My Eyes HAve BEen Opened

In 2014 the Playstation 4 Exclusive [[Bloodborne|The Main Essay Opening]] was [[released|Indecision]] to the public. In mechanics, the game is a very tightly designed action [[RPG|gameplay]] with a focus on melee combat and [[stat|statistics]] progression. The story, written by the game's director [[Hiedetaka Miyazaki|Hiedetaka Miyazaki]] is centred around a cursed city that is, initially, reminiscent of Victorian London, all tight alleys and gas lights. The player is someone who has travelled to the city to be cured by a procedure called Blood Ministration. During the procedure the player character suffers horrible nightmares and wakes up to a world full of wolves, humans who look very wolf-like and other grotesque creatures. At the offset you find a note that tells you to find [[Paleblood|Paleblood]]. A short time later you are told by a sort-of [[mentor figure|Gehrman]] that you are a chosen [[Hunter|hunter]] and need to hunt beasts. As far as exposition goes, that’s near all there is at the beginning, and doesn’t get much clearer as the game progresses from hunting beasts to slaying nightmares and eviscerating tentacle waving monstrosities from the depths of the [[cosmos|kosm joke]]. By the time the credits roll you’ll have killed them all, you’ll have killed your mentor, and hopefully, if you have done everything right, you’ll have killed the god that controls the world you are trapped in, sort of. Maybe. It’s not exactly clear, you just have to hope you’ve guessed correctly from the clues presented. This story is told via very [[idiosyncratic|long words]] method, using many different forms of narrative exposition, many of which are only possible in an interactive medium. The story that [[Bloodborne|The Main Essay Opening]] tells has become synonymous with the works of [[H.P. Lovecraft|Lovecraft]]. But, [[Lovecraft]] didn’t write about werewolves, vampires, gothic castles or Grey-type aliens. Taking these and various other horror elements into account, the idea that [[Bloodborne|The Main Essay Opening]] is merely interested in cosmic horror, such as found in [[Lovecraft]], starts to become less stable. [[Bloodborne|The Main Essay Opening]] takes influence from [[Lovecraft]], but it is also larger in scope, taking the player on a journey through the imaginative and speculative fictions that make up the horror landscape of Western Europe and Northern America. As much as I am interested in the story of Bloodborne, I am far more interested in [[how this story is told|Storytelling]]. 5.u

I wasn’t going to [[buy it|games I played]]. I happened to visit my dad two weeks after the game had come out and he had it. He had played it once and then put it back on the shelf. I took it off the shelf on Saturday not expecting much. Dark Souls was a game I had only seen in brief and, as I’m not really big on fantasy, had largely [[ignored|Marketing]]. I ended up playing Bloodborne for twenty hours that weekend. I didn’t even make it to Old Yharnam. I was hooked. On the way home I stopped off at Preston to change trains and managed to make enough time to find a game’s shop. I bought Bloodborne. As soon as I got home I was on it. About an hour in, I discovered that you can lock-on. My enjoyment increased ten-fold. It took me fifty hours to complete the campaign. Eighteen months later I had managed to rack up over two thousand five hundred hours. I can honestly say that I have never played a game that has captivated me as wholly as Bloodborne. Not bad for a game I played by accident.

The only game I had at the time was GTAV, Watch Dogs and Plants Vs Zombies. I only played GTAV.

The whole [[hardness|Hard Games]] schtick that From Software had going on didn’t interest me. If anything, it turned me off. Not because I don’t relish a challenge, it’s more the [[marketing|Surveillance]] seemed to be daring me to play it, a come-and-have-a-go-if-you-think-you are-hard-enough attitude that just didn’t appeal to me.

The gameplay is focused on primarily melee combat that is fast, highly unforgiving, with risk-and-reward being encouraged in the shape of the [[Regain|regain mechanic]] mechanic, Lightning quick reflexes help, though patient observation is just as rewarding. The controls are simple enough to quite intuitive, while the moveset is diverse enough to reward experimentation.

The player has a set period of time to [[regain|further regain stuff]] lost health by successfully striking an opponent.

It’s apparently you being rejuvenated by the blood of your enemies. It’s a mechanic that takes a while to get used to, but is very useful. It makes you more aggressive in battle as any hit you take can be negated if you hit back fast enough. It is also a useful mechanic for dealing with making blood bullets, which costs health, as you have enough time after making the bullets to regain the health if you hit something. Visceral attacks instantly heal back all health lost. I’ve had [[Minions|Mionions]] jump on me in ng+ and take nearly a full health bar in one, [[parry|Parry]] and visceral their next hit and I have a full health bar again. Which is very risk, as parrying requires the timing to shoot the minion just before he hits you. With no health, if that fist even scrapes me, I die. Which is one of the reasons I love the game so much. It so often puts you in a situation where you have to make a choice between safety and making the kill. Which, often, isn’t choice, as there is always a voice in the back of your head saying, “If you play safe, back-up to heal and still die, you died a pussy. But, if you choose to attack and die, at least you tried against the odds. You’re still a dead scrub, but at least you died a mildly heroic death, not like that alternate-dimension-you who backed out and still died like some fragile Nigel.” 26.m

I really wanted to do a [[Kosm|KosKosm]] joke here. Trust me. I can’t hear the word cosmos the same ever again. Just the voice of [[Micolash]].

This singular utterance in the game grew from being the introduction to Micolash’s madness into a contention that broke the Bloodborne community into two very distinct camps. This contention, known as '[[Micolash’s Conundrum]]', threw into doubt the name of the great celestial, Kos. If the real name of Kos was actually Kosm, then the holy books must be rewritten, the stars realigned. Both sides became violent and the argument claimed a number of lives, all hushed up by Sony who was afraid of the fallout from evidence that directly linked a computer game to actual, real-life violence. This secret war raged on until October 2015, when the Old Hunters DLC. This addition to the bloodborne universe introduced a boss named The Orphan of Kos. Everyone involved in the war started to look a bit sheepish and wondered why they had made so much fuss. Most agreed that Micolash was just insane and that it was only he who called Kos Kosm. Though, there are rumours that a few hardliners continued to believe, performing arcane rites hidden far from prying eyes. Rumours of human sacrifices. Murmurs of brains without skulls, eyes without faces. They whisper the forbidden name of Kosm and, some say, only in passing, in low voices, almost the dreams of sentences, telling that something has answered, a shape forming in the [[darkness|Mutter]]. It writhes, slippery from being newly born in the shapeless void, it’s many limbs slick with the wet, viscous water of the endless womb beyond the stars. 14.t

There is a boss in the game called [[Micolash|Micolash]] who is a bastard. He’s also one of the few bosses that talks to you and gives you some clue as to what is going on. He tends to run away from you and taunt you as you fight him, saying weird stuff that barely makes sense and generally being incredibly annoying. One of the first things he says is, [[“Kos, or some say Kosm, do you hear our prayers?”|the cult part one]]This quickly became a meme. It was repeated endlessly. ~~How easily one’s reality can change, how fragile the [[present]].~~

Thde Hunters have been protecting the city of Yharnam for as long as any memories know. [[Gehrman]] the First Hunter is your mentor, and is as old as the hunt. The myth of how the hunt started is told in The Old Hunter's [[DLC]], where something washed up on the shore, something old, ancient, maybe a god, maybe a devil. It was deadm and pregnant. From inside this ancient ones corpse an orphan emerged. The orphan was killed. Hunted. In the game, you are the one that kills the orphan. But, you are a surrogate, a narrative device, a way to tell the story. You live that hunt, but it was [[Gehrman]] who killed the orphan in history, that is how the hunters were born, and how the [[The Beast Plague]] started. Maybe. [[Micolash]] tells it different. He says [[The Healing Church]] is, or was, full of shit. He says even in the name is bullshit. They don't heal. They created and spread the curse. It was their power. They unleashed a curse and set themselves up as the only ones who could destroy it. [[Yharnam]] is a real city. It was. The remains- buried streets, caverns of decrepid churches [[buried deep]]- are waiting to be found. Maybe it's [[Micolash]] who is full of shit. I'm not sure anymore. You live this long in doubt, being unsure is a new belief.

The Hunter's Dream is a sanctuary where you restock, re-arm, swap runes, and level up. It is a safe place, pretty much the only safe place in the whole game, except maybe Oedon's chapel.

Statistics. These are your ability to use stuff, like [[weapons|weapons]] and [[tools|Tools]]. They are also your hit points and endurance, which are your ability to be hit and your ability to keep hitting. These are the [[building blocks|Building a Character]] of your character. I don't know why the word statistics is used as statistics remind me of graphs and questions about how much you earn, where you go on holiday, and would you eat a yoghurt containing [[banana|banana]]. Yes, I fill in a lot of quizzes that come through my letterbox.

There are many, many weapons in Bloodborne, and they fit into two categories; right-handed and left-handed. [[Right-handed weapons|Right handed weapons]] are usually melee weapons and they all have two forms, which means they can all [[transform]] from one type of weapon to another. [[Left-handed weapons|Left handed weapons]] are usually projectile weapons, with only a few minor exceptions. Right-handed weapons are the main damage causing weapons, and the left-handed weapons are usually used for [[parrying|Parry]] or defending, with the exception of the torches, which can be used for damaging enemies, but are usually used to light dark areas.

Tools are your [[arcane|Arcane]] tools. Basically spells that you fling at enemies to hurt them. Some are ghostly, like the Executioners Gloves that fling multiple, smokey, purple skulls at your enemies. Others are technological, like the Tiny Tonitrus, which is a small electric flinging device that looks a bit like those balls you had at school in physics that the teacher got you to touch and your hair would stand on end. You know, the Van de Graaff generator thing that teaches you basically nothing but looks cool.

Building a character is the best part of Bloodborne. Finding a level cap and working out how to optimise your character for the few weapons you wish to use is a grand creative exercise and one of the main reasons I stayed on Bloodborne so long. In the last year of Bloodborne the level cap was 70, for me and many who played. It wa sthe perfect cap for Bloodborne, and all weapons could be used well, you just had to build ctreatively. I will always remember the HWFC, even as my mind becomes one with the Kosmos.

Banana is a word that I sometimes can't stop spelling... It just goes on... Bananananananananananananananana I [[stole|write it down]] that joke off Terry Pratchett. He invented a lot of the best literary jokes out there. Even people who haven't read his books have stolen off him. 15@

The knowledge of the Kosmos. The insight to know that [[insanity|Insanity]] is the only sane response in a world gone mad. Bring on the beasthood, let me communicate with the kin. Let me hunt the old ones.

I like long [[words|Mutter]].

I like how we mutter together in the night. Me and the Kosmos twinking at each other, our eyes stars that behold a thousand possibilities for this moment. I blink at myself and the kosmos blinks back with an indefinite smile. I am corrupted by [[words|long words]], and the [[words|long words]] have been corrupted back. language is my prison. I hold myself together with labels on the infinite. I am a ghost of these [[words|Infinite]]. I function as pure thought beyond my ken. I am hope. The Kosm calls to the beast inside me.

"So cold... Dear sister..." *Note to self: [[NPC]] quotes are probably not the way to go. Keep them to a minimum. Unless you heard them yourself. Myself. Who am I talking to?* *Further note: When did I write that note. I need to stop sleeping at my desk.*

Hiedetaka Miyazaki, the Director of [[FromSoftware]] and the mid behind the Souls franchise and [[Bloodborne|The Main Essay Opening]]. [[FromSoftware]] have a reputation for creating [[hard games|Hard Games]] that do not hold the players hand or offer tutorials to ease you into their games, or even have instructions on how to engage with the most basic of mechanics, instead relying on intuitive design and player inquisitiveness to fill in such gaps.

I say this, but, as someone who has been playing games since the mid-80s, FromSoftware don’t make hard games, they just make games that haven’t forgotten the design principles of coin operated [[arcade games|Golden Age]], and games that don’t have cartridge space for non-gameplay frivolities, such as cut-scenes and dialogue.

I was going to say [[The Golden Age|Golden Age 2]] of gaming, but that is not really what I meant. The Golden Age of gaming is supposedly the early arcade era of the 80’s. As much as I recognise the innovation of the period, I don’t see it as some pinnacle, it’s more a time that was one step on the road we are still walking, a road that nowadays we are much further along. Most AAA games seem to have forgotten this period as they try to be more like films than games, mining the [[storytelling techniques|Storytelling]] of television and cinema for their cues on how to present narratives, rather than looking at the history of the medium itself. So, in place of environmental storytelling, [[hard deaths|Hard Deaths]], meaningful art direction and ambiguity, we have cinematic cut scenes that go on for [[a billion years|Hideo Kojima]] and drag the player out of the realm of protagonist and into the non-interactive realm of audience member.

I’m not really into this whole Golden Age thing. There is a Hollywood Golden Age, a comic book Golden Age, a radio Golden Age, a television Golden Age. It’s as if anything that becomes part of our cultural consciousness needs a past-pinnacle, a point in time to be glossed over with [[nostalgia|Nostalgia]].

A hard death in a computer game is one that makes you lose progress, either by taking you back to the start menu, or back to the beginning of a level. Perfect examples of a hard death are found in the early arcade machines of the so-called Golden Age. You put your coin in, you got three lives. You lost those three lives and you either had to start all over again, or you put in another coin to get your life back. More often than not, your score would be zeroed though you wouldn’t lose your [[progress|Progress]]. This design principle was carried over to non-coin-operated gaming platforms, like the Spectrum or Master System or SNES, and meant that games had to be completed in one sitting, and they had to be [[mastered|cheated]]. There were no [[saved games|Saved Games]].

