#thats a longread lol

[katyspersonal]

Kin headcanons (Bloodborne)

- There are roughly three types of Kin - celestial, marine and cursed.

- Celestial Kin are associated with lumenweed that reaches to the stars for salvation, you know, the flowers, the effect of Milkweed, etc. And with blue starry aesthetic, naturally. Prime examples are Living Failures, Celestial Emissaries and Ebrietas herself. Flora too, before she became more beastly.

- Celestial =/= cosmic, all Kin are connected to the cosmos! Cosmos is generally a higher plane of existence, whereas ‘stars’ is more specific affiliation. Ebrietas is daughter of the stars, not cosmos, either. A bit slightly lost in translation of boss names ( x ).

- Marine Kin are, naturally, connected to the ‘bottomless sea’. Kos and OoK are prime examples. Marine kin is also what Research Hall patients were initially aiming for, before they turned to the stars instead, to avoid horrors of the sea as it is full of human dregs. Brainsucker is a marine Kin too - this is what happens with a patient that became addicted to brain fluid to the no-return point but didn’t die. This is also why they stopped letting unsuccessful patients return to their homes - they just turn into Brainsuckers in the wild!

- Cursed Kin are affiliated with arachnid theme and ‘evil’ yellow eyes, examples are Amygdalas, Children of Rom and Gardens of Eyes! Interestingly, internal name for Gardens of Eyes are ‘cthulhu spider’. Gardens of Eyes were Research Hall patients that pursued cursed route instead of celestial one to be saved from the Sea, and were taken back in Byrgenwerth to live some semblance of life and recovery, since Choir had no interest in them.

- There are hybrid Kin! Fluorescent Flower is a hybrid between celestial and cursed Kin - note arachnid legs and body elongated in similar fashion as Amygdalas, but it does have glowing plantlife on its body! Milkweed reflects what would a celestial+marine hybrid be like. Rom is the only example of all three affiliations meeting - celestial (her glowing plants), marine (tentacley tails) and cursed (spider legs and bloated skull full of eyes).

- There are mutants - people who merely have their bodies change to adapt to affiliating with Great Ones better, without becoming their ‘family’! Nightmare Apostles like Patches are affiliated with cursed Kin, everyone in Fishing Hamlet is affiliated with marine Kin. Willem and Slime Scholars mutated to affiliate with celestial Kin better; even though slime scholars are ‘liquid’, don’t forget that Ebrietas and augur slugs are creepy and wet as well! Marine is less necessarily wet and more as in, marine creatures. Jellyfish, fish, squids, all that.

- Gravekeeper Scorpion is essentially a failed Fluorescent Flower, someone too far gone into being a zombie (or whatever happens with Pthumerians that have been pushing for immortality too far) to ascend. It used to happen often, too, as celestial and cursed affiliations oppose each other, like angels and demons - marine affiliation is value neutral.

- Winter Lanterns and Brain of Mensis are the closest thing to marine+cursed hybrid seen, notice them being full of evil eyes and seeming quite like jellyfish (Lantern’s head and Brain having many tentacles underneath). They are unique cases though - rather than it being one person mutating, they consist of many dead people (head of Wintern Lantern made of messengers and Brain of Mensis made of people - everyone else in Mensis Ritual room).

- Whereas Augurs of Ebrietas exist as their own entity, parasites like those found within Kos and phantasms used for Call Beyond are, indeed, parasites. Sea parasites nudge the host to crave Insight and brain fluid even more, which did not help Research Hall patients at all. Call Beyond, similarly, causes hunger if not addiction for being in touch with the ‘stars’ - notice how its glowing tendrills are similar to what ‘advanced’ celestial emissaries protrude from their skulls:

- There is no cursed kind of parasitic phantasm from what we’ve seen in the game, however Vermin is the closest thing to such. It is born from human dregs, whereas Call Beyond is external cosmic parasite, and marine parasite is mix of a both human dregs and the divine.

- Needless to mention that Kos Parasite is not exclusive to her - variants found in dungeons are known as Uncanny and Lost parasites, without her name mentioned. It is entirely possible though that dungeons had experienced the flood of the great Sea long ago - dungeons are QUITE wet, and also, for example, this creature is found in both Fishing Hamlet and dungeons: