You Know You’ve Fucked Up When You’re Sharing A Kingdom With Someone Who Literally Infected 1/6th

Nowadays unless I'm doing an evil character run, Edgar from castle Morne has been put alongside the dung eater on my "on sight" list.

I just cannot stand him. The way he acts regarding the Misbegotten uprising makes my skin crawl. No, I'm not going to help you stomp out a slave uprising, why don't you go fuck yourself instead?

It's lucky that he's relatively unimportant to any other questlines because I just have no drive to help him at all.

Thinking about how Kayaba and Kirito's character arcs mirror each other really well in SAOA.

Kayaba, despite trying his best to help the people he trapped in the game and to be a good person, eventually fell into nihilism and hatred for humanity, spiralling to the point where he’ll directly murder innocent people for no reason other than feeling like it.

While Kirito tries his absolute best to be a cold, nihilistic horrible person but eventually breaks when his genuinely good qualities get forced to the surface by the people around him. Despite his best efforts he is, deep down, a good person who wants to do the right thing.

They both start and end the series on opposite sides of the same spectrum.

As far as I've seen recently, I've noticed a pretty big shift in public opinion regarding the DLC's final boss. I can't speak for everyone, but I think it's starting to make more sense to people after being given a bit more time to think it over.

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Interestingly enough, I think Messmer is the only one of her children that we know her interactions with. No one else has any mention of times spent with her. Most demigods don't seem to have anything to say about her at all. The only outlier being Melina who also doesn't seem to really know much either.

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Kind of, but it's not a very clear picture. We know he upheld the golden order's ideals but we also know that he was not as battle hungry as his father or as dedicated to the horrors of the order as his mother, due to his diplomatic approach to ending the war with the dragons. Instead of forcing them into the order (or out of existence) they managed to come to an understanding and live harmoniously alongside each other, in stark contrast to the outcomes of every other war the order has waged. (despite the fact that they still kept Lansaxx's corpse in their city as a war trophy)

Unfortunately most of Godwyn's past, even including the golden order's proper gander has been lost to time, but from what we know, he seemed to have been a pretty upstanding guy.

While this is more headcannon territory, it's known that Godwyn at some point did have children of his own (due to the golden lineage going all the way down to Godrick, who is a distant ancestor to the rest of the royal family) and I believe that his consort was actually the dragon "Fortisaxx" who he met during the war against the dragons and became good friends and "companions" with, which directly led to the end of the war and peaceful integration of the dragons into the golden order. I have a whole post going over the topic if you're interested in seeing they deeper thought process behind this.

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unfortunately I don't know much about the albinuriac woman, but she seems to be an incredibly important figure in the albinuriac society.

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Sadly, where the land of shadow fits into the timeline is a little bit muddy. All we know is that it used to be a part of the lands between, being the centre that is missing in modern day, but was at some point separated and isolated from the rest of the world, probably in order to hide Marika and the Golden Order's deepest darkest secrets.

I don’t think I ‘hate’ a single Elden Ring character. Each and every one is designed so compellingly, their stories are so varied, their interactions while sparse are the type to carry magnitudes of meaning.

Example:

For the longest time I did not realize that the scene we stroll into at Castle Morne is a slave rebellion. The misbegotten are treated as chattel. My first go around I assumed “ah yes, monster attack castle, understand”

It wasn’t until I watched a random lore video that only referenced it that I got it. I went back and read the descriptions of stuff and I’ll be damned.

There’s a lot of little tidbits hidden here and there that flip entire perspectives on their heads. Preaching to the choir on this point.

Even the characters that I generally dislike/disregard (dung-eater, (hot take) Varre, selvus) I still find fascinating. One of the cool parts about the game is you can just kill the character you don’t like. If you’re doing a run and you want to get a little roleplay in, sometimes murder freak be murdering.

Personally, I’m not on twitter, instagram (used to be), deviant art (do people still use that), or anywhere else ((I Do have a blue sky but I think I’m too dim to use it just yet)) . I’d love to be in a space where people talk more about lore or art things! I haven’t the foggiest clue where to go though. When I hear people say “everyone hates on xyz character” or “this fandom is so nuts” or whatever I am genuinely confused. I’m only seeing a portion of the stuff here, and so far it’s been more than pleasant! Big ups to the people on here, so far you’ve all been very kind 😊

So I guess, could I ask anybody to fill me in? Or where to go to get filled in?