This nostalgia seems fully integrated into late-capitalist ideology. It is a romanticising of the past that, when put hand-in-hand with the culture’s seeming inability to imagine a future that isn’t apocalyptic, dystopian or more of the same, places the lived-in moment as an unwavering present that sees each and every past period not as a fixed, unique, unrepeatable phase in linear time, but as a collection of styles to be plundered, appropriated and repeated in various guises and forms. This plundering sees narratives adapted from one medium to another; books become films, comic books become soft toys, games become novels. This translation, as in the case of books-to-film, often loses some essential part of the original, some part of the artefact that cannot be properly translated to the new medium, such as a novels ability to telescope time, and to move seamlessly from observations of the physical world to a character’s inner, emotional landscape, something which visual mediums struggle to tackle. At the same time, the translation changes the original and its place in the cultural landscape. If we take the example of 1984 by George Orwell. Lots of the phrases used in 1984 were appropriated by the television culture of the early 21st century. This was done through the television show Big Brother. This show put a group of strangers in a house under constant surveillance for the entertainment of people back home. This translation of George Orwell’s slogans had a complex result on the cultural consciousness. The most obvious result is the changing of the original text in the consciousness. The appropriation of George Orwell’s phrases works much in the same way as Winston Smith’s re-writing of past newspaper articles. It is impossible for someone who has seen Big Brother to read 1984 without thinking about groups of self-obsessed morons trying to out-extrovert each other for the promise of money. [[‘Big Brother is Watching'|Surveillance]] is no longer a chilling warning, but a banal reality. 10.a

Or cheated through. You could always cheat. Level skips, unlimited ammo, god mode, etc. I miss cheats. They used to give games so much replayability, and also make games that were seemingly impossible into fun little jaunts, like the invincibility cheat for [[Ghouls ‘N’ Ghosts|Ghoul and Ghosts]], or the walk through walls cheat for [[Flashback|Flashback]].

On the start menu press A, A, A, A, UP, DOWN, LEFT, RIGHT. You should hear a chime. Then press and hold B, then START. 22.l

Level Select Passwords(Hard) TOHOLD Level 1 PICOLO Level 2 FUGU Level 3 CAPSUL Level 4 ZZZAP Level 5 MANIAC Level 6 NOWAY Level 7 BELUGA Level 8 Or, you could just cheat and run through walls... When at any wall, turn away from it, hold A and the D-pad away from the wall, and then when Conrad runs, release A and press the D-pad towards the wall. *Note to self: There is something wrong here. I need to go back. Where is the correct [[link?|long words]]*

I always remember this from games like Gauntlet, Golden Axe and Outrun. Sure, I could pump coins in to keep going, but I wouldn’t get on the scoreboard. My victory would be empty. Personally, I feel this is a good way to police the age-old pay-to-win problem in computer games. Sure, plugging more coins in allows you to get to the end of the campaign, if there is an end, but it won’t get you that all-important place on the scoreboard.

I remember a lot of games would use a password system. [[Flashback]] uses a good example of this. Every time you completed a level you got a code which you would have to write down. This code held information on such things as how many lives you had, what items you carried and what level you were on. Magazines of the time, as this was a pre-internet period, or at least a period where the internet was no more than a whole group of message boards and photographs that took a day to download, would have [[cheats|cheated]] sections full of these passwords, giving you codes that made the game think you had played a perfect game, or that gave you more lives, or more ammo, etc.

The UK is one of the most surveilled countries in the world. In 1999 it was estimated that the UK contained around one million CCTV cameras watching the public. In 2015 this number was thought to be 5.9 million. It is interesting to note that, at a time when CCTV in the UK was broadening extensively, a TV show was popularised that normalised surveillance, using countrywide billboard adverts that proclaimed ‘Big Brother is Watching’. Winston Smith's job of rewriting the past is taken up by advertisers and marketeers. The true agents of [[MK Ultra|MK Ultra]]. At a time where 1984 became incredibly poignant, almost a prophecy, it was undermined by the popular culture of the time, reduced in power by being brought into close association with tabloid values, having its powerful slogans repeated as advertising copy, and having its themes of state surveillance subverted and reformed as [[mindless|Having a Mind]] entertainment. Thus, 1984 is translated and rewritten without a word being changed, robbed of its power to promote critical thought by being presented as both benign and banal.

MKUtra is the name given for the set of secret tests that the US government undertook over the course of the fifties, sixties and seventies, and that may still be going on today. These tests have been documented in many, many areas. They have gone beyond the realm of [[conspiracy theory|Conspiracy Theory]] and are now accepted as being real, true experiments conducted by the US government on its population. The tests were on the subject of mind control. The intelligence agencies of the US were very much interested in how to control the thoughts and actions of its generl population. A lot of these experiments involved psychadelic drugs, and many people who became major counter culture figures in the sixties were part of the experiments, people such as [[Ken Kesey]] and [[Robert Hunter]]. It has also been suggested that Allen Ginsberg, Hunter S. Thompson, Jack Kerouac, Jim Morrisson, and many other counter culture figures from this time were involved. If not as participants, then as agents directly employed by the intelligence agencies. It is from the same sources that we get the hypotheses that the entire Beat/Hippie movement of the fifties/sixties was actually a mass mind control experiment, and that out of this era was produced a method for controlling and ordering a huge population through coercion and [[subconscious programming]]. Youth culture, divide and conquer, criminalising recreational activities, soundbite satire, two party politics and media saturation of every aspect of public and private life. These are all either produced or perfected in this this era. And, they are all products of the MK Ultra experiments, which was less about finding out how to control minds through [[invasive techniques]], and more by soft, coercive techniques, such as public opinion making, public relations, advertising, marketing, and the subversion of every agency of socialisation by the deep state to make sure that all are aligned with the ideology of our particular brand of capitalism, one which [[fetishises the individual]].

To have a mind is to have a soul. [[Provost Charon]] would laugh if he could see this world. He knows much of nightmares, and much of what the god's dreams are.

Insanity is insight into worlds that not all can see. I have journeyed far with my becaged companion, and we have seen much that cannot be explained beyond the ravings of lunatics and teh howls of monsters. I have witnessed the moon rise twice from the same ocean on the same night. I have seen mountains that once held the ceiling of this world upon pillars of obsidian. The stars were the eyes of what hung up there in the rafters of the Kosmos. I have felt the breath of the dead upon my neck and welcomed the blow that did not follow. I have walked below the earth upon sands I know to be the crushed bones of my enemies, though I never met them and they died long before I was dreamed upon this world. I have waded in blood and crushed crystals of the substance in my fist to gain nourishment. I have been beyond this world. I know more than my mind will allow. I must carve myself a shell to crawl in. I must wait until the sun breaks apart. I have heard bells. So many bells. I have rung many myself. I have killed so many. My death is not the last.

[[An enormous manuscript]] which delves into the [[lore|Lore]] of [[Bloodborne|The Main Essay Opening]]. Personally, I am not really a great reader of lore theories as most tend to go into the realm of interpretation, creating an articulate, if [[flawed]], version of events. Which, in my mind, goes against the mode of [[storytelling|Storytelling]] on show within [[Bloodborne|The Main Essay Opening]]. As [[Redgrave]] himself admits, the way the narrative is designed is to allow individual [[interpretations]], to give the [[player agency]] in creating a backstory and motives from the information gathered. Which is fantastic and something that needs to be studied as interactive storytelling is still a fledgling art. But, what this mode does not allow, especially in the case of Bloodborne, is definitive versions of events. What [[Redgrave]] and others do is create versions that many take as definitive. No matter how many times [[Redgrave]] says, “What follows is purely my own interpretation and belief based on the evidence I have gathered. Do not consider any of this as solid fact. Instead, use it as my interpretation, so that you can gather your own beliefs.” There will be people who follow blindly. People are lazy. If you put up a strong enough argument then people will follow, even if you don’t want them to. It’s how religions get started. People dogmatically following the work of someone who claims no authority, and what follows is the tyranny of the masses, otherwise known as mob rule. The followers start to attack any interpretation that varies from the one they have accepted. They argue, using interpretations as facts, whimsy as law, supposition as proven conclusion, and then they start burning people who they can’t shout down.

I'm looking at you, Hideo Kojima.

Bloodborne takes an impressionistic approach to storytelling; a thoroughly [[postmodern text|Postmodern Text]], made up of layers of intertextual references and allusions, all revealed in fragments, creating a [[lore|Lore]] that can be studied at great length. [[Cut scenes|Cut Scenes]], a common site for plot exposition in computer games, feel like hallucinations, or visions, and give as much concrete information as can be found in such [[unreliable elucidations|Unreliable]]. [[Item description]]s offer the largest source of narrative information, but often seem to contradict our experiences as time doesn’t seem to work in a linear fashion, with characters from different eras of Yharnam seemingly existing simultaneously. All the [[NPCs|NPC]] we meet throught the game seem to come from the same school of unreliable narrator, with no single character offering clear answers to what is going on. Each of them is wrapped up in their own survival and, later, [[insanity|Insanity]].

A postmodern text is quite simply, in this [[argument|Argument]], a text which has come out in the last fifty or sixty years and includes some elements of [[pastiche|Pastiche]] and [[intertextual|Intertextuality]] referencing. This is in no way a [[definitive|Definitive]] definition of what a postmodern text is and does not explain the various differences between texts, or even the various techniques used to make up a postmodern text. This definition is only really helpful in giving a timeframe for the creation of the text, while also giving some indication that it takes creative elements from other texts, such as books, films, visual art, architecture, etc. and creates a new product.

Argument is a strong word. It implies disagreement, whereas I just want to put forward ideas and articulate threads of thought around those ideas. I’m not really into beliefs, as beliefs tend to be based on leaps of faith rather than rational examination or scientific exploration, and they tend to be rigid. Ideas, I find, are much more useful, as ideas can change, develop, and evolve. They are much more malleable. Critical thought is the progeny of doubt, whereas dogma stems from the tyranny of rigid beliefs. Investigative thought relies on a mind that acts like [[water|Water]], flowing and moving around obstructions, eroding over time solid blocks of naturalised ideology, questioning any institutionalised versions of the truth, and continuing to grow and learn in a world that, more often than not, rewards innovation and creativity.

The dripping is ceaseless. There is no hole in the roof, the tiles fit together now as tightly as they did when this place was built. Still, the ceiling bulges, a bubble near bursting. I cough like a drowning man, liquid seeping into my lungs. The walls feel damp to my cheek as I listen through the bricks and plaster, the rhythm of the dripping steady and unceasing. There is comfort in the slow, geolithic existence I have accepted as my reality. The water that surrounds me, that drips and drops and splashes in my head, is a womb, though I do not await a birth. This is where I am safe, where I am clean and whole and without infection from the world that swims through my memories to torment me with the wretched lies of daylight and warmth and the singing of the dawn chorus. I have no need for the lies of biological life. Here, I can hear stalactites being formed. I can hear sharp-pinned legs scuttling across the seabed in every drop, the blink of a squid’s ink-filled eye in each splash. I run my fingers over the floors, lifting dirt and dust and hair and skin, filling the whorls of my fingerprints with the debris of past-lives, licking them, tasting the history of this empire stored in the stasis of this locked and barred room. I taste salt. I hear a key scrape at a lock. I see light, like the blade of a knife, slicing from a newly rent crack in the wall. It is light without warmth, that creates shadows rather than illuminates the [[darkness|Mutter]]. It is light to hide in. It is an eye. I hold out my arms and wish to be held in this gaze that feels like an ocean. I wish to swim. I am drowning. Any minute now, I will begin to [[float|Float]]. 12.o

Float… They all float down here.

Not to be mistaken for pasta, pastiche is pretty much the water we swim in, if you see humans as fish and the cultural landscape as the sea. It works as a metaphor. Pastiche is called “speech in a dead language” by Frederick Jameson and, “He argued that the failure of the future was constitutive of a postmodern cultural scene which, as he correctly prophesised, would become dominated by pastiche and revivalism”. This failure of the future, Robert Fisher argues in *Capitalist Realism*, is that capitalism, arguably the grand narrative that postmodernism at once denies and labours under, cannot imagine a future beyond itself. The postmodern tendency is to regurgitate the past, to constantly reinvent what has been, making all history contemporary and thus meaningless. “Pastiche is parody emptied out of content.” Meaning that the appropriation and copying of styles in postmodernism does not have a purpose other than itself. There is no underlying message or subversion, merely a commodity-skin on the same endlessly repeated blank nothing.

Intertextuality, the nebulous term which covers most of that which is contained by the rubric of influence, has become a mode of expression dominating the creative arts mainly through acts of pastiche and parody, and though this seems to be an act of remembering, of preservation, often through a lense of [[nostalgia|Nostalgia]], the appropriation of past works by the present is in fact an act of forgetting as the present re-writes the past to fit current trends. Works are broken down to the sum of their parts, reduced to aesthetic, segments extrapolated to form a series of movements that can be repeated, like dance-steps, to produce the same effect. Thus, an author such as Kafka is subsumed by the Kafkaesque, becoming but one author whose work belongs to the genre or style developed in his name. It is through this genrefication or repetition that a depthlessness, or loss of meaning, occurs, Kafka becoming but one of a type, “the tragedy of a Mayakovsky is played through once more, but this time as farce”(Eagleton. 1986).

It is incredibly difficult to be definitive when you have lived through postmodernism. As the postmodern age starts to coalesce into something else, something that contains maybe a tad more sincerity, it is slightly easier to see what postmodernism is; distance allows the shape of such an amorphous cultural label to be discerned, and what is being revealed is the collected human conscience coming to terms with ideas such as originality, influence and creativity in an age where there is arguably more information than water, where you can discover the fashion trends of Chinese suburbs from Nova Scotia, or listen to T.S Eliot read The Wasteland while running on an electronic treadmill, or watch every episode of The Waltons on a device as thick as a piece of corrugated cardboard while flying between Hong Kong and Sydney. All of these wonders- for they are wonders- are banal realities to large swathes of the human population, especially the [[swathes|Swathes]] that have been labouring under the weight of postmodernism self-consciously trying to balance the knowledge of so many lives being lived in the world simultaneously with a notion of individuality, of a unique [[soul|Individuality]].

This ideology of individuality that permeates much of contemporary culture, especially in countries that have fully engaged with the global capitalist economy, seems to be one of personal liberation. The freedom to be what and who you want is sold to populations en-masse, which is a delicious irony, with many messages proclaiming you have a creative choice over who you are and how you express yourself. [[Hilariously|Hilariously]],on the whole, most of the messages are attached to adverts, products companies and industries that rely on millions of people doing the exact same thing, ie. Buying the mass produced product that is being advertised.

Soldiers, firemen, aid workers, medical staff and many other people who work in professions where they come into contact with the dark realities of human existence cope with humour; gallows humour. For the times we live in- permanent war, people dying of preventable diseases, gated communities of the super-rich, the rising cost of living, depleting energy reserves, melting ice-caps, unevenly distributed labour-saving technology, poisoned rivers, sea beds littered with radioactive waste, etc.- I think gallows humour is all we really have [[left|Hope]], anything else just isn't adequate.

Unless you have hope. The Beatles were full of shit. Fuck love. Hope is all you need, and it won't seem so [[dark|Darkness]].

Darkness is the absence of eyes. We will see. You will all see.

