women also comprised some amount of choir members as well, indicating that they likely regularly held high positions within the church hierarchy. additionally, lady maria being one of the byrgenwerth scholars indicates that women were allowed as students alongside their male peers, even if they may have been less common. all of these things are markedly different from how victorian gender dynamics were.

its just a bummer because i actually think the gender dynamics of bloodborne are super unique and interesting and are way more nuanced than a simple "women and men swap roles" type thing. but then all these fans who claim to be bloodborne loreheads just supplant irl victorian england gender roles into yharnam and call it a day when that is like... at best lazy/uninspired and at worst directly contrary to canon.

i rly mean no hate ofc (ive even enjoyed reading fics that include such things, even if i disagree with them heavily) and im happy to discuss these thoughts further, i just want to draw attention to smth about the bloodborne lore that i think is sadly overlooked because, when it comes to bloodborne and its feminine themes, ppl get much more caught up on the more overt pregnancy symbolism (which is understandable, but doesnt exist in isolation of the above). i have a lot more to say on this topic but this post is already getting long enough so ill just stop there lol

[katyspersonal]

This is what I keep saying! OP, this is such a good post! If Gehrman was oh-so-repulsed by masculine women, then why WOULD he teach Maria to be badass to BEGIN with? If anyone was to know what Maria would be comfortable wearing it is him!

Needless to mention that Japanese media often does the trope of "woman acts and dresses like a man to be taken more seriously in the male dominated field", and I remind you that the only other CONFIRMED female Old Hunter (aka hunters of Gehrman's type) is Gratia - a very brutish woman, so lines up. Alternatively, female version of Cainhurst Knight outfit is kinda too pomp and arguably impractical (just look at that tiny cute hat instead of elegant male ribbon), so maybe Maria was more modest and less completely removed from femininity. If creators wanted to imply she is ultra super GNC - would not Doll wear cozy pants and shirt? They do not hesitate to make masculine women bold - but description said 'the girl idealized Gehrman', not 'the female hunter that styled herself after a man'. It could be a FAT hint that Maria wanted to impress him - something Gehrman regrets, and he immortalized sweet and soft side of her that he ruined in image of Doll; the side we know Maria HAD, as she cared about patients and ended up not being able to stand the weapon. Nightmare, as Hell suggest, forever trapped her in the image of the ruthless hunter that took part in Fishing Hamlet massacre that torments her. It is a tragedy, not a "flex on sexist dudebros that are scared of masculinity".

With all that speculation aside, putting a doll immortalizing her in cute cozy clothes that are (oh the horror!) feminine certainly was not because Gehrman disliked masculine women, ffs. He put a lot of warmth in them, and also the warmth he was feeling caring for Maria's hair ornament was so strong that it made the Doll cry tears of JOY for the first time! Would "being a misogynist creep" do THAT? Grated, "his curious mania" is a translation mistake anyway 🤔

TLDR; OP I'd send you $5 if international transfers were still possible for me because you are too based and made my evening! But for now just accept my metaphorical handshake pls

I saw this post the other day that I can't seem to refind, but it mentioned that when Gehrman created the doll, he makes her in the image of Maria but strips her of a lot of her non-gender conforming appearance. But if you think about it for a while, it makes a lot of sense why Gehrman wouldn't put the Doll in a hunter outfit. Because Maria being a hunter is what led to her experiencing the awful Fishing Hamlet, and eventually dying. Gehrman probably regrets ever teaching her, or letting her come along on that mission. It's also worth mentioning that he did love/care for Maria because of who she was and not what she looked like. When the Moon Presence brought the Doll to life, it didn't act or think like Maria because the Moon Presence can't just take her out of the Nightmare (or doesn't want to, but trying to analyse the actions of Great Ones will give you a headache). Also the whole Mourning Doll thing. Seriously, just look them up.

TLDR: Gehrman was a Personality man.

[fantomette22]

I guess those drawings could be a following of the little oneshot i written a while ago. In one of my story, Gehrman gift the hair ornament to Maria a few years after the fishing hamlet « incident »

The other day i wonder which other characters would still be around at this moment. Would they knew about it? How would they react ? 👀

Yes they’re going to get tease for a while 💀Kinda annoying after they explain it was « just a gift » You know, just your typical gift from a friend to another…

It’s not like that guys… it’s just a gift you know ! 😅

Yeah sure 😏 [they don’t buy it for a second]

(In another circumstances it would be more than just a little gift. But Yharnam & their mental states are slowly becoming a mess and worsening so.. too bad… but perhaps it’s better it stayed this way…)

1st drawing : Caryll, Rom, Maria, Adeline (i don’t have a precise design for her so i went with the basic white church set), Brador & Laurence in the background who can’t believe it (« the mad lad he finally did it!! »)

2nd : Boom hammer hunter, Gratia, Gehrman, Ludwig, another old hunter (yeah the gramps of my own hunter) & Laurence again in the background who came up running xD

[katyspersonal]

Hello Katya, do you have any ideas about Simple Gratia?