In the meantime I want you to know I’ve started working on a pair of drawings centered around Malenia and Miquella - ooooo be so tragic oooooo

It's absolutely heart breaking.

something else that I can't stop thinking about is how good Ansbach is despite being a follower of the Mohgwyn dynasty. Throughout the entire base game, all of Mohg followers are so cruel and twisted. All they care for is shedding blood, no matter who's it might be. But Ansbach is different. He's kind, and loyal and forgiving. And seeing someone like that hold Mohg in such high regards… It just makes me wonder what he and his dynasty might have been like before Miquella sunk his claws into Mohg's heart.

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This isn't even touching upon the fact that Radahn himself almost definitely rejected Miquella's request to be his consort. The dude's a golden order loyalist that thrives on the battle ground. I don't see him suddenly siding with Miquella to make the world a "gentler place." Especially since him and Malenia got into such a violent battle during the shattering. And how there's no record anywhere in the game about the connection between Miquella and Radahn.

Because it's entirely one sided.

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I feel so incredibly bad for everyone Miquella used his powers to manipulate. They all deserved better.

Mohg deserves an apology

Knowing that he was used and manipulated all along hurts, but the fact that his corpse was violated and disrespected in such a way actually makes me want to vomit. Mohg didn't deserve this. He didn't deserve to be bewitched he didn't deserve to be fed pretty lies that made him go mad he didn't deserve to be used as fodder for the tarnished and he didn't deserve to treated like this in death. It makes me so sad. At least morgott had a choice, at least morgott died in his father's arms. Mohg gets nothing. Nothing but desecrated and disrespected. The only one who fought for his honor was ansbach. the amount of pain he must have felt knowing his beloved lord and master was used as a puppet for so long, only to be desecrated and used to feed miquellas selfish wish. Miquella was never once a victim. Mohg was the victim all along. And we don't even get a fitting consolation prize after avenging him.

Do you know how grossed out I am. I was like wait why does radahn have horns on his arms and then the realization hits me because it's mohgs body they used. Miquella used mohgs dead body as the vessel for radahn. And you kill them both. In the end I guess radahn got what he wanted he wanted to be related to Godfrey. Just sucks he had to violate mohgs body to do that.

There’s something so terrifying about Gideon’s downfall. At the end of his near-constant research he discovered something about Marika and her will that made him shudder in fear.

Gideon Ofnir. The man that ordered the full destruction of an entire village for a key fragment and then abandoned his adopted daughter for daring to question him. The man who’s henchmen died trying to take that very key from us, only to shrug it off like it was nothing.

The man who lives in a world of monsters and suffering eternal. The man who’s so dedicated to learning everything there is to know about The lands between’s blood soaked history that it’s literally part of his name. The man who probably knows of, witnessed or directly contributed to some of the most horrific atrocities in the lands between.

Gideon Ofnir, the all knowing. The man who took one look into Marika’s will and was rendered so terrified at his discovery that he almost immediately gave up on the goal he had worked so hard for, instead choosing to confront, and eventually fall to our tarnished character.

Gideon is one of the most unempathetic and uncaring characters I’ve seen in media. He’s largely unshaken by the state of the world around him, seems to lack any semblance of morals or values and his interactions with just about anything begin and end with trying to figure out how he can personally benefit. No matter what he'd have to do.

What could he have possibly figured out to make him of all people horrified to such an extent?

Everytime I see talk about silksong taking too long to come out I can't help but raise an eyebrow. It’s been what? Five or six years since hollow knight had its final DLC and was officially “finished”? That’s a perfectly normal amount of time for a game to be in development for.

Hollow knight itself allegedly took around 4 years to create, so silksong, which is clearly a significantly larger and more ambitious game compared to their first has only been in development for slightly longer than that was atm.

Now, I'm no 'hollow knight news master', so I totally could be missing something or be wrong about something here, but from my point of view it hasn't been in development that long at all.