To use the word ‘swathes’ to describe a mass of human beings all living and feeling and moving and fearing is to accept the logic of genocide, a logic which can only be accepted once a dichotomy of us-and-them has been created, when you separate people from people, categorising, labelling, differentiating and dehumanising. To be more exact, I would have to say that the peoples who were most anxious about postmodernity were those who could afford to be, those who had enough leisure and technological wealth to both examine and explore the new frontiers of the Twentieth Century opened up by micro-processing, nuclear fission, relativity, mass broadcasting, advertising, mass transit, satellites, and many, many other advances. The universe expanded for those who could afford it, and more people than ever before could afford it, though there was, and still is, a huge portion of the human population that are living life near exactly the same as they have been for hundreds and hundreds of years, with only select technological advances being available to them, such as the internal combustion engine or chemical fertiliser. This is one of the paradoxes of postmodernity, that the technological wonders of the future dreamed up in the Victorian era have actually, fully arrived, they are just [[unevenly distributed|William Gibson]].

This is a play on a William Gibson quote, which is, “The future is already here – it's just not evenly distributed.” This quote has a contested origin, but, like most postmodern thoughts, it doesn’t really matter who said it. Chances are, thousands, if not millions of people have said it, they just haven’t been recorded. It is also a thought which has probably occurred to many people who have been living over the last 100 years of history, or even people who have lived on the frontiers of [[empire|Empire]] because, in this case, ‘the future’ has nothing to do with time, it is to do with cultural homogenisation. When we say ‘the future’ in this context, we mean a version of the future that a techno-capitalist society wishes to sell, one which is obsessed with new technology, gleaming buildings, glass and steel and microchips and wi-fi and fusion cuisine. Anyone who envisions a future different to this, or wishes their future to one that doesn’t labour under the ideology of ‘progress’, is seen as backwards, uncivilised and ignorant. Though, any vision of the future is as valid as the next as the future is unwritten, it is time unmarred by being tyrannised by the preoccupations of those who hold power over the present. As such, it is a realm of possibility, a site for dreams to flourish, and the people who live in the present need to be wary of their futures being appropriated by those who hold the power now. If [[they|They]] control your dreams, they control your thoughts. Thus, your life will not be your own.

They all fall. We will fall when they awake.

There comes a time in all thoughts that masticate upon power relationships when ‘the powers that be’ become ‘they’. It’s just something that happens. ‘They’ become the shadowy reptiles that manipulate society from within, making slaves of populations, turning people into sheep. Which, I feel, is highly unfortunate. I try not to use ‘they’ as it just sounds like so much conspiracy theory mumbo-jumbo. A soon as someone starts talking of ‘they’ and ‘them’ you start to mentally back away and try to find somewhere safe to hide from that persons version of reality. I know I do, and the reason I do this is because anyone who starts to blame a ‘them’ or ‘they’ has externalised their feelings of powerlessness and then inhabited some perceived authority figure with those feelings. It’s a subversion of [[self-efficacy|Self-Efficacy]], where a person’s belief that they cannot do something, an internal feeling, is super-imposed onto an outside agent. This allows the person talking or thinking to lay the blame on someone or something else, to externalise their own lack of belief in themselves and their power. In this way, the person becomes, in their own mind, the victim of outside forces that they cannot control. ‘They’ become the bogey men, the monster under the bed, and the individual becomes the victim. Which isn't to say 'they' do not exist. After all, dreams are the tales of the [[True Undead]].

Self-efficacy is basically all about believing in yourself. Self-efficacy is someone’s belief that they can do something. It’s a whole area of psychological study, and one which [[self-help|Self Help]] books like The Secret or The Power of Now simplify and then sell to people who think that reading a book and ‘visualising’ will get them what they want, as opposed to expanding their knowledge, practicing talents, learning technical skills and putting in a lot of hard work. This formula is why the books are so successful; it’s easy to read a book and then visualise the stuff you want, whereas it is very difficult to make a concrete plan-of-action, learn new skills and put in a lot of hard graft. Also, this latter option doesn’t require you to read a book that cost you ten pounds, putting your money in the pocket of someone trading on your insecurities and fears.

I’m not a great believer in self-help books as the very genre title is disingenuous. None of these books are self-help books. They are Help books. I am of the mind that if I ask for help and advice from a third party, and then follow that advice and gain some success, I would take the time out to give that person a call, maybe a present, thank them for taking the time to help you when you needed it. I wouldn’t be so egotistical to simply ignore the source of all the advice I received and then go into the world saying, “Yeah, I just helped myself, believed in myself and got to this point all on my own with no outside influences.” But, then, I feel I am the sum of my influences rather than a self-made man, so maybe it’s just a matter of perspective.

There are only a handful of [[cut scenes|List of Bloodborne Cut Scenes]] in [[Bloodborne|The Main Essay Opening]] , with most being before boss fights. These cut scenes normally hold [[little information|incomplete]] and are used as scary ways of introducing a boss. After occasional [[boss|Boss]] fights you will also get a cut scene, with the most memorable being the one following the defeat of the last boss, mainly because it gives you an ending with which to try contextualise the journey you’ve just been on.

• Cut scene 1: Seen from a first person point of view. A man in a wheelchair approaches, mentions Paleblood as if answering a query, tells you Yharnam is the home of blood ministration, says you need to unravel its mystery and that it would be easier with Yharnam blood, which he is about to give you once you have signed a contract. • Cut Scene 2: You have signed the contract and the blood transfusion begins, with the old man saying that, “Whatever happens, you may think it all a mere bad dream.” Then everything goes nuts, you wake up in the same bed, but now there is huge puddle of blood, a beast emerges from the blood, reaches for you then bursts into flames as it touches you, then little white ghost gremlin things crawling up your body, then everything fades to black with a voice saying, “Ahh, You’ve found yourself a hunter.” • Cut scene 3: This is very short with no dialogue. You wake up after your first death in a strange place with a house in it. This is The Hunter’s Dream, your safe place. • Cut Scene 4: This introduces Father Gascgoine, the first boss you have to kill, though you may have killed The Cleric Beast earlier, possibly with Gascgoine’s help, which makes this all the more spooky. It seems Gascgoine has succumbed to bloodlust as he is chopping bodies in a graveyard and talking about beasts [[all over the shop|All over the shop]]. He says we will be a beast, sooner or later, before he [[attacks|Attacks]]. • Cut Scene 5: We see Vicar Amelia transform from praying acolyte to slavering beast. • [[Cut Scene 6|Dark shit]]: Here we watch an exchange between two people, Willem and Laurence. Laurence is leaving. Willem feels he is being betrayed. Laurence reassures him, saying, “I will not forget our adage.” Willem replies, “We are born of the blood, made men by the blood, undone by the blood…” and together they finish, “…Fear the old blood.” Then Laurence leaves with Willem repeating he must fear the old blood. • Cut Scene 7: After defeating Rom, a [[woman|Woman]] in white descends, the moon goes all crazy, a baby cries and you wake up to the open doors of Yahar’gul, Unseen Village. • Cut Scene 8: The One Reborn falls from a bleeding hole in the sky that used to be the moon. • Cut Scene 9: An introduction to [[Micolash|KosKosm]], Host of the Nightmare. Arguably, Micolash has the most to say out of any of the cut scenes, as well as when he is taunting you. How much of it makes sense the first time you play is up to how much attention you’ve been paying to small item descriptions. Otherwise, it mostly sounds like the gibberings of a madman. • Cut Scene 9: Micolash dies and bridge rises to make the next level reachable. • Cut Scene 10: Mergo’s Wetnurse Descends and protects the baby in the carriage. The fight begins. • [[Cut Scene 11|Refuse]]: [[Gehrman]] gets up from his wheelchair, says he is joining the hunt, pulls out a scythe and attacks. • Cut scene 12: A monster you come to know as The Moon Presence descends from the moon and hugs you with its tentacles. This cut scene has two possible outcomes, depending on if you have consumed the [[umbilical cords|Umbilical cords]] or not. If you have not [[consumed|Consumed]] the umbilical cords then the Moon Presence accepts you and you become the new keeper of the dream, replacing [[Gehrman]]. If you have consumed the umbilical cords the Moon Presence rejects you and you fight him/her/it. Then, after defeating Moon Presence you get the [[ending|ending]] that takes the most effort, which is the [[Childhood’s Beginning|Child of the old one]].

I love this phrase. It's really English.

During the fight, Gascgoine turns fully into a beast himself. At no point in the [[vanilla|Vanilla]] game do you turn into a beast, though there is a ‘beasthood’ statistic and it was long thought that some transformation mechanic was hidden in the game, whereby once you gained a certain amount of beasthood you would transform into a beast yourself. This never emerged. In the [[DLC]] there is a rune that makes you take on the appearance of a humanoid wolf, and pairing this with the Beast Claws weapon gives you some fancy moves when fighting, as well as a roar, but it is nowhere near the level of transformation that Gascgoine, Amelia, or the Afflicted Beggar go through, which is a shame. But, then, this isn’t [[Evolve|Evolve]].

Evolve was apparently a game where a team of hunters hunted another player who was a huge beast. Sounds awesome, right? Well, history says otherwise, as does Evolve’s current status as a [[free-to-play|Free to play]].

[[Pay-to-Win]]

This comes straight after killing Vicar Amelia, the last beast boss, and is supposed to be a turning point in our understanding of [[what the hell is going on|Hell]] as it is where we turn from just hunting beasts, as Gherman has told us to do, to finding out some of the deep, dark shit that has been going on in the cursed city of Yharnam.

We have no idea what is going on. We hunt. We kill that which tries to kill us. We try to communicate with those that do not attack us. But, we ultimately kill them, even if they die by their own hand. We suffer. [[We die|Undying]]. We live again to suffer and die. We are trapped in this Hell we choose. We are having fun. The pain remionds us we are alive, or once were, or will be again. 23.

As if to die matters. We learn that we must die. The only way to gain true [[insight]] is to find our own grave amidst the [[dream|Dream]] we call [[home|Home]]. Pray for us. We are your loved ones. The water will come for us all.

The [[heart|Heart]] of the [[matter|Matter]].

A tool made of blood, muscle and memory. I will rip it from any who become predictable. I will gather strength from your laziness.

The substance of this dream is vibrations in space.

This woman is Queen Yharnam, thought to be the last queen of the [[Pthumerian|Pthumerian]] people. You eventually face her in the Chalice Dungeons.

Pthumerians are thought to be the people who inhabited the site that [[Yharnam]] is built on many ages previous. The Pthumerian’s lost kingdom is glimpsed in the Pthumerian dungeons, vast underground caverns and tombs. The only Pthumerians we meet are the queen, the Pthumerian Elder and the Pthumerian Descendent, though there is speculation that The Doll is Pthumerian, mainly because of her height, with her being [[taller|Taller]] than the player character.

She isn’t the only human taller than the player character. Gascgoine is taller than the player character and he is supposed to be of the current time. Gherman and [[Maria|Maria]] are both taller than the player character, and these are again hunter characters rather than Pthumerians. Personally, I feel having these bosses taller than the player character is a design choice, making the bosses seem more impressive and threatening. [[The Doll|The Doll]] is originally a doll that is the size of a small child. When we gain insight she comes to life to help us level up by converting blood echoes into experience points to be spent on improving our character. She is obviously a being that is adept in the ways of the arcane, though a few times when she talks on matters relevant to the plot, it seems she has problems with her memory and seems to sense another life.

"Among the first hunters, all students of [[Gehrman]], was the lady hunter Maria. This was her hunter's [cap/garb/gloves/trousers], crafted in Cainhurst. Maria is distantly related to the undead queen, but had great admiration for [[Gehrman]], unaware of his curious mania"

There is a great possibility that Maria and The Doll are same person, or, to be more precise, that The Doll is a representation of Maria made by [[Gehrman]] to keep him company. They dress very differently but look near identical. Also, after killing Maria, The Doll will comment, “Good hunter. This may sound strange, but… have I somehow changed? Moments ago, from some place, perhaps deep within, I sensed a liberation from heavy shackles. Not that I would know… How passing strange…” Which gives the impression that The Doll had some connection to Maria, and now that Maria has been slain in the nightmare, she can somehow rest in peace. And, an impression is all we can get. There is no moment in the game that tells you anything of the sort in an explicit fashion. Just more hints and fragments, giving anyone investigating enough information to come up with an idea of what could have been, but never straying into the realm of telling you outright.

This cut scene is only available if you chose to [[refuse|Refuse 2]] to submit your life. If you submit your life [[Gehrman]] gracefully chops your head off after saying, “Fear the blood.” And you get the Yharnam Sunrise ending, where you wake up, it’s morning, and The Doll is seen praying by a grave in the dream repeating the line she would use after each time talking to her, [[“May you find your worth in the waking world”|Waking world]]. Credits roll and then you wake up to being given blood ministration once again.

[[My dad|My dad 2]] eventually picked the game back up after watching me play it and then me chiding him for giving up on it. He played it for about six months, going up to level 300, or thereabouts, and NG+9 or 10. I played with him a few times, helping him kill bosses. I even bumped into him [[PVP|Player versus player]]ing and ended up eviscerating him and his co-op, which felt nice. Gaming is a great way to express those repressed, Freudian urges to commit patricide.

Player versus Player. Basically, killing other people online. 25.o

My dad is more of a gamer than I am. He has been playing games since they were first available in the arcades. He is the only reason I have been playing games since I was three years old. It's pretty cool that I am a second generation gamer. I live at a time in history where that actually exists. it is kind of weird to think about how the [[art form|Games as art]] I most admire in the world has only existed for just longer than I have.

Games are an art form. The novel wasn't seen as an art form. Photographs were not seen as an art form. Cinema was not seen as an art form. Eventually, people got the idea. I hope I live to see computer games taken seriously as an art form. Then I can laugh in the face of all those scumbags who refuse to see how damn amazing these things are. I mean, seriously, I'm being about as articulate as a three year old sayikng why he likes ice cream in this small section but, how can people be so fucking snobby? [[Art critics are straight up dicks, man.|I generalise]]

I generalise, of course. Sometimes you just have to go with a feeling for the sake of the joke.

