#yharnams monologues

[thelavellans]

Seeing that Veilguard has the option for top surgery scars actually almost made me start tearing up I am not going to lie. Feeling seen and represented as a trans person with top surgery scars I may just sob actually

[pyro-madder]

was there confirmation from the devs that gascoigne has two daughters or did we all take the older one's words at face value when everything else in the game points otherwise

[jesteraunt]

BEAT QUEEN YHARNAM! BEAT GEHRMAN! BEAT GEHRMAN! BEAT MOON PRESENCE! HALFWAY THROUGH NG+1! FUCK IT WE BALL!

[lumenflowered]

[A video is attached. If the comparative stability of the camera is any indication, Ade's the cameramon again for this one as opposed to Patches, which is honestly quite the improvement.

The mist on the ground is gone, and Mallory looks like she's been on the receiving end of several Potions if not a Revive.

"Well, shit," she mutters. "Didn't expect to lose."

"Is that what you said the first time, too?" Maria asks.

Mallory snorts. "No. I was too busy screaming because a corpse just came to life, monologued at me, and stabbed me to realize I'd died until like, a minute later. Also I had to take several to just... lay on the floor and stare up into oblivion. You know how it is."

"I... suppose so." Maria does not sound like she knows how it is. More like she doesn't and she's feeling far too awkward to ask further clarifying questions.

"...I don't think," Mallory says, quieter, "that I've ever been that happy to lose. I... I don't want to talk to her. But I want to just forget who I was before Yharnam even less."

"I'm sure she'll be fine with you," Dee says gently. "She was fine with me, after all."

"As a traveling trainer like any other, yeah."

"Then you are going to talk to your mother?" Maria asks.

"Yeah. I will. I just... just need a moment. Maybe several moments." Mallory buries her head and her wings and lets out a long, slow cry of "...Fuuuuuuuuuuuck..."

"Take your time," Dee says gently.

Unfortunately for Dee, and especially unfortunately for Mallory, it's then that an unfamiliar voice says, "Er, excuse me? You two are trainers, yes?"

The camera turns to reveal a elderly woman with dark hair and dark eyes. She's using a cane. There's a single Pokéball on her belt.

She bears a striking resemblance to the human Mallory used to be, which might be part of why Mallory tries to press her head even further into her wings.

"Yes, we are," Dee answers for both herself and Maria, because Maria is just staring. "We just finished up a battle, as a matter of fact... I'm sorry if we bothered you."

"No, no, you girls didn't," the old woman says dismissively, waving her free hand with a fraught smile. "I just happened to notice that... well, for once, it wasn't raining. Was that your doing? Sunny Day?"

"That may have been mine," Maria says, though it certainly wasn't any of her Pokémon that used Sunny Day.

"Ah. Well, thank you. It's lovely out here when it isn't raining." The old woman pauses, gaze drifting to Mallory. "Oh, hello. I don't believe I've ever seen a Pokémon quite like you before!"

"You wouldn't have," Mallory says miserably, still ineffectually trying to hide behind her own wings. "I'm... I-I—"

"She's a newly discovered species," Dee says. "One of relatively few able to telepathically communicate with others. And... a bit of a special case."

"Oh?" asks the old woman. "How so? Oh, wait, I'm being very rude—what is she, then?"

"She might be able to answer that better than either of us," Maria says, with a pointed look in Mallory's direction.

Mallory is still hiding behind her wings, but she does respond, after a pause, with a quietly mumbled, "I... wasn't always a Pokémon. I was human once. Years ago."

The old woman gasps. "What?! How did that..."

"The long and short of it," she says, albeit a little less muffled as she extricates her head from her wings, "is that I fell into a hole. I found myself in another world."

"Oh, I see. You're a... Faller, then?"

Everyone present currently except for the old woman is a Faller by some definition, but no one brings that up before Mallory nods, blinking hard, still not meeting the old woman's gaze.

"Suppose so," Mallory says. "I wanted to get home. No matter what. And I did, in the end, but I... wasn't human anymore."

"Oh, that's..."

"But I'm still me." She meets the old woman's gaze, finally. "Even if I'm not human anymore, that's okay, my best friend isn't human either—I'm still me. I—"

Her eyes narrow. The air itself ripples, and between her and the old woman, an illusion of a different human appears. A young adult, maybe twenty, with dark hair stuffed under a hat and dark eyes identical to the old woman's own. Identical to Mallory's, when the illusion falters and she chokes back a sob.

"I'm still me," Mallory repeats. "Do you... do you still remember me...?"

A hand flies up to cover the old woman's mouth as she gasps. As tears spill forth from her eyes.

As she asks, in a voice that sounds as if she's afraid to believe her own eyes, "Lory...?"

"Hi, Mom," Mallory says weakly. "I'm—I'm sorry I didn't come home sooner. I missed you. I—"

She's cut off, very suddenly, by the old woman rushing forward and pulling her long-lost daughter into a hug.

The video ends.]

