This Is The Backflip Anon! There Were No Puns, Just My Excited Bubbling. I Hope It Didn't Come Off As

This is just a piece of another thumbnail for a lore video about Messmer. Poor mama’s boy 🐍🔥🔥

Imagine taking years to summon the courage to proxy-touch your Lording via snakes, and then that half-stripped mofo just puts your hand on his throat and KOs you.

#RIP #the guy didn't even get the captain title yet #10 oblivious Impalers out of 10

i think he is utterly oblivious and that's really the rizz in itself.

Alrighty girlies, I won’t let us ignore him any longer.

This guy. This fucking guy. He’s a great summon, good health, AMAZING damage, and most importantly: Messmer lore.

WARNING: This joke post got super out of control. Get ready for a mini-essay below

He was second in command to his commander father, Andreas. Both served Messmer until Andreas discovered his “serpentine nature”, this lead to a rebellion that the commander led. Naturally, his son follows him to the end, that end being imprisoned deep within a catacomb. All pretty standard lore, shows that Messmer’s troupes weren’t entirely cool with the genocide they were doing. What I want to talk about is this line that is only on Huw’s description, and not his father’s.

“Messmer mourned the loss of a brother-in-arms”

If this line was on both Ashes, I would assume that Messmer mourned the lost men in the rebellion, despite their betrayal. Yet it’s only present on the captain’s description, not the man who led the rebellion in the first place. You know damn well what I’m about to do with this.

The main reason I’m jumping straight to “they were probably like a little gay” and not that Messmer was close to the leader of his main offensive force is the fact that Huw is a second in command. I would assume that a lord would have a better bond with the lead commander, there are less steps of hierarchy in between their positions. Messmer would have also known Andreas longer, (Let’s be real Huw got that position via nepotism) thus there would be higher familiarity.

What should also be mentioned is that Messmer’s feelings about others (excluding his mother) are hardly lingered on. Rellana was his sword, yet we only know her motives, not his. He was friends with Gaius due to both of them being cursed and also being mentor figures for Radahn, but there’s much more about Gaius and Radahn’s bond than between him and Messmer. This is the only (?) time that Messmer’s feelings on the matter are mentioned so bluntly. “Comrade-in-arms” in the context of Elden Ring is used much more frequently. If I remember correctly, this is what Freyja calls you if you summon her for the Dancing Lion. I’d argue that using brother is a signifier of a deeper relationship. To view someone not as an ally but as family, someone you couldn’t live without, a loved one. There’s also the fact that it’s mentioned that Huw followed his father. That reads like he was hesitant to betray Messmer, but his blood came before any affection he had for his Liege. Isn’t that the most classic of Tragedy? To choose your flesh and blood over your heart’s greatest desire? I’d hate to get poetic here, but the story writes itself.

Huw’s coffin was more beautifully decorated than that of his father. There were active guards, flowers, the room was larger. It’s quite gaudy when compared to Andreas’ open coffin in what could be described as a closet when it comes to size comparison. One was buried like a champion, beloved by a lord. The other buried with minimum respect given his status, but with the bitterness of betrayal.

Brother-in-arms.

*flying in on the wings after finishing chapter 11* If I were a big artist, I would've been the most insufferable Huw/Messmer propagandist ever. I would've drawn legions to their church 😂 (It's actually a subsidiary of Messmer's harem church, but shhhh - Huw would be one of the top two waifus in there. Or husbandos. Whichever one prefer.) Hope you don’t mind me asking - how did you discover the ship, and how did they end up in the outline of your fic in their final glorious form? 😌

Anon you do not need to be a "big artist" to make and enjoy your own propaganda. Make whatever you want forever (◕‿◕) When I lay down to die I do not intend for one of my last regrets to be “damn, I wish I’d made more niche cringe art that brought me personal satisfaction and served as a joyful escape from the crushing realities of life.”

As to how I “discovered” the ship, it just seemed to me the most (canonically) compelling way to contrast, in writing, the intimacy and eventual breakdown of Messmer’s familial situation (himself, Melina, Marika) with his navigation of the world beyond that (and who else might serve as an influence/conduit for his actions and worldview). It’s one of the more interesting implied facets of his character: that while he is cursed and eventually abandoned, his armies are/were loyal to him to the point of accepting eternity in a forsaken realm to see their duty done. This also makes any kind of rebellion/betrayal starker and more intriguing.  

To be obvious, devotion -> betrayal is incredible scaffolding already over which to build the progression of a relationship - which can then further explore all these junctures of loyalty, subservience, camaraderie, intimacy, and so on. 

And that Messmer is betrayed by someone close enough to him personally that he is canonically remorseful about it: there was already nuance, but now there are STAKES. Warlord doesn’t think twice about his quotidian genocidal crusade, but he is upset that a subordinate left him on read. Also, power dynamic. 

And that is why, despite not being a “big artist”, I am in my corner making them kiss.

Belurat-inspired outfit for a young (two-eyed!) Messmer.

i did a miserable huw x messmer mix based on things written and things being wrote... – listen on youtube

Now that I've finally chewed into the dlc, I can finally ask you about Messmer! What's your favorite Messmer lore or headcanon? What do you think about the Messmer Godwyn twin theory/headcanon? (and where do you think Messmer is on the age list if not Godwyn's twin?)

The long lore answer is in here - but probably one of my favourite headcanons is that he’s blind, or at least can’t see shit with the eye given to him by Marika, and so mostly sees the world through the eyes of his serpents. 

As for this twin theory, it’s honestly the first I hear of it?? Tbh I don’t find it super compelling - especially since Melina is canonically established as his sister. Personally I imagine them as fraternal twins and Marika’s first children pre-godhood (during the age of the Crucible/Hornsent), since both of them go practically unmentioned in the rest of the game’s broader world, as if they’ve been written out of existence. I love the idea that they did not make it, for multiple reasons, to the age of the Erdtree - Melina’s disappearance in connection to being the GEQ, and Messmer constrained to stay behind in the Shadow Realm because of his curse and his duty to wage this eternal crusade. 

I really think the canonical, in-game mention of Messmer knowing Radahn is messy for the timeline and more crucially a missed opportunity to play up a kind of damnatio memoriae situation for Marika’s children pre-Erdtree. I imagine Godwyn to be born to her at the height of her power as the Greater Will’s vassal, after passing into godhood, and believing he is her firstborn and heir only because Messmer and Melina have been written out of history and the Shadow Realm veiled from the world. This is also a way for me to keep continuity in my fics because I’m obstinate about that lol. Thanks for the ask! 

when i say im on the love law side of my love hate relationship with one piece i mean that this fucker is all i can talk about again also i ordered a 40€ figure of him