“May you find your worth in the waking world” must have been said to me hundreds of time while I played the game. I feel the saem way now as I did the first time I heard it, [[Bloodborne|The Main Essay Opening]] is telling me to stop playing computer games and go do something else with my time. You hear this phrase each and every time you level up. When you think of your blood echoes/experience points as time, each time you go to [[The Doll]] you are exchanging time for the ability to function better in that world. The Doll seems somewhat sad that I’m back again, getting stronger, swapping the blood of my enemies for abilities, still trapped in the [[dream|Dream]] , hunting for reasons unclear. I feel that The Doll’s voice is Miyazaki directly taking to the player. As if to say, when you are done with enjoying this realisation of my dreams, I wish you all the best in realising your own. It’s hopeful, and it is also a reminder that this is not the real world, each and every time you’ve taken the effort and done something that is worth banking, you’ve just been playing a game, it’s not real. This fourth-wall breaking meta-conversation between creator and player is as clearly communicated as, say, Michael Haneke’s condemnation of our voyeuristic tendencies when Paul winks at the camera at the denouement of Funny Games(1997).

I chose the ‘refuse’ ending the first time around as I thought it was a bit fishy that I was going to submit my life after all that rigmarole. [[My dad|My dad]] got to that point and phoned me asking what to do. I refused to help him. I told him he had to figure it out on his own. He phoned me back two minutes later saying the credits were rolling. I then had a go at him, asking him how he could have submitted his life. He told me it just felt like it was what he supposed to do, he trusted [[Gehrman]]. Which didn’t stop him being annoyed that he had missed two boss fights.

There are three possible endings for Bloodborne, and it all depends on whether you choose to [[submit|Submit]] your life or [[refuse|Refuse]] to submit. If you choose to submit [[your life|Is life a dream]] then you have one ending. If you refuse, you have two possible endings. In one ending, you kill [[Gehrman]], The First Hunter, your wheelchair-bound mentor who seems to not be so wheelchair-bound anymore. You then have some weird, tentacled thing come down from the moon, hug you and then turn you into the keeper of [[The Hunter's Dream]], sat in your own wheelchair, awaiting yet more Hunters to come and try their luck. In the other ending, the weird as hell ending, you kill [[Gehrman]]. But, when the weird tentacled thing comes and grabs you, it refuses you. In this ending you, the player, have chosen to consume three or four [[umbilical cords|Umbilical cords]] that you found scattered throughout the game. You then fight this weird alien being which is called Moon Presence. You kill it and, afterwards, [[The Doll]] is shown picking up a little slug-like being, and says, "Are you [[cold]]?.. Oh, good hunter." Before holding it to her chest in a mothering fashion. [[Speculation|the cult part two]] is rife as to the meaning of this last ending. You gain a [[PSN]] trophy called "Childhood's Beginning" for gaining this ending, which echoes Arthur C. Clarkes sci-fi book called [["Childhood's End"|Childhood's End]] where human beings evolve past the need for a physical body.

We are all vapours, unless we destroy them before they wake.

I will never submit. I have always submitted.

Your life in [[Bloodborne|The Main Essay Opening]] is a [[dream|Dream]]. [[Gehrman|Gehrman]] isn't asking you to submit your life. Rather, he is asking you to [[submit|Submit]] to having your link to [[The Hunter's Dream|The Hunter's Dream]] severed. Your job is done. The [[nightmare has been destroyed|Nightmare Slain]] and the hunt is over. [[Maybe|Trial of the Nightmare]].

There are four [[Great One]] umbilical cords in [[Bloodborne|The Main Essay Opening]]. Their descriptions are all different, though they all start with the line: "A great relic, also known as the Cord of the Eye. Every infant Great One has this [[precursor]] to the umbilical cord." "Every Great One loses its child, and then yearns for a surrogate. The Third Umbilical Cord precipitated the encounter with the pale moon, which beckoned the hunters and conceived the hunter's dream."

To eat the pacenta is to wlecome new life into the world.

When the gods awake, we will realise we were but their dreams.

The message *Nightmare Slain* appears only twice in the [[vanilla|Vanilla]] game, and once in the [[DLC|DLC]]. Usually, when you kill a [[boss|Boss]], the message [[*Prey Slaughtered*|Prey Slaughtered]] appears. This is strictly in the English translation. In the Japanese version it says *You Have Hunted*, which is pretty [[badass|Badass]].

[[Micolash]] won't tell me what the nightmare is. Is it a manifestation of our fears? A parallel plain of existence? A prison? A paradise made for one? We need to dig deeper. Micolash agrees. I think he knows more than he is telling me. It has been months. It has been too long. I'm not sure of time anymore. *Note to self: Stop rambling. keep to the point. We need to find the broken door.

The use of the word *vanilla* in this context refers to the full game before [[DLC|DLC]]. Vanilla is used by many to describe a game before DLC, or other [[changes|Patches]]. I feel this term is a bit unfair to the flavour vanilla, because I love vanilla. Vanilla ice cream is the bomb, and any other flavour just feels like it is trying too hard, especially when it adds bits and pieces found around the kitchen, like cookie dough or chocolate chips or gummy bears. Vanilla ice cream is the best version of ice cream. Whereas, the vanilla version of most release date versions of games are usually very flawed and require huge [[patches|Patches 2]] before they can be deemed [[playable|Lazy Developers]].

DLC: Downloadable Content. The term is mostly used to refer to game content that proceeds the release of the [[vanilla|Vanilla]] game, normally in the form of extra levels, extra items, extra stuff. There is also a horrible, disgusting practice called Day One DLC, which is normally additional gear and [[skins]] that are only available if you pre-order the game, ie. buy the game before it is finished and you don't know if it is any good or no.

A boss is usually an enemy of great strength found at the end of a game, or at the end of a level. The first boss in a computer game was the Gold Dragon form DnD, a 1975 role-playing game. Whoever named bosses 'bosses' is a boss. I'm thinking if Cthulhu isn't the final boss of the internet, it will be the guy who nemed bosses bosses.

We are hunters. Our prey is often the beasts and creatures of the world we are thrown into. Though, sometimes, if we invade other worlds, the prey is fellow hunters. The message *Prey Slaughtered* appears when you successfully kill another player after an [[invasion|Invasion]].

There is much in [[Bloodborne|The Main Essay Opening]] that is badass. It's nice little touches that reward a player, such as the transform attacks on weapons, or the *[[Prey Slaughtered]]* messages, or being able to turn into a beast of kin, or just the way a player puts their fist in an enemies chest when they attack after a [[parry|Parry]].

Changes that come in the form of [[patches|Patches 2]]. These patches can be really small, just fixing bugs, etc. Or, they can be huge, adding whole levels, weapons, characters and storylines.

Not to be confused with [[Patches|Patches 3]], an [[NPC|NPC]] that appears in Fromsoftware games in various forms. In Bloodborne, he appears as a spider with a man's head. And, he's a [[bastard|Patches 4]].

This was never really a thing before the internet and always online games and such. It used to be that games were just released and you had to live with the flaws and bugs. Now, developers can get their unfinished games burned to discs a few months before the actual release date and then just work on fixing them, cutting down on the time before a game is finished and the time to get it manufactured and distributed in physical form. Which doesn't mean games aren't released without flaws and bugs, it just means they can be fixed after everyone has bought the game and basically tested it fully for the developer.

[[Patches|Patches 4]] is a complete bastard and tends to just be around to trick, insult and generally annoy the player character. In all his Fromsoftware incarnations, not just in [[Bloodborne|The Main Essay Opening]], where he seems to be an acolyte of [[Amygdala|Amygdala]], and wants to scarifice you to his god, in some way. Or, kick you into a swamp. Or, grovel. Or, give you a gift. He's a bastard. Just kill him when you can. Just make sure you get the [[Anti-Clockwise Metamorphosis Rune|Anti-Clockwise]]| from him first. 3.i

NPC stands for Non Player Character. This is a person in a game who isn't you, and who isn't another player. Sometimes you can interact with them. Sometimes they are just people talking in the street, giving flavour to the environments. Some of them are important. Some of them aren't. I have started to see people who aren't me as NPCs. The people I pass in the street. The people who ask me, "Do you want fries with that?" The people who open doors for me or make small talk at bus stops. The annoying teenagers in the cinema talking in whispers about what is really going on. [[The man who lives in the storm drain outside my house]] and whispers through the grating, giving me clues to the nature of my existence. The cat next door who watches my every move, reporting back to whoever is interested in my research. They are all NPCs. Even [[Micolash]] . Though, I have my suspicions that he is another player character, just one from a different game. Not [[Bloodborne|The Main Essay Opening]]. I've explained that, I think. *Note to self: This passage seems longer than I originally wrote it. Who is the man in my storm drain? I will explore further. I won't delete it yet. I'm curious as to where this is going. I better get on with my mission.*

Seriously, he's a complete bastard. I hate him.

Spider-like monster that shoots lasers. Also the name for the centre of your brain which controls fear. 1.f

One of the "Metamorphosis" runes. "A secret symbol left by [[Caryll|Caryll]], runesmith of [[Byrgenwerth|Byrgenwerth]]. The twisted cross means "metamorphosis." Rotated anti-clockwise, this rune boosts stamina. The discovery of blood made their dream of evolution a reality. Metamorphosis, and the excesses and deviation that followed, was only the beginning."

Runesmith Caryll was a student of [[Byrgenwerth]] who somehow inscribed certain words or phrases from the language of The [[Old Ones]]. We never meet Caryll in the game, though many have speculated that the corpse you find the Rune Workshop Tool on is Runesmith Caryll, sacrificed by The Witches of Hemwick,an optional [[boss|Boss]].

Home of the scholars who tried to prevent the scourge.

I'm sure someone is changing this document. I can't find some passages I've written, others keep changing, or their links go to other passages. Am I going mad? No one has access to my computer. I'm creating this offline. I need sleep. I've been working three straight months on this. I'm beginning to see things. I feel like my dreams aren't my own. Where is the passage on The Old Ones? It must be here, I wrote it up, even going so far as to get a few quotes from copy of the Necronomicon I found online a few years ago, back when you could still easily find The Anarchist's Cookbook, Keiser Sozay's home address and other banned items, before the internet became an Amazon/Google franchise machine. You know, when downloading a photograph took all afternoon, there were no adverts and The Deep Web was just The Web. [[The Golden Age|Golden Age]]. I need sleep. I need to finish this project. I'm not even sure what I am writing about anymore. People keep pushing notes under my door. Is [[Micolash|Micolash]] ever coming back?

Weirdly, my roomate's name as well as the [[insane dreamer|Micolash 2]] in [[Bloodborne|The Main Essay Opening]]. He's from Poland. I don't see him much these days. He is an archeology student and was working on the geophysical survey over in Innsmouth. We used to stay up all night, talking feverishly about this and that while smoking cheap hash we got off some of the local kids. Last I saw him he was excited about something he couldn't talk to me about. New ideas, he [[said|Higher Plane]], just what he was looking for. I don't know. All the archeologist's [[I've ever met]] have been weird.

His exact words were, "So many new ideas. Who would have thought we could find higher plane underground?" I keep meaning to go over to the sight. They had only put down a few augers and done one or two shovel test pits last time I was there. That was months ago. Three months? Four? How long have I been working on this? I must sleep all day, I hardly remember last time I saw sunlight through the window.

Howard Phillips Lovecraft was born on the 20th of August 1890, and died on March 15th 1937. He was a writer who died in poverty. He was not very well respected while alive, only gaining fame posthumously. His most famous works are those which include and allude to Elder Gods, the most notable being Cthulhu. He was very much interested in the idea that [[humans are in no way central to the universe]], and that human ideals and perceptions only belong to humanity. His work is available online and nearly every bookstore that still exists. He is seen as a great influence in 20th century horror, being cited as such by many bestselling authors such as Stephen King, Dean R. Koontz and Neil Gaiman. Insanity, Elder Gods, [[Cosmic Horror]] and sublime ambiguity are all hallmarks of Lovecraft's work, and each of these elements are present in Bloodborne. Not to mention Ebrietas, the hidden boss of the Upper Cathedral Ward, which is an almost perfect likeness of most popular culture renderings of [[Cthulhu]], one of Lovecraft's most revered 'inventions'.

I find the phrase *unreliable elucidations* to be pleasing, especially when *[[elucidations]]* is a rhyming echo of [[*hallucinations*|Hallucinations]]. I was thinking that I might use slightly less grandiose vocabulary, reaching for simplicity rather than verbosity, but sometimes the phrase feels so eloquent as to transcend my judgement. *Elucidiation* means a clear [[explanation|Explanation]].

I like long [[words|long words]] and knowing how to [[wield|Wield]] them. It’s a skill, like any other.

Swords and pens, my friends, bedfellows to the end.

I've been having trouble sleeping. this project has taken hold of me. When I sleep I dream of shapes writing in the darkness, of beings below an ocean with no surface. I look away from the keyboard, the walls dance with tentacles, eyes. I know they are all the contents of my overworked imagination. I get like this. It happens to us all when we work too hard. I'm not scared. More curious. I look hard into the walls as they dance, looking for images that make sense, or something I recognise. They are images from my brain, after all, I must be creating them from somewhere, some memory. Dreams are memories played over each other, experienced as reality, many layers at once, which is why you can feel you are in an old school room and your current workplace at the same time. Within this mixture of memories is everything you were imagining while creating those memories. They come from the same place in the brain. I think. I'm not sure what is coming from my brain anymore. Anymore, I'm the sum of the dreams I'm trying to make reality with this project. *Note to self: When did I write this? I don't remember. There was something else here. This is not a link I recognise. Where are The Old Ones? I must backtrack.*

Lore acts to contextualise the gameplay. It is what the computer generated models have instead of history, it’s what the [[NPCs|NPC]] have that contextualises their backstory. Lore comes in [[many forms|Lore 2]] and from many sources. Most modern games incorporate lore into their gameworlds, mainly through [[cut scenes|Cut Scenes]] and dialogue. Other sources of lore are items found in-game, as well as the environment. [[Overheard conversations]], [[graffiti]], [[adverts]] and prattling radios all contribute. Lot of games use a variant on [[Bioshock’s|Bioshock]] audio diaries, or the email trails that can be hacked in [[Deus Ex|Deus Ex]].

