#yharnams monologues

[yharnams]

Made a lil holiday tree if anyone would like to decorate it!🎄

[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 in 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. ]

[yharnams]

I need a new video game series to become absolutely life changingly obsessed with like I did with Mass Effect and Dragon Age because those games got me through some shit when I was a teen and dear god do I need that right about now

[yharnams]

Just gave myself a haircut entirely by myself. I feel so powerful. 2025 is going to be the year of learning new skills 😎

[yharnams]

I had a dream last night where I was playing da2 and at the end of the game I got a cutscene I had never seen before (implication was it had just been added). It was like one of those quicktime combat scenes from ffxvi. Anyways it was of Hawke and the surviving sibling (in my case Carver) literally fighting the maker.

[yharnams]

It’s so funny how much getting out of the house helps your mental health. Actually I do deserve love and not suffering.

[yharnams]

whenever there is no bloodborne 2

[yharnams]

Beautiful followers and mutuals, I am on Bluesky if anyone would like to follow me there