[bobbyzombiegg]

I swear to god the ultrakill and bloodborne brainrot are killing me. Every time I try to do Djura's opening monologue it turns into "You there, Hunter! Didn't you see the warning? Turn back at once, Old Yharnam, burned and abandoned by men, is now home only to beasts. They are of no harm to those above. Turn back, or you will be crossing the will of God."

[leam1983]

Quarantine Musings, Parte Tres

Type "Best Lovecraft Game" in YouTube or on Google, and most results fawn over Bloodborne. They’re not wrong as far as the systemics are concerned, but Bloodborne only ever gets the tone for Cosmic Horror correctly. You’ve got weird whatsits from outer space, a Sanity meter that barely crops up unless you look at a Not-Shoggoth for too long, and five or six world-destroying Eldritch entities you lay waste to as per the Soulslike formula.

The thing is, Bloodborne is never hopeless. It’s hopeless as far as Yharnam’s citizens are concerned, it’s grim as far as Gascoigne and his family are concerned and the game coyly suggests that the stronger you become, the more overtly bonkers you are. It never does anything with that mechanic, but it’s there: you can trade Insight points for special items and online co-op sessions and you earn these Insight points at the sight of certain monsters and boss triggers, but you’ll never end up locked up somewhere, the subject of widespread disbelief and condemned to slow death in-between padded walls. From the get-go, FromSoft’s Victorian extravaganza establishes that you will seek Paleblood and that you will transcend the Hunt. You can die, sure, but your deaths are as non-canonical as they’ve always been in a From Software title.

From the first moment on, you’re set up as the guy or gal who will, essentially, kick an eighteenth-century Chtulhu analogue in the teeth. Gotta feed that power fantasy, right? Why even pay attention to the game’s grim surroundings if all that hopelessness doesn’t concern you?

Darkest Dungeon has the answer. Your inherited village is in disrepair, the lackey that drives you to your new home cackles like a loon even as your carriage is upturned, and he spends the rest of the game grinning spastically across the offered menu screens. Wayne June voices your ancestor in his best Arkham Horror gravitas, the folly of his quest and the foolishness of your own being made manifest at every turn. You’ll recruit more heroes than your average modern XCOM campaign requires - and most of them will either die or go mad, saddled with so many negative quirks you’ll have no choice but to release their damaged and addled hides from your service. You’ll lose hundreds of thousands in gold, along with painstakingly-procured relics you yourself dredged out of the game’s monster-infested ruins - if the latest manifestation of the Thing doesn’t just two-shot your best party of four.

Win the game, and the Ancestor’s monologue draws to a close, staying that you’ve only delayed the inevitable and are now doomed to repeat the cycle. Yours is a hollow victory in the same sense that The Dunwich Horror’s protagonists ripped a hollow, Pyrrhic victory out of Wilbur Whateley’s inhuman hands, with the final image suggesting that whatever you do, the Estate’s insidious and crawling protoplasmic chaos will consume all there is, in future.

And what does Bloodborne do, in the most positive of its endings? It makes an Eldritch being out of you. You won the game and now, narratively speaking, exist as a latent source of world-shattering power. Again, that might not be a happy ending for the locals, but it skips past the despair inherent to Cosmic Horror from the protagonist’s perspective. In all my years spent trawling video games as a medium in search of a decent vector for Lovecraft’s stylings, only a plucky West Coast Canadian developer named after poor Howard’s least-liked place of residence in New York has come anywhere close.

Silicon Knights let you stab and shoot primordial beings as concurrent members of a bloodline whose name spells out Savior. Not too long afterwards, Headfirst Productions was fine with the idea of Dagon’s narrator eventually being able to shoot an anti-AA gun at a towering Great Old One. To get anything close to the right tone, you have to dig out DOSBox and find a working copy of Shadow of the Comet. Blizzard farmed the Mythos for Raid bosses and Quake the first in name asked you to pelt Shub-Niggurath full of RPGs.

Only one game had enough balls to look at your progress and declare that in the grand scheme of things, your hours spent playing meant nothing. That game is Darkest Dungeon.

[goolfriend-moving]

occultdigest replied to your post: Oh, Desi would like Alfredius a lot I think

There’s so much to the Bloodborne comics and a lot of it is just me making the straining kid face, but I do love when the characters have fun monologues

Honestly yeah big same; I have so many little gripes with the comics (esp. vol. 5&onward so far, goddamn) but I’m just trying to stick through cause yeah I’m really enjoying the dialogue too, & Alfredius’ growing friendship with the church member is fun i enjoy the push and pull (even if the comic calls him a priest lol :////). It’s also nice to see glimpses of daily life in Yharnam

[yharnamopossum]

