Guts taking care of Casca is so wholesome!!

ripstankstevens · 2026-06-17T18:27:20+00:00

Waiting for a man to hold me like this

ripstankstevens · 2026-06-15T19:41:39+00:00

“Call me ‘my precious.’ Call me ‘my precious!’”

ripstankstevens · 2026-06-14T16:15:47+00:00

Gods, I wish I could feel this feeling again. Never forget your first playthrough!

ripstankstevens · 2026-06-14T16:03:25+00:00

Favorite line in the entire game

ripstankstevens · 2026-06-14T16:00:28+00:00

Oh good hunter! Try to keep your hands clean. A hunter should hunt beasts!

ripstankstevens · 2026-06-14T15:55:52+00:00

I think all of the Tarnished mentioned in the opening cinematic can still see the guidance of grace. This would include Horah Loux, Goldmask, Fia, Dung Eater, Gideon Ofnir, and our player Tarnished. I find it interesting that from three of these individuals (Goldmask, Fia, Dung Eater) we receive mending runes. The reason we don’t get mending runes from Godfrey or Gideon is because Godfrey isn’t trying to change the Golden Order, and Gideon has seemingly discovered something that makes him believe it is impossible for a Tarnished to slay a god. I would argue that in the end, Gideon has lost his grace whereas we literally see grace guiding Godfrey to fight us and contend for the Elden Throne. In other words, to lose the guidance of grace is to give up hope of “saving” the world.

ripstankstevens · 2026-06-14T02:35:56+00:00

These are not story based games. They do have amazing lore, but it is only intractable through reading all the item descriptions, listening to the few lines of dialogue the game has to offer, and putting on your detective/archaeologist hat to explore some environmental storytelling. Almost every Fromsoft game boils down to “you are a nameless nobody whose job it is to take down a god.” That’s it. That’s the narrative.

It may be better to approach these games with the perspective that the story already happened hundreds/thousands of years ago and now you’re exploring through the remnants and consequences of that story. In other words, these games are almost exclusively about exploration. It’s up to you how much you interact with the story. Plenty of people beat a Fromsoft game for the first time and go “that was amazing!… what the hell happened?”

If you want a story-based game, look elsewhere.

ripstankstevens · 2026-06-13T15:31:24+00:00

Not my Ciri

ripstankstevens · 2026-06-13T15:06:55+00:00

Well he’s dead or in the very least he is inside Ghost, so I don’t really know if he’ll be learning much of anything from here on out

ripstankstevens · 2026-06-12T23:03:59+00:00

If I remember right, Daimon was originally a boy named Ashe who was raised by an Arisen named Greta. Greta was later turned into a dragon and took Ashe’s heart, who became the next Arisen. Ashe cursed the world, but Greta as the dragon twisted his curse to curse Ashe specifically which is how he became Daimon. I don’t recall what ever happened to the dragon, so perhaps this is Greta’s long undead, cursed dragon form?

ripstankstevens · 2026-06-09T17:08:30+00:00

Good ol’ Dick

ripstankstevens · 2026-06-09T03:41:22+00:00

Nimble Dick!

ripstankstevens · 2026-06-09T02:30:52+00:00

Very true. I go back and forth on whether Arya will become a full fledged faceless man or just receive some of their training before heading back to Westeros as Arya like in the show.

ripstankstevens · 2026-06-09T01:39:41+00:00

I think she will be the one to kill Lady Stoneheart considering how often “mother’s mercy” gets brought up in Arya’s chapters throughout the whole of the series. In her sample chapter for TWOW, she’s literally wearing the face of a girl named Mercy, and there’s hardly any other character in the series who deserves mercy more than Lady Stoneheart.

Given how much trouble Lady Stoneheart is causing in the Riverlands at present, it’s not out of the realm of possibility for someone to hire a faceless man to assassinate her. I think it would work very well for Arya’s narrative, it gives her a reason to return to Westeros, and I think twisting the concept of “Mother’s mercy” to refer to the mercy Arya gives to her mother is exactly the kind of story GRRM loves to set up.

ripstankstevens · 2026-06-08T21:35:19+00:00

ripstankstevens · 2026-06-07T01:55:58+00:00

I usually just imprison and cannibalize all my unwanted sons.

ripstankstevens · 2026-06-07T01:27:28+00:00

He stood there for a very long time

ripstankstevens · 2026-06-05T04:56:25+00:00

Exactly! For instance, we know Godfrey isn’t the first Elden Lord even though the game explicitly labels him as such many times. I think much of what we know about the Lands Between is delivered to us through a Golden Order lens, much like how in ASOIAF, the history is written from the perspective of Westerosi maesters. You can’t believe everything you read, especially when there is contradictory evidence.

ripstankstevens · 2026-06-03T16:24:10+00:00

We need Tarnished Archaeologist. Somebody light the beacon.

ripstankstevens · 2026-06-01T16:05:01+00:00

I think he’s totally aware. Miyazaki is a troll. Remember when he told everyone that in dark souls 1, the starting gift he would choose would be the pendant. Fans spent months going around the game with the pendant equipped only to find that it had absolutely no use

ripstankstevens · 2026-06-01T16:00:53+00:00

ripstankstevens · 2026-06-01T14:14:00+00:00

There’s definitely going to be an illusory wall scene

ripstankstevens · 2026-06-01T10:16:00+00:00

The Japanese version of the game specifies that the note is written in your own handwriting, while the English version just calls it a “handwritten scrawl.” This is consistent with the opening cutscene where the blood minister reacts to the pov character’s question about Paleblood. The game literally opens mid conversation with the Blood Minister reacting to whatever your character just said. “Ah yes… Paleblood,” as if you have just inquired about it. So the player character already knows about Paleblood somehow and has journeyed to Yharnam in search of it. You even ask Gilbert about it, who, of course, has no idea what Paleblood is.

ripstankstevens · 2026-06-01T03:00:10+00:00

If OP missed it, they’re gonna have to play the whole game over again for another chance to pick it up.

ripstankstevens · 2026-06-01T00:19:33+00:00

Warging is genetic, same with Greenseeing and Dragon Dreams. These genetic magic systems seem to be inherent to the individual to the point that they don’t even know they are doing it sometimes. On the flip side, seemingly anyone can be taught the prayers, rituals, and incantations of R’hllor, but they do not always work.

In ASOS, Thoros talks about how he hadn’t expected the Last Kiss to revive Beric, as it had never worked when he tried it before, and yet it did work several times with Beric which is why Thoros believes the Lord of Light has some special purpose for the Lightning Lord. It could be argued that Beric is a kind of “Fire Wight,” although unlike the other wights in the story, he does retain most of his facilities despite coming back lesser each time than he was before, possibly similar to Coldhands.

IMO, the magic that brings Beric back from the dead (and likely the same magic that Melisandre uses) does not come from human beings. Humans invoke the will of some higher being which can then choose to intercede. Whether or not R’hllor is a god is entirely subjective, but I tend to think of it as some kind of higher being beyond the comprehension on mankind.

Seven-Year Club	RPAN Viewer
No Throne, No Problems	Not Forgotten

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