[[Lore]] isn’t unique to computer games, as authors such as Tolkien or [[Lovecraft]] can attest, or filmmakers such as [[Kevin Smith]], or comic book writers like Stan Lee. Even ancient Rome had lore; all their Gods that gave voice, name and shape to the many phantasmal elements of human existence, such as emotions and inspiration. It could be said that America's lore is found in the myths of the Western Frontier and [[conspiracy theories|Conspiracy Theory]], stories of cowboys~~(apostles)~~, aliens~~(angels)~~ and omniscient government agencies~~(God)~~. Lore is not to be mistaken for [[History]]. Lore is what happens in the cracks of history, flavouring the bare facts with life. Lore is the collected imaginative musings of an empire or civilisation made up of, amongst many other things, opinions and folktales. Lore is the collected oral histories and imperfect recollections of times passed, a mixture of myth and hearsay, of hyperbole and philosophy and, more often than not, it’s all sprinkled with blood and dirty [[jokes|Jokes]]. [[Bloodborne|The Main Essay Opening]] has many speculations on it's complex and [[incomplete]] lore. these speculations are often explored at great length, such as in the Youtube videos [[Vaatividya]], or in large text documents, such as [[Redgrave’s|Redgrave]] epic [[The Paleblood Hunt|They Burn Heretics]].

One thing Bloodborne is definitely lacking is humour. There aren’t many jokes. [[Patches|Patches 3]] is the closest the game comes to levity, and that is at the player’s expense.

He isn't a clown he doesn't say stuff [[floats|Float]]. He's just homeless and it looks roomy down there. I give him food and he gives me [[missions|Missions]]. There is nothing weird about this.

I have travelled furthur than I ever wanted to. I only thank the prankster gods.

I lost my virginity to an archeologist. She was studying at the university near me and found me in a local rock dive. We drank cheap brandy and coke and dated for nine months. She shared a house with lots of other archeology students. They thought Tony Robinson was a god and thought pre-2000s Dr Who was the best thing ever created since [[forever]].

I never argued, they knew more about [[history|History]] than me.

History has pretentions of fact, of [[solid reality|Matter]], of documented names and dates and deaths and births. You know, the stuff that happened when someone who was there wasn't too busy enjoying it to [[write it down]].

Explain [[your self|Words]] without language. *Note to self: Wrong Text. [[Go back|Storytelling]].*

I don't trust [[writers|lying]]. All of them steal. All of them have an [[agenda]]. [[Objectivity|elucidations]] is a beautiful idea never realised by any writer, ever.

I would be [[lying]] if I said I didn't have an agenda. I've forgotten what it was originally. Right now, I just need to find the truth. My truth. The truth of this [[dream|Dream]].

This is not where I want to be. Who keeps changing my [[links|Flashback]]?

Imagining the infinite is as impossible as imagining nothing. Which must mean they are one and the same. Everything is nothing, nothing is everything. We could play these word games into the small hours, feverish conversations stuttered out between baggy hash joints, the kosm a pattern found in the artex ceiling of a damp flat. [[Micolash]] would often tell me [[dreams|Dream]] were made of these moments, these memories collapsing into themselves like a kaleidoscope turning against the raw optic nerve, a dance of our lives seen from beyond the confines of this darkling plane. I would laugh. It was the only response that made any sense. I would laugh and try to find the single place in my ear that felt the bass note of time passing. ~~*Note to self: Much time has passed. We are alone, now. We are whole. I like to remind myself of simpler times by re-reading these thoughts, these feelings, only to remind myself of the ignorance and innocence that walked hand-in-hand through the fields of my young imagination. I am lucky. I still remember words, though I experience them as reality. I experience them as dreams. There is no difference.*~~

All writers are liars. 8.t

Some of the funniest moments in GTAV are found in the overheard conversations and dialogues. "'Sup man? I just spent 3 hours removing my chest hair this morning, so it's that kind of day, y'know?" "I'm not in the business of making money, I'm in the business of making truth. But, truth costs money." "This is some bullshit. My pussy doesn't make me any less valuable than Craig or Jonathon, yet both of them assholes got promoted before me? That's some sexist bullshit. Like having a dick makes it easier for you to read a spreadsheet?" "When you get home I'm going to smell your dick, so you better keep it in your pants."

*The Division* questioned a huge number of real life graffiti artists, asking them where they would most like to paint in New York if the apocalypse of The Division happened for real. There are 320 unique pieces of graffiti, as well as thousands of [[tags]], scrawls, and messages, such as [[Bible verses|messages]], scattered throughout the city. This level of detail gives the apocalyptic environment not just ornamentation, but also a personality, a sense that all law and order slowly decayed and, in the [[chaos|Chaos]] between the [[virus|Virus]] hitting and nearly everyone being dead, those with the will took advantage of the lack of law enforcement. There is a tragic realism in the idea of graffiti artists painting what would soon become the ruins of the world. Nero, the leader of Rome, fiddled while it burned. In this world, even the peasants are fiddling in the face of annihilation.

They plant eyes in your brain. Do not go with them... The world is not... This is not the waking world... We are yet to open our true eyes... I have seen... I have seen them...

I loved this game when I played it. the city of Rapture was a revelation. It felt lived in, a real place that had a history. It is one of the first games I rememeber feeling that way about. It wasn't just a place where a game played out, or a selection of levels, it had a history. The art direction did a lot of the storytelling. The whole Art Deco look of the place made it sort of out of time, existing in an alternative version of the past. Could this version of the past actually exist, if technology had developed in a different way? I imagine this to be true,of this world. Like, what would have happened if gene-splicing was something that people just accepted? What would a world be like where learning to manipulate genes was a socially acceptable as learning computer programming or playing a guitar? Why don't we live in a world like that? What is it that people find so morally repugnant about messing with DNA that they don't find about messing with metal, or stone, or plantlife? Drilling into the Earth and extracting magic black blood that can be used to make anything from plastic bags to microprocessors seems, to me, to be just as crazy, but it is accepted without question. The world is strange. What we don't see as strange is even stranger.

Deus Ex Machina... [[God from the machine]] Antiphanes, a Greek scholar who died after having a pear thrown at him, had this to say about deus ex machina: "when they don't know what to say and have completely given up on the play just like a finger they lift the machine and the spectators are satisfied." Deus ex machina is nothing to do with ghosts or gods in machines, spirits in technology or souls in the cyber-sphere... It just means something unexpected/unforseen saving the day in fiction. It is often the sign of lazy writing, or of an author trying to wrap the story up in a way that allows the protagonists to survive the disaster they have been thrown into by their creator. The author is the [[god|Old Ones]] of the fiction machine they have created. They choose who lives and [[Dies|Hard Deaths]] . Who dies in this [[story|Storytelling]]?

Tags are the chosen names and stylised signatures of graffiti artists. These are signs of life, temporary declarations of existence scrawled upon the facticity of concrete they are born into. 21.i

A prominent verse being Revelation 15:1, "I saw in heaven another great and marvelous sign: seven angels with the seven last [[plagues|The Beast Plague]]. Last, because with them God's wrath is completed." *Note to self: Revelation 15:2, "And I saw what looked like a sea of glass glowing with fire and, standing beside the sea, those who had been victorious over the beast and its image and over the number of its name. They held harps given them by God." The beast... Could this be a link to the beast plague? This is getting crazy. Two months in and I'm seeing [[links|Links]] everywhere.*

The most common form of the blood sickness appears to be lycanthropy: Humans slowly turning into wolves. This may be due to people imbibing too much of the common blood, that which is readily available, the blood of chosen humans, the Blood Saints, who are themselves carriers of a healing virus found in the blood of kin. The Healing Church seems to be the source of the plague of beasts, and also the power that polices it the the hunters. This Beast Plague could also be related to real-world endemics, such as AIDs, which is carried in the blood and makes people's blood poison that eventually kills them. The biblical implications of people turning into beasts, that which is warned of in the book of Revelation, shows that a beast plague is a real-world concern, over and above the metaphorical implications. That the victims of the plague begin to perceive those who are infected as fellow humans and the uninfected as beasts is worrying. How would I know? How would any of us know? We'd be persecuted by beasts as we sided with humans, yet, from the outside, it would be the other way. No one would know. Would it be better to not kill any beast or any man? Would it not be better to live in peace? How to do this when the body craves violence?

[[Chaos is|Nightmare of being human]] not the opposite of order. Order is itself chaotic, it is a chaotic pattern seen from too close, in too limited a timeframe. All order breaks down on a long enough timeline. But, this isn't chaos. Chaos is allowing things to happen. Chaos is pushing the button to see what occurs next. Chaos is the imagination pushing at [[the|Nightmare of being human]] soft tissue of reality and not even bothering to wonder if it all makes sense. Chaos is a lack of thought. Adrenaline pushing the intelligent part of you into the reptile part of you and letting you run free. Chaos is the [[beast|Nightmare of being human]] in you, grinning. Chaos will [[let|Nightmare of being human]] you choose. Chaos is the greatest joke God never existed on you. Chaos is the alphabet of silence. Chaos is freedom from consequence, for all consequences occur at once. There are always [[loose|Nightmare of being human]] ends when you sleep on a frayed carpet. Chaos is the nature of an unobserved universe. It is being outside of all you find yourself inhabiting. You are [[in|Nightmare of being human]] chaos. It is light and dark eating each other just for [[the|Nightmare of being human]] taste, and leaving nothing behind but a vague feeling that there is far more to this than meets the eye. If only I wasn't blind. If only life was not a viscious [[abbatoir|Nightmare of being human]] of desire.

Agent Smith in the Matrix has this to say on the subject of viruses and [[the human race|The human race]]: "I'd like to share a [[revelation|messages]] during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet."

I began this as a way of trying to understand what I thought of such a subject. I only wanted to write on a computer game. Now, I am watched from the shadows, I am seen by many, on all sides. The very sea is a liquid of eyes all pointed towards my soul. I can feel them itching at me. I touch at the truth and the truth touches me back with insanity. Is it true that if you think you could be insane, you are in fact sane? I must be sane. I must be. 19.m

The full text for *The Paleblood Hunt* can be found here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JL5acskAT_2t062HILImBkV8eXAwaqOj611mSjK-vZ8/edit 11.b

Do you think you have control? Manipulation is how we allow lies to be our reality. We do not know we are being manipulated. We invite the manipulation. We only want the illusion of control. We only want to know... We are safe. We are held. We are in the womb. We are close to the heartbeat, but we are yet to live.

A lot of people don't believe in their own [[subjectivity]]. It is a problem of authority. If you train people to follow authority figures- teachers, journalists, politicians, directors, authors, judges, priests, parents- then they fail to see their own interpretation of events as being valid. It is a form of [[tyranny]], where thoughts and ideas and beliefs that are created by the individual are drowned out by the thoughts, ideas and beliefs of the society as a whole. It is only those who have fully grasped their own agency in creating reality that are most comfortable not being fed the answers. These people exist, they are mainly the creatives, the people who explore the realm of their own imagination maybe more than they explore the tyranny of 'reality'.

Redgrave revised [[The Paleblood Hunt|An enormous manuscript]] when the [[DLC]] for [[Bloodborne|The Main Essay Opening]] was released. The most important revision, for me, was a prologue which admitted that, due to the nature of [[Bloodborne's|The Main Essay Opening]] [[storytelling|Storytelling]] technique, where there are purposeful holes in the plot and [[lore|Lore]], any interpretation will always be a personal one. This redressed the flawed nature of the work, admitting that multiple interpretations are welcome, and even necessary.

Little is known of Redgrave. There was a war of cultists, between followers of [[Vaatividya]] and [[Redgrave]]. *Note to self: Contact [[Redgrave|The Acolyte]]. You must. He knows more than he admits. He [[dreams|Dream]]. He has seen the stars below the ocean.* *Note to self: Redgrave is gone. Who silenced him? Has he ascended?*

To be totally honest, I know nothing of this guy. Only that he is a charlatan. He made his name on another game. Dark Souls. He tried to grasp the complexities of the Bloodborne lore, the history of the games mythology, the deep knowledge, and he either failed, or was replaced by an imposter when he grew frenzied from too much insight. I believe the latter. There are many who walk among us who are imposters, agents of Order. They must be burned. Only the [[True Heretics]] will prosper when the fires have been exstinguished. *Note to self:Who are the [[True Heretics]]? Much of my research has their name somewhere, scribbled in the margins of ancient texts, their sigil scratched into the walls of [[Pompeii]], Agartha, Atlantis, [[Old Cairo]], Lemuria, Babylon, and all other capitals of the dread realms of immemorial time. They exist outside of our ken. I must find them. Their names are whispers with a source. I must find the mouths that utter their drowning mantras.*

I must protect him from the [[True Heretics]].

Human beings have within them the ability to be both demon and angel. And, all inbetween. We are a Swiss army knife of an organism. You can see it in all the different ways we function on this planet. One a trained soldier who can kill without thought or mercy, another a nurse who will help someone live with every breath in their body. You have purveyors of junk food frubbing shoulders with personal trainers. Poachers of elephant tusks and animal rights activists. Climbers, divers, astraonauts, scientists, artists, teachers, serial killers, fur trappers, sailors, tailors, farmers, arsonists. those who specialise in origami and those who specialise in skipping. Singers and torturers. jailers and freedom fighters. What makes us so versatile. One thing. Our imagination. Our ability to [[tap into|Receivers]] the realm of infinite possibility with our minds. [[Lovecraft]] was very much interested in the unique features of human consciousness, and felt that there was much horror to be found in the knowledge that [[our perception is wholly limited to ourselves|humans are in no way central to the universe]], and not shared by the rest of the universe, whatever it may inhabit.

Human beings are receivers of consciousness, much in the same way a mobile phone is a receiver of microwaves, or a laptop receives wi-fi. Wi-fi and microwaves are all arouynd us all the time, yet we cannot pick them up without the correct receiver. And, even then, we have to tune into the correct frequency or know the right URL to get anything coherent. This is how the human brain works. We receive ideas much like a TV recieves transmissions from the BBC. *Note to self: Who is writing this New Age garbage? Who is writing this document? Is it me? I keep finding links I haven't written, ideas that are not my own. Does [[Micolash]] know my password? But, even if he does, he has never given any indication that he believs any of this nonsense. What is happening to us?*

Being human is a [[nightmare|Trial of the Nightmare]] .

It seems only fitting... Only fitting... Where else to gods reside but in the machinations of men and the will of their imaginations? 9.o

PSN: Playstation Network. Where games are played.

A favourite text of the hippy era, made fashionable by the likes of [[Ken Kesey]] and his merry band of pranksters, the proto-hippies, the agents of chaos working for the [[deep state]]. They showed us the gateway to the [[halls of the gods]]. The gateway was closed to us. They died. We live in the shadow of their graves.