@catsbreads​​ listen... no matter how hard i tried i couldn't actually like. list rank the bloodborne bosses... i love them all so much...... so instead let me offer u personal ratings in chronological order:

cleric beast: A STELLAR START!! sets the stage for the game!! yharnam's poster child!!! a beautiful baby beastie!!! challenging in all ng cycles while avoiding becoming a grueling nuisance, like woah!!! 10/10, iconic, beautiful, fluffy, screeeeeeee

gascoigne: fave song in the soundtrack, so handsome, heartbreaking story, handsome, phase 3 can be beaten by. walking. which is, eh. but!! handsome, and has a nice voice, and,, handsome,,,,,, 9/10 cus fuck those tombstones

blood-starved beast: BAPY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! one of my fav fights!!!! a sweetheart, so beautiful!!! can be punched or torched to death, so great for when u want a simple but fun challenge!!! so speedy!! slender and toothy and flopsy and perfect!!!! 11/10, best baby, best fight

paarl: SECOND BAPY sweet electric puppy how i love you so...... a hell of a hassle when underlevelled but otherwise fun as hell. speedy!! 8/10, points deducted cus i get a genuine pain in my heart every time the zappies go away & she does the sad whine :c why does the game make me torture this poor pup :,C

vicar amelia: STOP FUCKING HEALING 9/10, she’s beauty she’s grace she wanna smack yr face

witch of hemwick: like. is this even a fight. 1/10 bc of that one time i somehow managed to kill the second witch before the first one and skipped phase 2 entirely and some rando said gg in the stream chat and made me feel good abt myself

amygdala: SUCH a good alien baby. lov the weird face. p sure we've all wanted to rip our arms off when upset. also, hello?? cutest lil feeties in the world???? oh man..... 7/10 cus looked cooler in the alpha + can be tricked into a visceral loop by running through her legs........ dumbass

shadows of yharnam: no. 0/10 fuck you

rom: MAMA HOW I LOVE YOU SO!!! why are you such a hassle in chalice dungeons!!! why are you in chalice dungeons to begin with!!!!! i feel so bad for mama rom, she's just so cute and kind and minding her own damn business all covered in dandelions....... 8/10 fight itself is annoying + she deserves better v.v

the one reborn: sky baby. the cutest collection of goofy goopy body parts you ever done seen. makes weird noises and flails wildly, as any good sky baby should. 5/10 cus horrendously easy

micolash: shut the FUCK up you chef boyardee spaghetti arm awoo-ass cage-head bastard i am TRYING to pick up the goddamn moon rune and needing to mash through your FUCKING dialogue in order to pick shit UP is the ONLY REAL THREAT IN YOUR FIGHT CUS I KEEP GETTING KILLED BY THE FUCKERS IN THE STAIRWELL REEEEEEEEE 6/10 tie your damn shoes

martyr logarius: speedy grandpa. phase 2 is absolute bullshit. alfred sweetie why do you idolise this guy again?? why the fuck can I fall off the roof but HE can't???? 5/10, crusty but satisfying as hell to beat

celestial emissary: another non-boss. what are you even doing here. you're the emissary huh??? a diplomat???? no wonder nobody in the church could figure out all the weird kin bullshit. 0/10, jimmy neutron-lookin ass

ebrietas: S P A G E D D Y....... so so sweet and pretty, i wanna give her a big soft smooch and a nice warm hug.......... 7/10 cus the fight is literally just button mashing

mergo's wet nurse: god you look SO fucking cool with all the feathers and swords and the facelessness and shit but just. that's the fight?? really??? that's it??? that’s the whole thing???? 6/10 cus design is incredible + music box playing in the bg is neat & eerie as hell

gehrman: can be easily parried to death, everything can be avoided with a backstep or two, spends most of the game crying and yelling "SCRAM!!", like... go home grandpa you're drunk. 4/10 cus good god i have SUCH a grudge left over from fighting him with neil...

moon presence: pretty sure the only time i ever died to her was in neil's file lmao?? once she does that 1hp move like. you've won?? she just. sits there??? u can rally all ur health back from her before she starts moving again??? and by then she's staggered for a visceral??? like???? 8/10 cus gorgeous and spooky and intimidating as hell but way too easy for a fancy secret ending boss :/

ludwig: listen. listen. look. listen. it's fucking ludwig. best design (handsome!), best music (well... second-best but still!), fight requires skill and timing and learning preps and patterns and is everything i love the most!! the game does that thing where mechanically he's a beast in form 1 but a hunter in form 2 and i fucking cry every time!! that monologue!!! beautiful voice, handsome face!! sword!!!! horse!!!!!!!! TEETH!!!!!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAAA 10000/10 but were u really expecting anything different from me lmao

laurence: the most grueling 2nd & 3rd phases of all time, good fucking grief. i can't get past him in +3. he's the reason i can't progress to higher ng cycles. he is ALWAYS the biggest issue in EVERY run. dumbass bitch in canon. ruined yharnam. whiny bastard. fuck this guy. 10/10 cus i'm thirsty + his music makes me cry & you forgot him in your list >:(

living failures: can be cheesed with a cleaver and some beast blood. v cool lanky six-fingered hands but otherwise?? honestly?? i mean gross incoming but??? they look like a botched circumcision. don't lie. they absolutely fucking do. i fucking said it. they do. 3/10 cus sometimes they break so badly that one'll follow you thru maria's fog gate lmao

lady maria: i mean. we're all gay. so, points. but also, idk i find her fight obnoxious?? timing is jank and that hunter bone nonsense is... ugh. 6/10 cus she is SUCH a fucking hassle & was way more interesting as a chara in the cut content :/

orphan of kos: i LOVE this baby bitch okay. like!! top fave fights, hello!!! timing and precision and prediction and learning prep patterns and safe boxes and spacing and aaaaAAA everything i love in from fights!!! has that weird poison knife glitch where u can make him stand there as ur friend!!! he is bapy!!! let him s c r e a m!!!!!!! 9/10 cus phase 2 can genuinely be beaten by just. walking. also he's gr0ss

oof alright that’s it there’s my takes for u uwu~

[catalyticvicar]

