Contextualizing The Doll

Contextualizing the Doll

“In the mythos of Bloodborne, a classic gothic horror video game from Fromsoft released in 2015, few things are ever outlined explicitly in the text. Playing this game while trying to piece together the story felt rather like an exercise in literary analysis - which should come as no surprise, given how heavily the game draws from Lovecraftian horror and other classic touchstones. This is why I believe it is so crucial to understand the literary, historical, and cultural context Bloodborne exists in to get a full appreciation for and understanding of the story. However, these theorycrafting discussions at times seem to neglect that key aspect. The purpose of this essay is to recontextualize Bloodborne’s story as it relates to the mysterious character of the Doll. I will be drawing on classical literature, the historical context the game references, as well as the modern context that Bloodborne was released into.”

Here it is! The essay from hell that’s been months in the making. It started out intended as a long post. Now it’s almost 40 pages. I figured a document would be an easier read. This is really a first draft, so to any brave soul who can parse all this, any comments or suggestions are welcome. You can find it here or on AO3!

Bloodborne was great and all but it could have used more buff lesbians arm wrestling u_u

hello tumblr user Percyverance, since you asked me about the lore of Laika thrower of rocks, this peaked my curiosity about your hunter Oswin and i was wondering if you have anything else about their lore or just any other cool facts about them? 👀👀

greetings tumblr user skleech!!!! thank you for opening pandora’s box of autism 😌

oswin is loosely based off of the lone survivor background. i always loved the idea that it was an allusion to the fishing hamlet :)

they’re partially amphibious! they were only a few years old when their home was attacked, so the impact of fishy weirdness was fairly limited — but not zero. oswin still counts as kin.

obviously, this causes a lot of health problems: oswin assumes it’s a mix of asthma, amnesia, allergies, and a weird skin condition, but no doctor has been able to identify it.

when oswin first arrived in the dream, hunting was not even a possibility in their mind. they simply pretend they do not see it. eventually, though, they realized that in order to complete their research they would need to be able to defend themself.

ossy uses a cane — it helps them with balance and endurance. when they wound up in the dream, oswin used some of the workshop tools to better suit it to the hunt.

upon first talking to miss doll, oswin didn’t realize that they were actually a doll. it took an embarrassingly long time for that to dawn on them. they assumed she called herself ‘adol’ as if it were her name. (not their fault, oswin didn’t get dialogue captions lol)

oswin arrived in the dream already bearing insight thanks to their upbringing — meaning miss doll was their first interviewee. they quickly become very fond of their dreaming companion! maybe it’s their shared connection to eldritch tomfoolery. who knows!

[spiderman meme of miss doll and ossy pointing at each other] autism to autism communication

probably has read every book in the workshop library in hopes of finding further sources for their thesis. unfortunately, no one in yharnam has been enthusiastic to participate in their ethnographic research

so you can imagine that the few friendly civilians they come across are thoroughly interviewed! some are more willing than others.

the amygdala are decidedly less so, but oswin hopes they can be persuaded :)

while they can more-or-less instinctively understand the words of the great ones thanks to their kinhood, they don’t exactly have the facilities to talk back. this makes two-way communication challenging, but not impossible!

laika could throw rocks at them and i would support her in this endeavor. they're a little pathetic and it wouldn't even be hard :)

Bloodborne OC sheet - here's my good hunter Oswin Roan! Blank/transparent linked here ❤️

if you still accept requests, I would love to see your take on Eileen’s appearance!

ofc i love miss crow <3

Colored pencil warmup with Anthy 💕