I think shits going to hit the fan hard in the next chapter. Something tells me that if the knight is a lightner, which they almost certainly are, they're going to follow us into the Dreemurr house dark world.

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Pure speculation here, but since deltarune has a lot of metanarrative stuff going on, what if the knight also follows this?

Ralsei seems determined to keep Kris (and by extension us) on the path of the hero who's going to save the world by sealing the fountains. Throughout the game he railroads the party down this narrative constantly and gets rather agitated when things go in a way that they're "not supposed to." (see his reaction to susie in chapter 1, the spamton fight aftermath or most scenes with him on the weird route). He knows what direction the plot needs to go in and it trying to guide us in that direction.

The story has a hero who is trying to save the world (Kris) by sealing the dark fountains and an antagonist that is trying to end it (the knight) by creating the dark fountains. Seems simple enough.

but Kris has now gone against that narrative by making their own fountain before the knight makes their next move. By playing the role of the knight themselves they've brought the world one step closer to damnation for seemingly no reason. You'd assume the knight would be happy with this since it makes their presumed plan of "destroy the world" easier.

But what if they're not.

What if the knight, the antagonist of this story gets angry that their role is being overtaken by the hero. That the way their story is supposed to go has been derailed by the protagonist fighting their own fate.

What if the knight ends up being a dark parallel of Ralsei. Knowing how the story is supposed to go and becoming confused and angry when things suddenly divert from that story.

In a battle of light vs dark like deltarune, what happens when the hero starts to fight using darkness as well?

Well the knight would only have two options.

Tip the scales and end the world.

Or seal Kris' fountain themselves.

What if we're not the ones to seal chapter 3's fountain?

I can't stop thinking about St. Trina in the fissure.

How Miquella likely threw her in from the top. How he sealed her behind a magic gate so nobody could ever find her. How he bewitched and clouded the memories of someone who was a devout follower of her. How the purple liquid seeping from her face almost looks like blood leaking from a wound, possibly the one she obtained from the fall. How she embodies Miquella's love. How she'll likely never get to be with the people she loves ever again.

How even after all of that, after being abandoned and left to rot in the deepest possible pit she could be thrown into, after being completely and utterly betrayed by her other half, her one and only concern is for Miquella's safety and happiness. For him to be freed from the gilded cage of godhood.

I don't think a game has ever made me feel as physically ill as elden ring did when I found out about how Miquella was using Mohg. 

I always had a sneaking suspicion that Mohg's obsession with Miquella had something to do with his charming ability, but never really had much more than a hunch to go off of.

Finding out that that hunch was not only correct, but also how much deeper the rabbit hole went made me feel genuinely sick. He didn’t just charm Mohg, he somehow used him to gain access to the land of shadow, abandoned him and then stole his still warm corpse to desecrate into an entirely different form to house the soul of the consort he actually wanted.

Mohg doesn’t even get a footnote in his little “thank you” speech at the gate of divinity. To him, we were more impactful in his plans coming to fruition for inadvertently delivering Radahn’s soul to him than the person who got him into the land of shadow in the first place. The person who died to become the vessel of his king consort.

I don't know why this part of the game specifically had me feeling so disgusted, it's not really something I can explain. There's just something about this character that was put on such a high pedestal by the world around him, and who has received unconditional love throughout his entire life, weaponizing that very same love against someone that probably struggled with it for most of his life and used it to manipulate, take advantage of and isolate him.

And then when one of his knights comes looking for justice, for the freedom of his master, Miquella just charms him too, burying his memories of his devotion to his lord and stealing him for his own followers.

He stripped Mohg of absolutely everything and used him for his own gain until the very end and beyond. For me, Miquella’s age of compassion died the moment he decided doing that was acceptable.

funny quirky elden ring headcanon that I might make a proper post for later:

Marika was in on the night of the black knives and was the one who chose Godwyn to be assassinated. She did this because not only did he make peace with the dragons during their war with them (which is historically not the way Marika likes ending her conflicts). But due to Godrick, one of Godwyns descendants calling the dragon in his arena "true born heir" and "kindred" it leads me to believe that… well… Godwyn and Fortisax were probably a lot more than just “close friends” if you get what I’m saying. And I don't think Marika would have liked that very much.