✛ MONOLOGUE. prologue - 01

✛ Cinder flies around the hall like insects. Ash eats away at the regal murals that once covered the ceiling with holy depictions, leaving it pale and rigid. The once polished tiles now stood filthy, worn away from time. When this floor began to rot, it was something the Cleric Beast couldn’t answer. From his pedestal, a collage of furniture that once littered the cathedral, he inspected the remains of the art. For how many times had he seen the cracks that scattered across the ceiling? Each and every detail, for all eternity, he could recount every single one. And yet, it was all he could remember. The smallest fraction that remains of memory.

✛ Fire burns into the nerves of his brain. it has no worth as an antlered monster. His dry gaze cranes to the statue he leaned upon - a woman tossing a vase of stone water. perhaps in droll humor, he made his lounge where he would’ve felt the splash. No satisfaction had come from it, but as he was human at one point, he still retains that force of habit - he remained locked in that spot. His drowsy mind found no sleep from his uncomfortable makeshift throne for his blood and bones flickered in daylight forevermore, exposing his burnt flesh and lightly illuminating his fur. It pained him, inescapable. The Vicar had hoped it would eventually eat away at him, rendering him ash finally so it’d stop hurting.

✛ He’d come to terms that it was hopeless to wait - no, rather - that he was hopeless. The rumble of shouts and slurred cries of fury echo’d from the entrance, but fell upon deaf ears, from their cockney accent - other Yharnamites. Ones that’ve gone mad with blood on their hands. No clanging steel or canon shot drowned out the flames of regret and the drips of blood, relentlessly filling up his cracked skull. His body burns, though his flickering sanity consistently sets him upon a course - his skull, oh - his head. His mind, any sort of reminder of what the Vicar once was, where had it gone? Perhaps it was a delusion, set upon him in a final cope, that there was still something to be done. Or .. Even more likely, simply another part of this curse that Kos had set upon him.

✛ he remembers the rampage he went through, how fiercely he tried to retrieve his skull back from whatever clutches of the nightmare it was in. Scouring rocks and much alike with the mantle that came his veins, melting ultimately as he scavenged the caricature of Yharnam that he was trapped within. Until, eventually, it proved in vain. It lead to a dead end, after dead end. It was hidden, obscured from sight. Maybe if he had some more insight -- no, no. Maybe if he just had kept some score of morals with him. Possibilities cross his heavy head, though unable to think of much else than longing and the despair that he caused for himself. Whatever the beast was thinking, it ended there.

✛ Laurence hadn’t been able to dream since he died. No vivid dreams he could inexplicably remember in impressive detail. No waking up to find himself stuck to his bed, his arms frozen in paralysis, for that was just his everyday. Though, for a reason he couldn’t wrap his head around, he could feel his eyes flutter shut. Had the curse been lifted - or would he finally be freed from his divine punishment, burnt by his own flames?

✛ Leaving naught a corpse behind, beyond just another head for another to find and treasure. Would they remember who he was? Would he ever be able to recognize himself in a portrait, or had they all been diminished? He succumbed with ease, though he couldn’t help but wonder. His thoughts all but races as he reached some sort of peace, his nerves shutting down as he could feel himself slip away from his being. As though being drifted like wood across a river, he can hear the water, too now.

✛ A bottomless curse, a bottomless sea, accepting all that there is and can be.

✛ He felt water sooth his flames as he could feel air slip from his lungs. Or was that just him going unconscious? Who was to say. But.. Finally, he was disappearing. All was alright, or so he hoped. He felt .. Significantly smaller, at least. Not as a hulking wendigo that had become his very being decades upon decades ago. In fact, he..

.. Was he actually in water? He always took it as metaphorically. After all, Great Ones come from the Cosmos, not the sea. Though, the Stars and the Sea weren’t too different from each-other - both vast, home to evolution that no man could ever predict. Whatever it was, he was rocked to sleep on whatever afterlife he was arriving upon. Or whatever was beyond death, he means. 

✛ And thus, he fell asleep. Somewhere on the River Seine, Paris. Floating.

[sanguisvitae]

11, 12, and for bonus, 15 (for character development meme)

Character development inquiries. 

11. How are they vocally expressive? What kind of voice, accent, tones, inflections, volume, phrases and slang, and manner of speaking do they use?