[[Lovecraft|Lovecraft 2]], you fool. You only added to the madness. You only added to the confusion. I respect it. But, I cannot like it.

Precursur: A person or thing that proceeds is the common useage. In biology, it is a cell or tissue that gives rise to a variant, or a more mature form. The Cord of the Eye is a precursur to an umbilical cord. An umbilical cord is what connects the baby to it's host mother. In this case, we have to ask, is the human the host, or the Great One? If every Great One has one of these, and they come before the umbilical cord, then the actual umbilical cord is not what we are holding. It is what the Great One needs to connect it to it's child. Is the human being the actual umbilical cord? Is the human being that gives birth to the infant Great One a connection between God and the physical realm? Jesus was the child of a Great One, in the mythology of the Christians. Mary was the connector. If we had killed Mary, and then stomped her hybrid, would we have found a Cord of the Eye? There are many children of the Great Ones that are born to corrupted beings in this phtysical realm. We must hunt them. Language is too maleable. We can hide great mysteries in plain sight by giving them new names. I must tell [[Micolash]]. I need to share this before he digs deeper. [[The man who lives in the storm drain outside my house]] can give me more insight. We are all connected now. I can see it. I can see it with my eyes closed. 13.r

Lovecraft was hypersensitive to the cold. He would feel blighted by any low temperature. He felt suffocated by cold. He constantly needed the warmth of a fire or other beings to keep him sated. Human bodies, hot soup. It could be supposed that he was a vampire of sorts, or one of the [[True Undead]]. *Note to self: This latter theory intrigues me in ways that make me feel catatonic. He is himself the hybrid offspring of a [[Great One]]. His writings the secret history of our ignorance. This fever will pass. I am making too many connections.*

[[Micolash]] was telling me of his readings of the Necronomicon's index. He found a small reference to the True Undead, a human-like creature who feeds on dreams and tells stories that cannot help be true. These stories are never believed. They never die. They live in the words while their bodies decay to ice. They shiver in the highest temperature and fear the cold as any man would fear the jaws of a shark when submerged in bloodied water. Was it in [[Pompeii]] that they appeared first? I doubt it. Maybe that is where they gained their name, breathing the dust that killed the rest. Micolash tells me many things from his reading of my collection. I only dip in. I have not the state of mind for any prolonged exposure to the strange hieroglyphs that dance in my peripherals as I read. They squirm, even when I close my eyes. sometimes, I hear water dripping.

[[Kos|KosKosm]] , or Kosm? Who is the true universe? Is there but one reality? The scholars, [[presbyters|Presbyter]] and provosts have worked hard and long over this utterance. Solved only by the prophecy of the [[DLC]].

The schism that was known as [[Micolash’s Conundrum]] was only a precipitator of the true war. after the embarassing feud had dwindled down to a background hum of discontent, a murmur of disbelief and failed dreams, new factions began to emerge. These factions formed around the Great Ones themselves, each faction claiming to be the holders of the true name of God. they each claimed their blood was the most vital, the most pure, the most full of vitality. The [[True Undead]] began to emerge as go-betweens, or so these individuals claimed to be. It became confusing, even exciting. As I write I can feel the fever of these days still pulling at the cells of my body to separate, to frenzy with the grand truth of all that is known outside of immemorial time. It was at this time that the ocean floor began to rise.

Skins are usually cosmetic changes to a characters appearance.

*passage removed* ~~Fuck you, Micolash. Stop changing what I have written!~~

The [[True Heretics]] of Popmeii worshipped [[Serapis]], also known as "King of the Deep", a resurrected god of the underworld, and one who shares an uncanny resemblance to the one now known as Jesus. I discovered his name scratched in the entombed notebooks of the [[Provost Charon]]. The passages were half-erased by mildew, and they depicted Serapis not as the handsome, Grecian man that is preserved in many museums(purveyors of lies, as I have discovered, and as Micolash has taught me well), but a beast whose back is made to look like a mans head, but his front is that of a many legged lobster, and the true head is near indescribable, made up of many dead things which I cannot make out. All I know, when looking upon the faded and blotched sketch, my eyes began to throb with blood pumping too fast, my vision blurred, and a red-out forced me to seek sunlight.

I suspect Serapis is a name given to one of the many Elder Gods who walked among us in those early days, where the sky was a city of dread angels, and the sea a depth that shone with a thousand stars.

Provost Charon was a [[True Heretic|True Heretics]] [[Presbyter]] and scholar. His body was discovered in the [[mountains of Sumeria]]. [[Micolash]] was on the expedition that uncovered the tomb. He told me Charon, like all [[True Heretic|True Heretics]] members who were buried far from the sea, was interned upside down, his head encased in a stone-ware vase that had once held water. The papers he smuggled out are the consistency of ash. I cannot touch them, they are held between sheets of perspex. They look to be made of pressed leaves as they contain many faint veins. I have, through my research, discovered that Provost Charon travelled from [[Old Cairo]] to Pompeii, possibly as a messenger, more probably as a smuggler, carrying not only his writings on the Elder Gods, but also vials of their blood, hoping to experiment with [[the scourge|The Beast Plague]] himself. His followers were the ones who interned him, at his request, as his physical body could no longer hold the truth that corrupted him.

Curse the fiend. Curse him to the ocean of eternity that floats in the nightmare of this world. He will be slain, as all are slain, and then he will be slain again to take on the amntle of fair Kos, but not as a crown, but a curse. His seed will yield nothing but pain. His life will be nothing but hollow. I have seen the true way of things. I must chase his kin to the very end.

Specifically, Mashu of the Zagros. Or, so I was told. It's getting late and I am beginning to feel that the words are getting further away from me. *Note to self: On second reading, I need to double check. The geography seems wrong. Are there truly [[Waters of Death]]? Water is the stuff of life. There are so many lies.

They sent us there, under the sand, and we found the foundations of deep maze upside down, floating in nothing. So many tunnels. So much death we saw. Our guides all fell. Our lives are no longer our own, but we found him. Yes. We found him.

[[Provost Charon's|Provost Charon]] notes snigger at the tales of the Mesopotamian's who warned their people of the oceans. They were right, but for all the worng reasons. After all I have discovered, I can only agree. Gilgamesh is a tale of much passion, and one which holds many truths, but is surely a work of deep propaganda.

Cosmic Horror is derived from the death of God, in the Christian sense, that came about after [[The Enlightenment]]. It is the horror that is derived from the non-existence of a nurturing, Christian God, and thus the meaningless of all human life. 4.l

As if any light but that of further ignorance can shine in this nightmare void.

[[Hiedetaka Miyazaki]] has stated very clearly that he has left a lot of the story of Bloodborne incomplete. Here's some quotes from an interview he did which is printed in the [[Bloodborne|The Main Essay Opening]] player guide: "I'm sure we may get some criticism that gamers aren't given enough explanation, and I'll gladly accept that if so. But I think the fun of imagining things for yourself is one of the core tenets I follow." "I want to leave room open for the imagination- both my own and the imagination of gamers." "I do try to leave room open for people's imaginations." Miyazaki is very much into leaving details ambiguous in his stories, allowing the player agency in creating their own motives and reasoning behind their actions. In this way, he lets the player inhabit their chaaracter, not juist allowing them to control their movemnets, but also allowing them to inhabit the emotional and intellectual landscapeof their character. Any time the player asks themselves, "Why am I doing this?" They should not be looking for outside voices to tell them, authorial authority figures to give them motive, or an external director to contextualise their actions. It is entirely up to player themself, and that is why this style of storytelling is so empowering in computer games, and so seductive.

*"Now all my tales are based on the fundamental premise that common human laws and interests and emotions have no validity or significance in the vast cosmos-at-large. To me there is nothing but puerility in a tale in which the human form—and the local human passions and conditions and standards—are depicted as native to other worlds or other universes. To achieve the essence of real external[[i|Lovecraft 2]]ty, whether of time or space or dimension, one must forget that such things as organic life, good and evil, love and hate, and all such local attributes of a negligible and temporary race called mankind, have any existence at all. Only the human scenes and characters must have human qualities. These must be handled with unsparing realism, (not catch-penny romanticism) but when we cross the line to the boundless and hideous unknown—the shadow-haunted Outside—we must remember to leave our humanity and terrestrialism at the threshold."* [[H. P. Lovecraft|Lovecraft]], in note to the editor of Weird Tales, on resubmission of *The Call of Cthulhu*

Cthulhu is a creation of H.P. Lovecraft's which has found its way into popular culture, infecting many an imagination like a [[virus|Virus]]. Lovecraft proposed that Cthulhu was a Great Old One that sleeps below the Pacific ocean in a submerged city named R'lyeh. He is known by many as one of the great Water Elementsals, though this has been claimed to be false by many. Cthulhu is trapped in the city of R'lyeh. Or, is hibernating. It infects the human subconscious, creating nightmares and insanity. Any who look upon it directly go instantly insane. Lovecraft used Cthulhu in a number of his stories, including *The Dunwich Horror*, *The Call of the Cthulhu*, and *The Whisperer in the Darkness*. Cthulhu is also mentioned in *At the Mountains of Madness*, a story which I have much interest in with regards to my research into how many of Lovecraft's 'inventions' have real-world counterparts. For exmple, in the Mesopotamian epic *Gilgamesh*, after travelling over the great mountain [[Mashu|mountains of Sumeria]], Gilgamesh travels over an ocean known as the [[Waters of Death]] of Death]]. Through much research, much of it fuelled by my archeologist flatmate, it could be that these waters are home to a sunken civilisation similiar to that described as R'lyeh. It is all rather fascinating, and must, at this point, be taken witha pinch of salt. 20.a

Insight is an in-game currency that can be used to buy some of the more exotic items in the game, as well as [[materials|Materials]] for creating duneons and bosses and [[hunters|hunter]] clothing sets. Insight is also our sanity metre. The more insight, the more [[insane|Insanity]] you are Kind of. Sort of. The idea is that the moe insight we gain, the more we understand the true nature of reality. As we gain insight we begin to audibly hallucinate, hearinga baby crying everywhere, and also bring into focus all the [[Amygdalas|Amygdala]] floating around the place and climbing all over churches. The more we understand, the more we risk going completely insane, which is sort of, maybe what is happening when we frenzy and explode into blood. We tend to frenzy when too much knowledge of the world is pumped into our heads too quickly, such as when the [[Winter Lanterns]] are staring at us, or when the [[Brain of Mensis]] glances at us. Personally, I think that the insight is something that infects our blood. The more blood we consume, the more we go insane, the more we believe in this insane alternate reality where gods are in charge of the hearts of men, that they own their souls and that these souls are really the souls of beasts. The whole reality we take to be real is in fact a fever dream. We, the player character, are gripped in his dream and can only escape once the fever works its way through us. 24.c

This is Gehrman The First Hunter. We meet him in a wheelchair and he seems to be the keeper of [[The Hunter's Dream|The Hunter's Dream]].

Lovecraft didn't create anything. He, like most great writers, stole everything, every idea, and reclad it in his own prose. He was a storyteller, not an author. A documentarian whose work could only be published as fiction in a world so full of unbelievable lies held as fact, and of magic called science explained away by charlatans and tricksters. He was a thief, much in the same way Prometheus was a thief. He was a man of substance. Yet, to most but the few true believers, he is a hack writer of genre fiction. It is good that he is remembered this way. The population needs to be kept as far from panic as possible. But let true seekers know that Lovecrsft is known by those who matter to be a man who saw beyond the veil, as the opening of *Call of the Cthulhu* reveals: *"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of [[black seas of infinity|Mutter]], and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age."*

One of the most unique elements of [[Fromsoftware's|FromSoftware]] Soulsborne games is the invasion mechanic. I often find myself trying to describe this to friends as I find it to be one of the best mechanics I have encountered in a computer game in many, many years. An invasion is when the player decides that they want to hinder another players progress. You ring a [[sinister bell]] and, after a few moments, you are transported into another player's game. This player is just minding their own business trying to get to the end of the game, fighting enemies and collecting items. Your goal, as the invader, is to kill this player. often, the player you have invaded will have a friend co-oping with them through the level. Killing the co-op is a bonus, but not essential. Your single goal is just to make sure that the player whose world you have invaded doesn't make it to the [[boss|Boss]]. In a brutal game such as Bloodborne, this mechanic adds another layer of difficulty. Many players get legitimately scared and upset at the prospect of being invaded as most invaders tend to be those that are both good at the second-to-second combat of the game, as well as the statistical [[meta-game]] of making your character as powerful as possible at as low a level as possible.

Bastards. Absolute terrifying bastards. I have broken two controllers because of them. I have lost more than that. I must journey furthur.

The Sinister Resonant Bell is an item in Bloodborne that allows the player to invade other players. The item description reads: *"A blood-stained bell discovered in the old underground labyrinth." "One of the resonating bells that cross the gaps of the worlds, but this one knells for misfortune and malice." "The Sinister Bell is an object of dark thoughts. Ring it to become the enemy of a hunter in another world." "Note: Online use only. Cannot use this item offline."* It is pleasing, from a stortytelling point of view, as well as a design point of view, that the item that allows online [[PvP]] is incorporated into the [[lore|Lore]] of the game. Much of the mechanics of the game are dealt with in this way, creating a beautiful synergy between narrative and gameplay that elevates Bloodborne above most of its counterparts.

A meta-game is a game-within-a-game, and is often created by the community who plays the game. These meta-games are normally unforseen by the developers, or are unintended. It is often the mark of a well made game if a meta-game can emmerge from the mechanics created by the developers. In Bloodborne, the meta-game that has been created is around the [[PvP]]. In Bloodborne, you can only match with players that share your level range. So, if you are level 30, you can only match with players who are just under or just over your level. This means that a level 200 character cannot invade or randomly co-op with a level 20 character, and rightly so. A level 200 character will be far more powerful, and will make the game trivial if co-oping, and kill the player almost instantly if invading. Players, in their meta-game, have found a way around this balancing mechanic. It is possible for a low level character, say 30, to obtain weapons and items that make them much, much more powerful than a regular level 30 character. All they have to do is complete the game and do the dungeons without levelling up. Not an easy task. But, one which is rewarded by being able to invade low level characters to kill them with ease. This meta game is called *[[Twinking]]*. The other community made meta-game is duelling. In duelling, the community decides a level-cap. In most cases, it is level 120. Players then try to make their characters as powerful as possible at level 120, normally through [[min-maxing]], and then invade/get invaded at community designated duelling points. The players then face each other, bow, and fight until one of them is dead. Having a character above the designated meta-level is frowned upon, and so is healing and using certain *[[OP]]* items.

PvP: Player versus Player. Basically, players of the game meeting in combat to try and kille ach other over the internet.

Twinking is a term that has come from [[MMORPGs]], and normally refers to when a low level player is given much higher level equipment by a much higher level character. It is a term derived from gay culture, where a Twink is a young gay male who is often pampered by a an older male. In Bloodborne, as you cannot trade items, the term Twinking is used to refer to a character that is low level and has much higher level equipment. The main difference between Bloodborne and other games where Twinking is a practice, is that it is very, very hard to get this equipment on a low level charcter and takes a lot of skill and effort. The players who do it often see the easy killing of other players as just reward for such a masochistic practice as doing [[Chalice Dungeons]] at low levels, where emost enemis can kill you in one hit.

Min-maxing is the practice of minimising the points put into [[statistics]] you aren't going to use on a [[build|Building a Character]] and maximising the points on those that you are. In this way, builds become very, very specialised, only being able to use certain items and weapons to any effect. But, they are often very, very powerful when using these weapons or items.

OP: Over Powered. This is an abbreviation used over many computer games, and often refers to items or weapons that are seen to be unbalanced, ie. Unfair. In Bloodborne, items that are seen as *OP* in duelling are *Lead Elixir*, which allows a player to take hits with very little damage and not get staggered. *Bone Marrow Ash*, which can be applied to guns to make them much, much more powerful. And, *Blue Elixir*, which allows a player to turn near invisible. In most competitive duelling scenarios these items are banned. There are many [[weapons]] which are deemed *OP*, such as the *[[Saw Spear]]*, *[[Evelyn]]* or *[[Logarius' Wheel]]*, but none of them are banned, mainly because it can be argued that they are only *OP* in the hands of skilled players and aren't themselves inherently unfair.

MMORPGs: Massively Multiplayer Online Role Play Games. Games like Eve: Online and World of Warcraft are examples of this genre, though many, many games that have online play have elements taken from this style of game.

Ever changing, ever shifting dungeons that hold the greatest secrets of this world. Down there, there is no end. Only beasts and phantoms, wild monsters that savage the soul as well as the flesh. Only the strongest of mind and body survive, and even then, survival may be the wrong word. All who venture too deep return forever changed. 11.b

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A list of all right-handed weapons in [[Bloodborne|The Main Essay Opening]](the weapons added in [[The Old Hunter's]] [[DLC]] have been marked: • [[Amygdalan Arm]] -added in [[DLC]] • [[Beast Claw]] • [[Beasthunter Saif]] -added in [[DLC]] • [[Beast Cutter]] -added in [[DLC]] • [[Blade of Mercy]] • [[Bloodletter]] -added in [[DLC]] • [[Boom Hammer]] -added in [[DLC]] • [[Burial Blade]] • [[Chikage]] • [[Church Pick]] -added in [[DLC]] • [[Holy Moonlight Sword]] -added in [[DLC]] • [[Hunter Axe]] • [[Kirkhammer]] • [[Logarius' Wheel]] • [[Ludwig's Holy Blade]] • [[Rakuyo]] -added in [[DLC]] • [[Reiterpallasch]] • [[Rifle Spear]] • [[Saw Cleaver]] • [[Saw Spear]] • [[Simon's Bowblade]] -added in [[DLC]] • [[Stake Driver]] • [[Threaded Cane]] • [[Tonitrus]] • [[Whirligig Saw]] -added in [[DLC]] Each of these weapons has a normal form and a trick form, and each come in three forms; normal, uncanny and lost. The only dffrence between the three types is the [[gem]] imprints on them.

The wepons in Bloodborne being able to transform was an inspired design choice, giving all weapons two sets of moves, and also a lot more fucnctionality. In this way, the weapon you start the game with is a viable weapon to use all the way until the end, and can be useful in most combat scenarios. Alos, it meant that player were given [[badass|Badass]] transform attacks that could be incorporated into attack chains.

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To parry is to make your enemy vulnerable. And, when vulnerable, we can rip out their heart. The blood sings to us, and grants us strength. The screams of our enemies is a balm for our wounds.

The Old Hunter's is the name of the only DLC that [[FromSoftware]] released. 18.t

The Amygdalan Arm is a trick weapon added in [[The Old Hunter's]] [[DLC]]. Weapon description: *"The arm of a small [[Amygdala]] Great One. Strictly speaking, the Amygdalan Arm is no trick weapon of any sort, but certain madmen wield them like clubs. Starts as a large, tough blunt weapon formed of bone, but when extended, the hand quivers as if it were still alive."* This is a fun weapon to use, and it looks pretty [[badass|Badass]]. Basically a whip-type weapon in transformed mode, with a long reach and large, sweeping moves. The charged R2 is also really fun, but looks cooler than it is effective.

The Beast Claw is a trick weapon that is only available from the [[Loran]] dungeon. Weirdly, it is the only weapon that cannot be found in the main game or bought from the [[messengers]] in [[The Hunter's Dream]]. Weapon description: *"Beastly weapon wielded by [[Irreverent Izzy]]. Crafted by chiseling the long bones of an undead darkbeast and fastening them to the weapon. The bones are still alive, and when unleashed, grant its wielder a spurt of beastly power. As flesh is flayed and blood is sprayed, the beast within awakens, and in time, the wielder of this weapon surges with both strength and feverish reverie."* The Beast Claw is a really great [[PvE]] weapon, but is seen as one of the worst [[PvP]] weapons. It as hoped that the addition of a beast transformation in [[The Old Hunter's]] [[DLC]] would make it more viable. But, for some reason, [[FromSoftware]] decided that they would make the dodges while in beast form slower than normal, and with less [[iframes]]. Still, the weapon is pretty [[badass|Badass]] to use, and can be quite good fun wwhen invading as a [[twink|Twinking]]. Notably, in transformed mode, it fills your beast metre, like when using a [[Beast Blood Pellet]], which makes attacks stronger and stronger the longer you sustain aggression. In [[PvE]] it tears enemies apart. You might notice that the mechanics I have noted above are somewhat close to the description of the Beast Claw given in-game. Again, we see the synergy between game mechanics and storytelling occuring. [[Nearly all the descriptions of items work this way|Item description]].

The Beasthunter Saif is a trick weapon added in [[The Old Hunter's]] [[DLC]]. Weapon description: *"A trick weapon used by the old hunters. A second blade is found inside the curve of the main one. In its initial form the saif can be wielded like a long curved sword, but when transformed, its blade is contracted allowing for quick, repeated stabs. Allthough this trick weapon allows for adaptive combat, it was later replaced by saws and similar weapons that were more effective at disposing of beasts."* This weapon is a fast weapon that allows the player much maneuverability. It is considered a top tier [[PvP]] weapon due to its speed and the movement allowed during the transform attacks. It also has a pretty sweet running attack in transformed mode. The one handed nature of the weapons full movest also allows for the use of a gun at all times, meaning [[parry|Parry]] set-ups are always available.

The Beast Cutter is a trick weapon added in [[The Old Hunter's]] [[DLC]]. Weapon description: *"A trick weapon used by Old Hunters. This thick iron cleaver slices through the toughest of beast hides, and when transformed the blade splits into sections, allowing one to lash it in the fashion of a heavy whip. This crude weapon relies on brute force and is regrettably inelegant, suggesting that the hunts of the earliest hunters made for horrific affairs, painted in sanguine black and reds."* A great weapon with a huge range. I have used this in [[PvP]] a great deal with fantastic results. It is seen as a very bad weapon for [[PvP]], mainly because it is very slow and it is quite easy to [[iframe|iframes]] through a lot of the transformed attacks. The best way to use it is defensively rather than aggressively, to catch an opponent as they attack you and to punish them when they have low stamina. The backstep moves are not to be sniffed at, especially the transformed backstep R2, which has a huge range and catches many people in dashes towards you.

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*text missing* 7.e

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Phantom range ftw.

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See [[Old Cairo]].

Cute little guys. But, they aren't messengers, not for us. We are the message they deliver, we are the notes they write to the world of dream.

"The madness that the outside world sees in us must not be underestimated. To look into the abyss with eyes fresh from the dream is to see a way of life that no one can be forced to live. It is an acceptance, a way of being whilst not being. The world sees us as shadows, figments. For who can mourn the death of fiction? May the truth live." Izzy told me this, deep in the mountains when we thought we would not survive the cold and the hunger. We ate our own fingertips. We drank snow melted under the glass of our spectacles. We made it, or part of us made it. The part that now holds the vessel of the true gods.

PvE: Player versus Enemy. This is a term used to describe the usual way people play single player games, and also killing computer controlled enemies, or [[NPC]]s in a multiplayer game.

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[[FromSoftware]]’s staple narrative dissemination mechanic is the item description. Narrative elements and histories are given out piecemeal in the descriptions found on near every item. Giving out arguably the majority of the information about the world a player inhabits in a text-based form harks back to an earlier period in game development, when the only way developers could put detailed pictures in a player’s head was to have vast swathes of text for the player to [[wade through|Wasteland 2]]. The decision to lean item descriptions so heavily in an era of 4K gaming is testament to their faith in trusted design decisions that have allowed for a great deal of community speculation and world building. To further add a layer of [[difficulty]], the item descriptions in Bloodborne aren’t signposted, and information pertinent to the story is often found on items which have the appearance of being mundane, such as this example from the [[Molotov cocktails]]; *"Explodes in raging flames when thrown against an object. One of the oldest hunter tools available in the workshop. Since the tragedy that struck Old Yharnam, fire has become a staple in beast hunts, and is thought to cleanse impurity. Certain types of beasts have an abnormal fear of flame."* A Molotov cocktail is, itself, easy to understand. It’s an item you equip to your quick menu. You press down on the d-pad to select the item and then press square to throw it. These practical instructions aren’t included in the description. But, there is still a lot of information in the description pertinent to both the gameplay mechanics and the narrative. The hint at game mechanics is in the last line. Within the underlying maths that governs the games damage statistics, beasts have a weakness to fire and any damage that is fire based gets a boost against the [[beast-type enemies]]. The narrative element makes up the most part of the quote. At the point in the game where you find the Molotov you have no idea that Old Yharnam is the next level, or that it is an important environment. It also gives us some chronology, hinting that what happened in Old Yharnam was some time in the past by juxtaposing the fact the Molotov is one of the oldest tools with the fact that fire only became a staple of the Beasthunt when the [[tragedy struck]]. Alone, these facts seem insignificant, but they make up only a small part of a much larger tapestry. The [[player must connect them|incomplete]].

This juxtaposition also begs a question: if the burning of [[Old Yharnam]] was so tragic, why would the weapons being used in that event become commonplace? Are these people [[insane]]?

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Wasteland 2 is one recent example of a game that uses a lot of text to augment its lack of graphical fidelity. As a game that prides itself on its old-school roots, donning an isometric view, at-times-insane difficulty, [[‘hard choices’|Hard choices]], and perma-death, it's no surpise in Xile chose this route when designing how they would dish out the vast amounts of exposition they created for their world. I don't feel this kind of exposition, especially in this volume, is needed in more modern games where environmental storytelling and playeer interactions with mechanics can go a long way to telling a story, but it does work well in a game that harks back to the Dungeons and Dragons era of table-top Role play games.

'Hard choices', like [['hard deaths|Hard Deaths]] are seen as being very much game mechanics from the early age of computer games. A 'hard choice' is simply a choice the player makes in-game that irreversibly changes the game world. More often than not, killing a boss is a 'hard choice'. But, usually, in games of the current generation, these types of 'hard choices' do not effect the gameworld or the players progress in any negative way. It very, very rarely locks a player off from experiencing content that the game offers. It is a weird thing to note, but as the memory capacity of games has increased, the amount of 'hard choices' has declined, with developers not wanting to lock their players out of content they have created, and making games, on the whole, easier and more accessible. [[Bloodborne|The Main Essay Opening]] uses 'hard choices' in most of the [[NPC]] questlines, and the obvious 'hard choices' of killing bosses changing the gameworld. But, in this generation, it is very much on its own, outside of indie developers. Wasteland 2, mentioned in the link before, used of hard choices in most nearly every interaction, which was an incredibly brave and forward thinking move, even though the idea stems from the developers inXile’s 80’s and 90’s roots. In those days games routinely had hard choices embedded, most notably the limit of lives, itself a hangover from the arcade days where kids where coerced into [[plugging more money]] into the machines with each death.

The [[Jim Sterlings]] of the world, in their arguments that are anti-micro-transactions, seem to forget the history of [[Pay-to-Win]] embedded in video games from near the very inception of commercial gaming(See;[[Golden Age]]). It has been part of the business model for a long, long time. I think contextualising [[Pay-to-Win]] and [[micro-transactions]] in this way makes it seem almost normal and natural, rather than the predatory machinations of an industry that has been preying on kid’s pocket money since *[[Computer Space]]* first globbed its awkward shape onto a slightly [[bewildered world]].

Jim Fucking Sterling, Son! A Youtube games reviewer, article writer and all-round seemingly good egg.

And now we have pay-to-win in games that you have to pay full price for. They are scumbags. they will be first against the wall come the revolution. I'm looking at you, EA. I will get my pride and accomplishment, and it will arrive with your heads on a block.

Fuck micro-transactions.

*Computer Space* holds a place in computer game history as the first computer arcade game. The most notable thing about the game iss the fibreglass housing designed for it that was meant to look futuristic but, actually looks like a dayglo glob of snot.

Before *Computer Space*, there was [[pinball machines]] These pinging tables of bells and whistles coerced [[the world]] into paying to keep the ball bearings flowing, rewarding the addicted with the highest score.

Pinball as invented by Montague [[Redgrave|Redgrave 2]], though he really only made technical improvements to Bagatelle tables that had been around Europe since the 18th Century, itself an evolution of billiards. It wasn’t until the 1930’s that coin operated bagatelle tables appeared. That a machine rewarding that exchanged money, which is tangible and useful, with the intangible feeling of 'winning' became popular in the Great Depression is, to my mind, a joke of such epic proportions it can only be wholly seen from a vast distance away.

No relation to [[Redgrave]], the [[Bloodborne|The Main Essay Opening]] [[Lore]] Hunter and author of [[The Paleblood Hunt|An enormous manuscript]].

I say the world, but it’s really mainly kids. In society, we are constantly reminded of the dangers posed by paedophiles. Yet, the voices that warn us of these predators are the same who tell us it is fine to leave our children's soft, malleable minds with shows and [[adverts]] whose only purpose is to plant dreams that, when they come to flourish, can only be realised through the application of cold, hard cash. The subconscious is awash with desires that not our own. Is this [[Cthulhu]]? Where does this [[manipulation|Manipulation]] come from? Or, do we do it to ourselves? 16.h

Hell, Why not? It’s a [[FromSoftware]] game. this is the company who decided [[‘Prepare to Die’]] was a good slogan for their Dark Souls 2 marketing campaign.

It's kind of sad that '[[hard deaths|Hard Deaths]] in a computer game are seen as a bit weird and are used as a selling point to attact 'hard core' gamers.

I would like to make a small point here that the Molotov cocktail is named such because of a Soviet Minister who was hated by the Finns. He declared that bombs being dropped were actually food parcels. The Finns called the firebombs they used to attack Soviet tanks ‘Molotov Cocktails’ as a drink to go with the ‘food’ being dropped. Naming a firebomb in a bottle a Molotov cocktail in a fictional universe is a little lazy and breaks the fourth wall. Only in a very small, not really noticeable way. It’s not like when I saw the name come up that I smashed my controller down and went straight to Reddit complaining of, ‘literally unplayable trash’. It's just, well, like most users of Reddit, I'm a little pedantic. *Note to self: Does this detail mean that Yhanrman is actually a city that belongs in our era? In our world? Is Miyazaki trying to communicate something to us? It's been a month and I know that this project is really getting in myhead. The more I read back on all this computer game history and theory, the more I'm seeing underneath the veil. Is there a veil? Or do I need to stop smoking [[Micolash's|Micolash]] hash?

As well as pretty much ALL enemies in the game! Watchers and skinnies and other humanoids are alright with fire, but the two main types of enemies, kin and beast, are more-often-than-not weak to fire. Which is pretty [[badass|Badass]] when you think that fire was the original God of humanity, our saviour, and the one discovery which is arguably the most influential on human life as [[we know it|Fire]]. Through fire we evolved as a species, and as evolution is a theme embedded in Bloodborne, with the idea of ascension attached, a pleasing synergy of elements gives another taste of the joiuissance inhernet in experiencing [[Bloodborne|The Main Essay Opening]]. It is a game with a great deal of emotional and intellectual depth.

No fire, [[no industrial age|Lava]], baby!

There is one way we could have an industrial age without [[inventing|Fire 2]] fire, but it still involves fire, kind of. We could harness the power of lava and geothermal energy. But, to do so without knowing anything about fire would be to, as a whole species, never wonder what that hot, orange shit was that kept making huge areas of wilderness a blackened, burning plane after the oft-found situation of a dry spell and a lightning strike.

Fire was never ‘invented’. It’s not a lone theory, it’s pretty much the orthodox view. How we discovered fire, we hunted it, we trapped it, and then we fed it and kept it alive as long as we could. It’s easy to forget that fire occurs very naturally all the time all over the world. Humankind, or our [[evolutionary|Evolution]] ancestors, would have encountered fire long before we figured out how to actually make things combust by rubbing twigs and stones, and other such mechanical means.

I think evolution is a good theory/idea, though I’m not against the idea that God, or gods, or elder things, created evolution. Mind you, I’m not against the idea that humanity is millions of years old and that the way we create and destroy civilisations is cyclic and that every time we create an empire, the power created within the empire is equal to the destructive force that obliterates discernible evidence of such advancement, or that such advancement is so beyond our ken as to be indiscernible from some structure or object we take to be natural, like [[Giants Causeway]] in Ireland, or the [[mountains of Sumeria]], or even the fucking weird geological features of [[Monument Valley]]. In my mind, it’s just as possible the [[Giants Causeway]] is the remains of a very old road, or that the [[Eye of the Sahara]] is what remains of an impact crater from a [[large weapon|Atom Bomb]] that destroyed a huge civilisation, the same type of weapon that sunk the Pacific and made most of the west coast of the newly formed Americas uninhabitable. It is entirely possible that weather formations we take to be ‘natural’, caused by ‘natural’ geologic formations, are no more than the ghost remains of long-dead wars circling graveyards-turned-ants nests.

The Giant's Causeway is explained to be a natural formation of basalt columns that occurred about 50 to 60 million years ago. The columns are said to be formed through contaction, which is where the lava rapidly cools and cracks, much like the drying mud of a riverbed, and the cracks go down a long, long way, causing the rock to form into columns. There are many examples of these basalt columns all over the world, such as The Devils Postpile and Devil's Mountain in America, Pains de Sucre in The sthe Carribean, the Organ Pipes in Australia, and Cape Stolbchaty in Russia. The scientific explanations for these formations is widely accepted, but there are many local superstitions about these formations that have survived the ages. The legend of the Giants's Causeway tells of a fight between two giants, and that the causeway was built by one of them as a means to get from Scotland to Ireland. That there are similiar basalt columns in Scotland supports this legend. 17.o ~~*Note to self: [[Micolash]] was laughing when he read this part. He told me I needed to look deeper. I haven't the time or inclination. He smokes far too much of that hash.*~~ *Note to self: After going down to the site myself, I now know what he was talking about. This is extraordinary. It fits. It all fits. The [[True Heretics]] were right. They are right. The waters will rise!

A lasting monument to the gods that died in the last age. if only we could have seen the glory of the halls that were built there. All that remain are the stumps of a few pillars, nothing more. The roof collapsed into space. Much of it remains in orbit, though only the moon knows where the rest fell.

I never knew that the eye could see so much, yet it does, though all it looks upon is nothing. You can see it from space, which means it stares into the void unblinking. We sent a team. they never returned. 6.r

Seeing the power of the atom bomb makes you imagine possibilities for deserts and mountains that couldn’t be imagined before, unless explained as magic, parting of seas, wars between gods. We, as a species, did not have the imaginary language or the level of technology to understand how a person could create a desert with the application of wire and metal and isotopes, and whatever else they jam in those things: a can of Miller beer, a banana skin, whatever is in the trash outside [[Marty McFly’s]] house. Nowadays, scientific imagery is so banal, so much a facticity, that it goes without question that we have the power to sink continents. It is a notion that now, since the Cold War ended, only flickers in the peripherals of the public’s consciousness. It’s an idea that has been around long enough to become dangerous again. The fear is not so palpable. The graves not so fresh.

Yeah, I made a *[[Back to the Future]]* reference.

Back to the Future in an 80's documentary, and an alternate universe's prequel to *[[Rick and Morty]]*.

I [[Reddit]].

It's dead. The lizards have taken over. Time to move on.

Thime is a lie they taught us. I learned from clocks and eyes that could not see. There is no future, no past. Only eternal [[R'lyeh]], the city of now.

*Text removed* ~~*I wrote this up. I wrote this up. I wrote this up. I wrote this up. There are forces working against. I must. This is not right. The lava of the ages built this city on rock and roll. I will not be perturbed by that damn man his ideas. I will... R'lyeh is more than the invention of [[Lovecraft]], it is real. It is beyond [[Mashu|mountains of Sumeria]], beyond the [[Waters of Death]].*~~

Dreaming yourself a nightmare to live in. this is the essence of life with borders, with governments, with centralised economy, without the gods to guide us. May the gods be there when we close our eyes. May the world turn under a paleblood sky towards the fursthest point of the compass.

How quaint it was when I used to think of the chemtarils and [[MK Ultra]]. I was blind. But now... Now... I have you to thank Micolash, though I worry you will kill me. i know too much. My knowledge surpasses your own.

Kevin Smith, in his early films, created a fictional universe based in New Jersey. Many of his creations are set within this universe, and between the films Mallrats, Clerks, Chasing Amy and the Jay and Silent Bob films there are many connections, many asides made in conversations that only those familiar with his other worls will pick up. I feel these little details make the whole experinec of watching his films much more pleasing, and also much more real.

Everything you believe is subjective. Everything that is still true when you close your eyes is objective. Example. Money is subjective as, if all the people in the world died and a new human race appeared, money would not be there waiting for them. Whereas, the boiling point of water will never change, whether we call it 100 degrees centrigade or 500 flourvos, the actual energising point will remain the same, unless the atmosphere changes, or some such other force. This needs working on. I am no philosopher, but I do know the difference between what is real, and what is 'real'. May the gods help me if I ever fail in this.

The tyranny of experience must be fought with imagination. It all exists in our heads. This does not make it [[meaningless]]. It makes it sacred. Tyranny is when you laugh at the [[subjectivity]] of another

That life has no meaning is the biggest lie they force fed to you when they killed God. Life is a meaning in itself. It is golden. It is tagic. It is experience. If we feel we understand, we must work to confuse ourselves once more.

Ken Kesey wrote 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'. He was also an agent of the CIA. That quaint facade. Such a small part of the population control machine. Control us for what? There are dreams that need to be dreamed by many to be real. Ken Kesey knew this, even if he did not know himself.

The Deep State is what many think of as the real government, the power that is in place that cannot be shifted with elections. They are the puppet masters, those who pull the strings of presidents and prime ministers. They are the corporate leaders, the owners of industry, the billionaires who own the whole of the world, those who see nation-states as pieces on their game board. They are ever-existent, ever-in charge, ever-powerful. The deep state is the paranoid imaginings of those who believe that they are powerless, that shadowy forces control the world, that we are all slaves to a history of torture and control.

In [[Old Cairo]] they sit. In the [[mountains of Sumeria]] they sleep. In the ocean they breathe. They wait. We are their dream. I hope they never wake, for what will happen to us figments? Us phantoms? It is a fear that keeps me shivering at night.

The collection of materials was pretty damn tedious.

As anyone who has played the game will atest, fuck these guys. They can make you explode into blood just by looking at you. This explosion of blood takes off three quarters of your health. They also have a ridiculous grab attack that can leave you helpless as you get your face chewed off and explode into blood again. Seriously, fuck these guys. The only hint I can give, use something with a thrust attack as it staggers them out of their grab. If you can kill them within three-four thrusts then you can heal enough that the blood explosion doesn't kill you.

It's big, it's gross, and it's helpless after you drop its globulous butt down a huge hole. Remember, you must go down there after it to get the living string. 2.a

A [[hunter]] like no other. A true [[acolyte|The Acolyte]].

See [[Manipulation]].

They once tried to plant the eyes of the gods directly inside us, to police our thoughts, but we saw too much. It was a dark time. We must uncover the truth.

A quick analysis of Western media quickly shows a bias towards individualism. Look at near every film where it is only possible for one individual to save the day. And, not just any individual, but a particuarly unique individual, a chosen one, that is, in some way, better than everyone else around them for some arbitrary reason. Look at every computer game, programme, book, advert, serialised comic, and you will find every one of them has a disproportiantely large number of stories that include this trope. In fact, I would go so far as to say that it is one of the single most overused tropes in every aspect of Western entertainment. As well as this, we have advertising which is always telling people they deserve it, they should treat themselves, they are special, they are uniques, they are a snowflake, so unique, so wondorous, a whole universe inside each of us that needs to be appeased and worshipped. Then, we have schools that make children compete with each other, where we can only succeed by beating everyone around us, by storing all our knowledge in our individual heads, never cooperating, always in conflict, each of us alone in our battle against the exams that will brand us for the rest of our lives. Wester religion, namely Christianity, is also very guilty of this festishisation of the individual, the whole monotheist doctrine supports the idea of one individual. The saviour story of Jesus is another example. These, as well as many other examples that I'm sure you can find just by opening your eyes and reading a film magazine, or listening to a pop song, all add up to an ideology that makes the individual seem to be the most important aspect of society. we are fed the lie that a world full of individuals is what we want, that we all want to be unique snowflakes, that we, ourselves, are the most important part of this world. It's all bullshit. None of us exist alone. As John Donne said, [["Any man's death diminishes me,/Because I am involved in mankind."|No Man is an Island]].

No Man is an Island by John Donne (I just want to point out that this wasn't originally written in verse, or meant as a poem. It was originally part of Meditation 17 written in 1624. I write it here as verse and in modern English for ease of reading.) No man is an island, Entire of itself, Every man is a piece of the continent, A part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less. As well as if a promontory were. As well as if a manor of thy friend's Or of thine own were: Any man's death diminishes me, Because I am involved in mankind, And therefore never send to know for [[whom the bell tolls, It tolls for thee.]] These words are, to me, incredibly moving, and is a thought that I try to keep in my head as much as possible. None of us exist alone. We are all products of thousands, if not millions, of years of struggle and toil. I'm pretty sure that, in my grand past, someone has sacrificed themselves for my possibility. Meaning, I'm pretty sure that someone in my past, one of my ancestors, if not many, have struggles and sacrificed in order to bring the next generation into the world, and to make sure that generation survived to make a new generation. For me to selfishly believe that I am the most important being on the planet and that my own wishes, needs and desires should be fulfilled at the cost of all others, would be like punching every ancestor I have ever had in the face. We live in a society that makes us believe in a constant present, in the logic of the screen, in nothing existing before the last console generation. We are aware, on the whole, of the generations of our family that is alive. We have to remind ourselves that our history is thousands of years old, and that our family stretches far, far into the past. We are not the final product of an historical process. We are just one more link in a grand chain of existence. We are only as significant as the contributions we make to our community. We will not be remembered if all we do is try and please ourselves. We have to look beyond the ends of our own noses. We have history, and that means we have a future.

They call themselves The Healing Church, but this is a subversion, a lie of a name that hides their true role. They do not heal, they corrupt and all who come under their sway are either beasts, slaves or toold for the communication with the dreams of gods. They search out whispers and proclaim them as hymns to the Kosmos. They lie through ignorance and hold reverence for that which man should fear, spreading [[The Beast Plague]] as a sermon to the darkness that holds us here. We are a [[Dream]], nothing more.

Before [[Bloodborne|The Main Essay Opening]] I had never heard of Yhanrnam. Playing, I thought it was a place set in the past. i know now that it is a parallel place, a place of the [[True Undead]].

Much like [[Pompeii]]. May we never have to suffer such a fate.

No one knows what Paleblood is. [[Hiedetaka Miyazaki|Hiedetaka Miyazaki]] said it was something to do with the sky when the world changes after [[Rom's|Vacuous Rom]] death.

He knew what was up, or [[below|buried deep]] as the case may be.

See [[Lying|lying]].

Sinister bells toll for us all.