....

Yes, my girl!! I have some observations AND ideas! I remember that back when I checked, a fan Wiki incorrectly said that she is wearing Yharnam Hunter set. I do not know whether they've fixed that since then or not, but I know it confused a few artists. Gratia, in reality, is wearing an Old Hunter set but slightly altered:

(Close images of her model are from this ( x ) page, datamined by AstralLace!) This is what an Old Hunter set looks like, for a reminder:

Gratia is an Old Hunter: the type that started under Gehrman like Maria, Vitus, Henryk, Djura, Bestial Hunter, all that. I think that she knew all these characters and more, and with Maria she was a lot like an older sister that Maria never had! But I think she would be genuinely annoyed by Djura's complex inventions and at times not be able to hide her disdain, right in the middle of Djura ranting about them! That'd spark stupid, petty arguments about what kind of weapon is "better" which their friends laugh at in the corner like hyenas until Gehrman or Maria separate them XD

In comparison with the generic set, she is missing the long flowing cape, as well as the glove on her left hand. Her weapon, a chunk of metal, also goes in the left hand. I think she is missing the glove to have a stronger grip on the metal, so it would not slip away! I wondered what her right hand weapon would be before, but I think she doesn't need one in the end! I imagine her staggering the beast with her Iron Fist and then TEARING THEIR HEAD OFF WITH HER FREE HAND DFJHFSHSD .....but, you know, a hammer or a mace would also be nice yeah sure

In Bloodborne setting, red hair is also highlighted as a trait of Cainhurst nobles, that isn't really seen in any other NPC. Edgar may be also a ginger but much brighter kind, certainly not a REDhead!

This makes me think: what if Gratia's red hair is not just a random design choice, but a hint? And even if it isn't, it can still be used for a headcanon! Cainhurst nobles descend from Pthumeru Ihyll and have some Pthumerian heritage (just in case here ( x ) is the post with evidences of it) 🤔 At the same time, Pthumerians have gigantic variants, that seem to be more slow and dim than 'regular' ones. And interestingly, Gratia is abnormally big AND stated to have some intellectual drawbacks:

So, she has 1) otherwise Cainhurst-exclusive hair color 2) a size abnormally large for a human and 3) correlation between inability to use guns and being 'dim'! This gave me a headcanon that she was born in the Cainhurst walls, but shown Pthumerian genes that were "undesired" in the eyes of snobbish nobles and thus, abandoned at birth. She never knew of her origins, but was adopted by a kind man! Yeah, in this context, Maria and Gratia feeling family-like bond almost from the start in kind of fateful!

^ I often draw her with the same body pattern that shows on the skin of Snatchers, and that is exactly what kind of descendant she is!

I also always liked the idea that Gratia, Simon and Yamamura were the 'detective friends' up to uncover the Healing Church's secrets! Later, I decided the Yahar'gul Hunter we find in the prison under Grand Cathedral should also be a part of the squad! I did not know that Simon interestingly had Fist of Gratia as a part of his equipment back then and only judged from their location, but that made me feel validated with that headcanon! xD

Gratia is, of course, more of a 'power' of the team! She might be not very smart, but she has her heart in a good place and can understand the concept of shady bad business that should be stopped. She is easy to deceive in terms of pranks and other remotely innocent things, but when someone lying to her or trying to use her is malicious she will sense it. Pair that with her being very brave and blunt, and you really don't want to mess with her! The girl could grab Laurence and slam him against the wall accusing him of being "full of shit" if he attempted to deceive her, ffs! And not even his friends would defend him because it IS his fault for playing with this tigress x)

Needless to mention that she is protective over her friends! Not a kind of a protective friend that will mindlessly jump into fighting the other guy, but someone that will walk in and give them a fair warning to get lost first. She has threatening aura and usually just that is enough to scare away a person that means no good to someone she cares about. But, when she is powerless to do anything against some prick in power or likewise, she will express her frustration by breaking a property on her way out xd

Also she gives me this vibe:

Thank you for an ask! :D She has a very vivid and fleshed out image in my mind! Funny enough, this makes describing her harder because she feels so self-explanatory for me!

[katyahina]

It is a rare one out of me to just draw faces of the characters, but I haven't drawn a 'realistic human' for 10+ years until Bloodborne so please accept my face studies ._.' Here's THE big and powerful woman.

[katyspersonal]

Thank you for reading this and the response, this kind of discussions IS interesting and not something obvious! I can now see what prompted the negative reaction if that Youtuber never addressed the ones mistranslations that mattered for their point about these characters a lot!

I want to still disagree that the Doll looks housewiveish; her clothes look more like something an average woman in Yharnam would wear outside, especially in chilly seasons like autumn or spring, rather than indoor-sy clothing! Interestingly, the Doll's has at least three elements of what Maria herself used to wear: the shoes, the brooch, and the ribbon!

For me this feels like a further evidence of the Doll being a thing of grieving and immortalising the person, using the clothing elements of an actual person who passed away.

Maria discarded her weapon in the well, presumably being heartbroken because of the Fishing Hamlet, and was no longer willing to hunt! We meet her still having her Hunter outfit and with the weapons in the Nightmare realm, which is Hell, and I think implication that this version of Maria is the one she loathes the most is clear! Further backed by the fact that two items associated with her era as the Old Hunter, a photo from Abandoned Old Workshop and a Pthumerian Chalice dungeon, are on the table next to her:

I will be honest though, the Chalice one was an UNREAL headache to confirm, as I had to dig into figurine of Lady Maria for this. Here ( x ) is a post on this for reference. But, according to Gehrman, Old Hunters were diving into the Chalice Dungeons no less than Tomb Prospectors, as he himself urges you to seek this exact Chalice as the source of their power:

^ He refers to Old Yharnam, where you get this Chalice by hunting Blood-Starved Beast, also is associated with Byrgenwerth like Maria since he calls Willem for help and Fishing Hamlet priest curses Byrgenwerth for the massacre.. you get the idea.

So yeah, I think it was clear to see that Maria was not willing to be remembered as a hunter, so the Doll had to be custom made missing that murderous vibe! This is where everyone is free to interpret why Doll is feminine in the contrast, because like... yeah, if Maria is presumably masculine, why Doll has this cute skirt and flowers in her hair instead of trousers?

Maybe Maria used to be similar to how Doll is, and Gehrman represented that "ruined innocence" by reflecting Maria's nicer, happier past self in the Doll! (bonus points if he feels personal guilt in her tragic fate as the one who taught her to kill) (bonus points if he simply knew her since childhood and this is just clothes similar to her little self, weird flex but man is grieving)

+ Japanese media also frequently plays with the idea of a woman trying to resemble a man in appearance to be taken more seriously in male-dominated field. The only female Old Hunters present in the game are Maria and Gratia, everyone else is an old murderous dude! This is very 50/50 I know, but origin culture of the media can be insightful sometimes! We can't know this, maybe Miyazaki has a different approach entirely, just that this case could have happened.

Or maybe Maria was simply having no strong preference and liked all, masculine or feminine clothing! I'd say her Hunter outfit might also be more practical since other 'hunters' who wear skirts (Choirlings, Blood Saints and female Knights) appear to be either indoor-sy people who aren't concerned by a beast grabbing their skirt with the claw, or not hunters at all. The interpretation that preserves as many factors as possible is that Gehrman making Doll feminine was his irrational effort and intention to "protect" Maria by "trapping" her in the vibe of femininity and softness and I can get behind this one too!

...and then, we DO have the possibility of Gehrman actually having the dreams about marrying Maria and living with her, but at the same time really recreating the Doll in his desired image of a wife. Not HOUSE wife, just wife. xD There is still a way to interpret his character this way, only, because of retranslations, we now know that it came not from the place of creepy and ugly desires, but from the place of getting lost in his originally very warm feelings and submerging in fantasy, forgetting reality. This does stand close to the good ol' 'objectifying and striping away her masculinity' version but this time with a necessary nuance of his motivation and nature of his emotions, which is acceptable terms for me personally!

______________

All in all, I agree with you that how localisation team done Gehrman completely dirty feels intentional at the first glance :т Last Protagonist's document and the original voice track has been in open access for years but nobody thought to actually use these tools and connect the dots this way.... until the summer of 2021 when found these and used my autism superpowers to analyse these fgdfgsds I really hope though that some popular Youtuber will sooner or later bring these bits up because there is no way this information will become universal coming from a nobody (me) on a dying blue site lol. (Vaati where is your habit to steal unpopular people's loredigs for yourself when we NEED it???????? lol)

Losing respect for a video game essayist YouTuber over how he interprets and presents Ghermin in bloodborne.

Specifically Gehrman’s relationship with The Doll and thus his relationship with Maria…

Like… if I told you an old guy made a person sized doll you’d already be “that’s sketch”. If I told you that doll looked like a young woman and was his only companion you’d be “…that doesn’t make it better.” Then I tell you that this doll was made to look like one of HIS STUDENTS! You’d want to stop hanging out with me because “why do you know this guy?”

“You’re welcome to use whatever you find. …even the doll, should it please you…”

Who hears this and sees this as anything other than unhealthy obsession and objectification? Who sees this and interprets it as ‘love’?

Like even before figuring out the whole *waves spooky tendrils around* that is Bloodborne… I want to kill Ghermin so The Doll has some company that isn’t an eternally old man in a blood pact with the moon who created her with the sole purpose of fulfilling his creepy fantasies.

[bellringermal]

“The hulking hunter woman Simple Gratia, ever hopeless when handling hunter firearms, preferred to knock the lights out of beasts with this hunk of iron, which incidentally caused heavy stagger. Gratia was a fearsome hunter, and to onlookers, her unrelenting pummeling appeared oddly heroic. No wonder this weapon later assumed her name."

[Fist of Gratia]

And finally here’s some pics of my Gratia cosplay <3