[ Charley’s Yharnam accent is more subtle than many, however this could be attributed to her usually speaking quietly or without much emphasis. Her voice is deep, yet soft, more often than not, though it will be apparent to anyone who spends enough time with her that she can make herself undoubtedly heard if she wants or needs to. ] 

[ She often wastes time with niceties, while trying to gather her thoughts properly in conversations, which she finds herself quite poor at having with other human beings. It’s common to hear her say “hmm”, “uhm”, “uh”, “er”, “hrm” and other such filler words and noises while she talks, and it’s very rare to hear her leap into an answer or response without some kind of pause for thought in between. She tries to choose her words very carefully, and it could be said that her speaking mannerisms are formal, and polite, but not aristocratic. ] 

[ She has quite an extensive vocabulary, though it’s not often she spends enough time talking to actually utilize it. Aside from this, her voice is usually a monotone, and her enthusiasm or ardor is difficult to gauge ( such as, phrases like “I’m so happy” and “this upsets me” might sounds identical in many circumstances ) unless one can pay attention to other, more subtle cues. It’s worth noting, however, that she is very honest. ] 

[ Slang terms or metaphors are not something she makes use of very often. Awkwardly, she’s quite direct and blunt, if not oblivious. However, when the mood strikes her, she will swear quite colorfully. ]

12. How are they bodily expressive? How do they use nonverbal cues such as their posture, stance, eyes, eyebrows, mouths, and hands?

[ One who has just met Charley would likely use words like “stoic” to describe her, and that would similarly ring true for one who has known her a lengthier amount of time. Negative emotions, or thoughtfulness and contemplation, seem to draw her features to become more expressive, than more positive feelings. Rather, her sharp cheekbones, down-turned eyes, and strong jaw give her a stern look about her, even if she finds herself relatively contented. ] 

[ Charley is a fidget-er. Sitting still without something to occupy her body or mind, or both, is not something she excels at, and different degrees of restlessness or agitation are easy to spot just by watching how she fidgets. Sitting and bouncing her leg while looking about, frowning, might indicate impatience to some, but someone who knows her would liken this to a child who is not paying attention, simply lost in thought. Similar habits include: tapping rhythms with her fingertips, thumbing fabric hems, chewing her lower lip, idly rubbing locks of her hair between her fingers, and various others. ] 

[ She’s quite bad at reading those she does not know intimately, and would rather plan things out verbally than rely on silent signals or expressions to get something done incognito. As such, it’s best to be up front with her; asking others to repeat themselves or saying “I don’t understand” is common until she gets to know someone and all their personal quirks better. ] 

15. What kind of inner life do they have — rich and imaginative? Calculating and practical? Full of doubts and fears? Does it find any sort of outlet in their lives?

[ Charley’s internal narrative, if someone else could hear it, would sound a lot like a horror film in which the victims are constantly screaming. She suffers from anxiety induced by trauma in her youth, with has developed symptoms of paranoia as she’s gotten older, and has given her a very harsh inner critic. ]

[ She does her best to keep these negative notions pressed down, especially in public or when she’s out hunting, knowing they are irrational. An inner monologue during one of these times would be more cold and calculated, planning out each step before she carries it out, and weighing all variables she’s aware of before acting. Even so, it’s often than a hundred thoughts will fly through her head when but a few will do; she’s a victim of over-thinking almost everything, and tends to develop tunnel vision when she begins over-analyzing something. ] 

[ When she needs to think more clearly right in the moment, she will depend on sedatives to try to keep her head on straight, but even so, it’s not unusual to see her looking like a cornered animal, even it the situation is not as dire as her brain is telling her it is. ]

[forcedapotheosis-blog]

My first Bloodborne run!

Whaddup fellas! Last weekend was really special for me and I just have to share it. Besides spending some quality time with my girl, I was finally able to play Bloodborne (.. since I’m not going to buy a PS4 for just two games, Nioh being the other) and it was a great experience. Well, since I’m a writer, I’ll write about that experience, focussing on the bosses (I went for every boss within the main course of the story, gotta go for the Chalice bosses the next time I get the opportunity). The way I’m gonna do it is that I’ll give you what I roughly remember my SL was when going for the boss, the approximate amount of deaths and general thoughts about the design. Also, I can’t really remember the order I did the bosses, so if you think something is fishy about that, you might be right.

Note 1: For the first time in my SoulsBorne-history, I didn’t go with a 40/40 quality build but went with a Bloodtinge-Chikage-spec, since I freaking love the style of this weapon and consider ‘Bloodtinge’ the most interesting stat, lore-wise, to date. Also, I might have overleveled a bit since my aim was to create a 120 pvp spec, too.

Note 2: I have hundreds, if not thousands of hours put into Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls 1, 2 and 3, but my focus was mostly PvP’ing with the occasional NG+ Run. Just a fair warning, don’t expect the opinion of a Souls-virgin. 

Note 3: Since the game has been out for a really long time, I knew a lot about it. Mostly from watching PvP streamers and speedruns.

Note 4: All of the bosses have been faced solo (well, I accidentally summoned an NPC hunter before Paarl, but died anyway. So let’s not count that.).

Note 5: Started with the Threaded Cane, switched to the Riflespear somewhere in the middle and used the Chikage after Cainhurst for the rest of the game.

Let’s get to it, then!

1. Cleric Beast (SL 10ish, ~5-10 deaths.)

Yeah, the amount of deaths is a little embarassing to admit (just wait a little longer, the boss I’m going to embarass myself the most with will be coming soon), since the Cleric Beast really isn’t a hard boss. Maybe it was because I tried to gunparry it most of the time (and couldn’t get the timing down) and forgot the old technique of burying my face in its arse? I honestly don’t know, but I’m sure that the camera wasn’t helping me out too much. Not much else to say, but starting my NG+ run, I did it first try! Yay.. 

2. Father Gascoigne (SL 15ish, maybe? 3-5 deaths.)

Okay, first things first. In my personal opinion, Gascoigne is an amazing fight (since I always liked the duel bossfights in Souls) and I didn’t cheese him with the toy. The setting is amazing and knowing the lore behind the character makes it even better. He got me a few times, either because I was becoming too greedy or because he was spamming his blunderbuss, but all in all it’s very fair and pushes the player to adapt to the more aggressive style of combat in Bloodborne (which I absolutely, positively love).

3. Blood Starved Beast (Ol’ Flappyskin! SL 20-30ish, I think. First try.)

My feelings about Flappyskin are a mixed bag, to be honest. Just before I fought him I remembered that a streamer (might have been Peeve) had some massive problems facing it and I feared that I might run into the same issues. Of course I knew that I could use the cocktails to cheese it but didn’t do it. Also, as with every other enemy that’s not human, I wasn’t able to learn the timing to parry the attacks, but that didn’t matter in the long run. Actually, I was kinda disappointed since it looked way more difficult and aggressive when I first saw it. Still, the design is pretty dope.

4. Witch(es) of Hemwick (I’m gonna give up on writing down my SL, can’t remember it for the life of me. First try.)

While I absolutely love the creepy design of the Witch, the bossfight itself was more of a pushover, also I knew about the second, invisible witch. If the trashmobs they spawn would be a bit more aggressive though, this fight could be pretty difficult. Other than that, it dragged on for about five minutes of me kiting and playing hide-and-seek with them. Not much to write home about.

5. Shadows of Yharnam (First try.)

I was actually surprised how easy they were. A little spacing, usage of line of sight and being able to reliably parry the melee-only-dude made my life relatively easy. To be honest, the Shadows/Ringwraiths/Goths are the boss that I’d consider the least memorable out of Bloodborne, though their transformations in the later phases of the fight were pretty cool (and those giant snakes coming from the ground, dude!). All in all, Forbidden Woods was annoying as all hell and quickly became a skip fest for me, thus I was pretty happy to be done with them first try.

6. Vicar Amelia (Hahahahaha, probably 15-20 deaths. And I promise you that’s not the most embarassing fight yet.)

Yeah, Vicar Amelia. Damn. I didn’t go into this fight with a whole lot of knowledge about her, her moveset nor did I really care about her when I watched videos about BB. And it showed, she mercilessly smacked me again and again and again until I was finally able to put her to rest. In retrospective, I think that she’s a damn good boss, both gameplay- and design-wise. And getting slapped by her made me appreciate the work put into this boss a lot more.

7. Darkbeast Paarl (2 deaths.)

I honestly don’t know what to say about Paarl. His design is great and with that face of his it’s damn scary, too. That said, having to look at him for an extended period of time really did put a strain on my eyes (due to the electricity-effect) and the camera put up one hell of a struggle to stop me from whooping his ass (well, it’s a Souls tradition, isn’t it?), but I don’t think that he’s too difficult. Maybe I was already overleveled when I faced him? Dunno.

8. Rom, the Vacuous Spider (1 death.)

Isn’t she cute? Yeah, you’re a good girl, trying to keep the Bloodmoon away from us humans. Let’s be honest about it, the fight with Rom isn’t exactly challenging if you don’t get greedy and take your time with dodging her arcane attacks and picking her spiderbros one by one. Still, the setting is beautifully done, ‘falling’ into the lake is just perfect and mercykilling ol’ Willem because I’m a jerk was a must, too. I think I died to her because I wasn’t ready to dodge her arcane whatever missiles or was it the AoE?

9. Martyr Logarius (2 deaths, I think, and I did him before Rom but am too lazy to change it, now)

Never really liked the bosses design and the lore behind him and the Executioners, to be honest. All I knew and cared about was that he was standing between me and the Chikage. Then he got slapped. Ah, during his second (or third?) face, when he slams his sword into the ground that unleashes a neverending barrage of magic, I really got pressured. Then I remembered, with like 3 vials left, that you could destroy the sword for good. After that, he was a cakewalk since his melee attacks are really, really easy to parry. I absolutely love Cainhurst Castle though, I actually was expecting to run into Bela Lugosi the whole time.

10. One Reborn (I think. 2-3 deaths, as far as I remember.)

Let’s start with the positive things: His entrance is freaking dope and you know it! The design of this boss is alright, I’d say, but I’m getting a little tired of skeletons (unless you’re Nito, First of the Dead, then you can be my skeleton all the time). Regarding the arena .. yeah, well, I played DeS and Tower Knight was a pushover, so I won’t give any nostalgia points. I really have nothing else to say about him, the few times he got me it was basically because I got greedy and his AoE burned through my health like acid (that said, the AoE looks freaking amazing. I mean, interdimensional or whatever clouds he can rip open to let it rain blood, limbs and gore? C’mon, that’s some dope ass Clive Barker shit right here!)

11. Amygdala (Maybe? Around 4-5 deaths.)

Well, where to start? My visit to the Nightmare Frontier was pretty short and Winter Lanterns are freaking annoying as fuck. Amygdala itself was .. I don’t know, a somewhat average fight. Don’t get me wrong, as with many other bosses in the game, I think the design is done amazingly and it’s creepy as shit, but other than that I didn’t have too much of a problem to dodge the attacks. The things that were difficult were the camera (again D:) and the fact that I couldn’t bury my face in its ass since the legs took very little damage and I felt that the hitboxes for the arms were a little wonky, but that might’ve been my own fault. What I’ll admit is that ripping out your own arms to defeat an enemy is probably only a good idea if you have a lot of them to spare, anyway.

12. Micolash, Host of the Nightmare ( .. shit, you can now laugh at me. Really. Like .. I don’t know, 25-30 deaths? Might’ve been even more, I stopped counting.)

“Aaah, Kos, or some say Kosm, do you hear our prayers?”

“Oooooh, majestic! A hunter is a hunter, even in a dream ..”

That��s by far my most embarassing boss fight to date. When I’ve seen him on streams, he always seemed like a pushover (that said, I always thought that his voice actor really freaking nailed the monologue, providing memes and one of my favorite quotes in the game) and I thought that I’d probably first try him. And then he started oneshotting me with A Call Beyond and twoshotting me with Augur of Ebrietas. When I finally had a somewhat good fight against him, his bros staggered me into an Augur. It was living hell. This guy, who I thought was probably the easiest boss in the whole game, absolutely fucking humiliated me. 

13. Celestial Emissary (First try, I think. One death at most.)

What can I say? The design is pretty cool and out of the orderly, but the Celestial Emissary is a pushover. When he gets bigger, he just provides a bigger target. The positive thing I have to say is that the orphanage in Upper Cathedral Ward was scary as fuck and I had flashbacks to Tower of Latria (and Resident Evil :D) when the .. dudes, whatever they are, sucked out my insight. Other than that, not a memorable boss at all.

14. Ebrietas, Daughter of the Cosmos (3-4 deaths.)

I love the design, it reminds me a lot of Cthulhu’s Star Spawn, other than that she has interesting lore behind her and I honestly felt a little bad to slaughter her. Poor girl was just standing around and trying to resurrect what looked like Rom, I even took a sweet selfie with her. For the fight itself, I honestly feel like I cheesed her. I gave myself a good sip of Arianna’s blood, transformed the Chikage, buried my face between her buttocks and R1-spammed away. She wasn’t even trying to annihilate me with A Call Beyond. If I wouldn’t have done that, there would probably have been more deaths.

15. Mergo’s Wet Nurse (1-2 deaths.)

As expected, the ‘final’ boss of the game was a huge let-down. I don’t think she’s that interesting from a design point of view and fighting her is way too easy. I mean, yeah, she’s got some attacks that can potentially combo you into oblivion, but if you manage to side-dash them, you can hack away at her exposed back. Also, she didn’t try to clone herself when fighting me. Don’t know what more to say.

16. Gehrman, The First Hunter (First try.)

“Tonight, Gehrman joins the hunt ..”

Oh fuck yes! How long I’ve been waiting to hear that line from you .. what can I say, I basically love everything about the fight with Gehrman. His pre-asskicking-one-liner, the design of his badass Burial Blade, the beautiful and somewhat tranquil scenery, his anime flashstepping all over the place. It’s just perfect. The speed and aggressiveness .. hell yeah. That cool old dude will hold a special place in my heart next to Artorias, Ornstein&Smough, Sir Alonne (yeah, he was kinda easy, but a pretty cool fight anyway), Gwyn, False King Allant and Nameless King. Really nothing more to say, the fight is just a piece of art. Used Bold Hunter’s Mark right after the fight to avoid NG+ for the time being.

17. Ludwig, The Holy Blade (3 deaths.)

Well, what a way to begin the DLC. Design-wise, he’s not really compelling for me, probably because he reminds me too much of that wannabe rapist horse demon from Berserk. And I honestly don’t have a soft spot for horses in general. Also, I never did care about the Moonlight Greatsword since I usually run 40/40 quality and can’t use it anyway. The fight itself is brutal, aggressive and freaking dope, at least until he hits his second phase. It might just be me having problems to read the movements of the beasts in this game, but his second phase was just so much easier to read and react to than the first and as soon as I was able to get him below 50%, I smacked him to the ground. Yeah, the deaths only occured during his first phase. Still, the first phase is amazing and balls to the wall, one more reason to like old Horseface (I told him that his church hunters fucked up big time, though, because I’m a jerk). But I offed him afterwards, anyways. Because of that annoying laughter. Because he was worthy to receive the gift of mercy.

18. Living Failures (2 deaths, I think?)

Let’s be real here, these guys were pushovers, I knew it, got greedy and they smacked me to the ground. Twice. I really don’t have anything else to say about them, they just look like the Celestial Emissary with the heads of .. those people who have been experimented on. The only redeeming quality about them is that they made the next fight stand out even more ..

19. Lady Maria of the Astral Clocktower (First try.)

“A corpse .. should be left well alone.”

.. well, what do you expect? I loved every second of this fight. I love Lady Maria’s character design, her Rakuyo, her lore, her grace, her flash stepping. The scenery is great, too, but I prefer Gehrman’s. Really not much else to say. She’s bae and can smack me down for a rematch anytime she wants. The fight with her is just a dance and since I used the Old Hunter’s Bone, we both used the anime flash stepping and its coolness just got quadrupled.

20. Laurence, The First Vicar (2 deaths. Or 3, at most.)

“I must take my leave.”

Look who it is, Cleric Beast is back with a reskin and rebalanced for the endgame! Sucks to be you, because in the meantime, I got gud! Other than that, I don’t have a lot to say about Laurence. The design is alright (probably even better if you think about it, fire and beasts and stuff .. but yeah, you think about that yourself with all the lore implications and whatnot), he’s by no means a pushover and his third phase troubled me a bit. The lore behind Laurence also is pretty cool if you want to understand the big picture of Bloodborne.

21. Orphan of Kos (Deaths .. hell, I stopped counting. Surely way above 20.)

“The Sky and the Cosmos are one. You’ve got to thank: Yourself.” - Me, after beating that SoB.

What can you say? He’s the most difficult boss I fought in Bloodborne and one of the most difficult, at least for me, in the whole series. But, and that’s amazing, for all the right reasons. His aggressiveness really put me on the edge and I tried a whole lot of things against him, switching the terrain to fight, parry-fish .. whatever, nothing worked. Couldn’t get his parry windows down and got smacked and slapped and stomped again and again, for over 1 1/2 hours. Funnily enough, when I finally succeeded I switched back to my old modus operandi, relying on pure reflexes alone and answering his aggressive combat with even more aggression in mine, immediately rushing in for a punish when the smallest opportunity arose. That freaking worked. You could say that I channeled my inner Guts and offing him left me hella satisfied. On a sidenode, I always get goosebumps when the game tells me “Nightmare Slain”. Even if it wasn’t him. Finally, the scenery is really, really good. Everything just looks so tranquil until the chaos starts. Amazing build up. Thanks From, thanks Miyazaki.

22. Moon Presence (1 death.)

Let’s be real, after amazing fights like Maria, Gehrman, Orphan and maybe even Horseface, the only thing to do for Moon Presence was to let me down. And .. yeah, that’s kinda what happened. The only time he killed me was due to me being too dumb to dodge his 1HP-AoE with the Chikage killing what was left of me and other than that, if you manage to dodge it you can happily hack away at it. That being said, I like the design of the Moon Presence since it heavily reminds me of Nyarlathotep, the lore behind it is very interesting and essential if you want to understand the big picture and .. yeah, I think that’s it.

Honourable mentions:

1. These fuckers / Winter Lanterns ( ~10 deaths?)

Frenzy sucks. Their design is awesome though!

2. These other fuckers / Shark Giant Duo (because I really, really needed the Rakuyo for my Maria-shrine. Also around 10-12 deaths.)

More enemies I wasn’t able to parry for the life of me. Had to kill ‘em both balls to the wall. Glorious nippon steel cuts through Shark Giant, too. Eventually. Bonus points for the great depiction of Innsmouth.

3. The archenemy / Gravity ( .. I don’t know, probably 20-30 deaths.)

Yeah. I died. A lot.

That’s it, fellas! Thanks for reading through this and thanks to From for making this amazing game. See you in NG+!

[thelavellans]

sneaky little icon and url change whilst I go mad waiting for Veilguard to update so I can play

(prev yharnams)

[joycrispy]

The entire Soulsborne squad (so far) (but I’m assuming that I’m not gonna get my hands on Demon’s Souls any time soon)

[thelavellans]

chocolate croissant save me… save me chocolate croissant

[thelavellans]

I have decided to blacklist Veilguard for now because I don’t care for how many spoilers BioWare is sharing 😔 Wish instead they would share more about the Rook’s background/what their last names are & actual footage from the cc so I can plan my playthrough 🥲

[thelavellans]

Purchased the Dragon Age vinyl box set last night and I Cannot Wait for it to arrive heheheh