#mv er

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

contemplating the potential interactions with the blood star in the mv x er au. because arthur is a blinded criminal sorcerer which is such a perfect match for what little we know about that branch of sorceries, "An aberrant sorcery discovered by exiled sorcerers. [...] The guilty, their eyes gouged by thorns, lived in eternal darkness. There, they discovered the blood star."

...but now i'm off on a completely separate lore thought despite really needing to go to bed because i think it may actually be implied by the dlc that the usage of thorns to punish sinners, while clearly the a practice specific to the lands between, might actually date back to the hornsent regime in some way, given midra being crucified on a greatsword resembling a golden thorned branch. which is actually huge both for the idea of arthur interacting with the thorns and my other theory i'm quietly constructing that marika and midra are in some way connected.

there's actually a lot going on here with the repeated symbol of golden or red thorns being used to repel fire. midra's damnation, the red thorn shield, the guilty with the fire monks, miquella's needle, arguably the erdtree itself being gated by thorns that cannot be burned by ordinary fire. it's too late to organize all of this into a coherent train of thought but anyway really intriguing possibilities for jarthur kind of doing a midra thing on purpose to protect themselves from succumbing to the flame. or being offered that, maybe, and then telling the blood star to go fuck itself. maybe.

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

Just want to add to your mv x er madness that I think the Millicent questline would also be an extremely impactful one for both Arthur and John (if they could even survive to do it). Just the thought of another young girl that is cursed by forces out of her control. Dying. They would attempt to aid her in a heartbeat after talking to Gowry. Then later trying to take control over her life and learn about her mother only to be turned on for some predestined ascension and rebirth. One she did not choose. That would hit pretty hard I think. Then her pulling out the needle in the end...There would be no argument about killing Gowry in the end if they find out his part in that.

GOD, FUCKIN... YEAH...

they'd be so fucking pissed about the worship, i think. i mean, everything about the situation, but it's the fact that she's infested with this thing that is slowly destroying her and causing her so much agony and they want to prolong it. they think it's holy. that hurts them both SO badly in different ways, i think. the second they hear about that they're like oh we NEED to get her out of there.

i can't decide if they would be sympathetic towards or suspicious of gowry. like, on the one hand, the guy seems to be... trapped in his home? maybe? and claims to be her father, or as close to one as she has, and seems to worry after her and, outwardly, be much more motivated towards her safety than any of the rot worshippers do. but. there's just. there's just Something about him.

god, also, his dialogue after millicent visits and leaves the shack. "Please make certain that little Millicent goes unharmed. Like her mother, she has the stuff to be a great warrior, but commands only one arm, and is yet preciously young." how much further can we twist the fucking emotional knife into arthur here. she's so young and small and fragile and has suffered so much and won't you keep her safe? won't you promise? please? please?

and the end of the questline... the overwhelming sense of failure. wanting to honor her choice and not force her onto anyone's path of fucking godhood but torn against the knowledge that the only other path she can choose is death. that she'll die either way, in some capacity. they tried so hard and in the end all they did is give her some different kind of final suffering.

i feel like arthur would ignore the risk of rot, just to hold her as she died. if that's the only thing left he can do.

also they totally cheese o'neil into the rot geysers right there's no way they fight that dude fair and square

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

thinking about. s5 company gang in the elden ring au.

rn what i'm thinking might make sense is if they're former affiliates of rykard—his champion hunting seems in line with what evrard does already—but, maybe, left his service after he got eaten by the serpent. like that ghost you can find hanging out in volcano manor, but. not dead. evrard & co realized he was no longer the man they'd sworn to follow, and departed swearing to one day end him.

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

I was thinking about how ironic it is that an astrologer that once studied the stars can no longer see them. Of course, I'm pretty sure it is more of a self visualization when performing magic as so many of the great sorcerers have a more spiritual connection to their discoveries and relation to the primordial current. Makes me think about Arthur's relationship with the stars. Obviously he is proficient, but fancied himself more of a musician at some point. That being said, art is all about inspiration and it wouldn't surprise me if he decided to study alongside his practice because he gained some inspiration from the stars. Music of the stars and all that. The sorceries we see from different conspectuses are so different and reflect on their creators. And, of course I can't help, but think of Thops and his barrier spell. It's the only one like it (other than carrian retaliation, but it is meant to use as a counter attack for other magic users) and is just so like kind, humble Thops to create such a passive protection spell. Not saying that Arthur would necessarily create spells, but that I think relation to the stars is very personal. Also it still makes sense that he can fathom them even when blind.

OH I LOVE THIS SO MUUUUCH! love love the idea of him taking more of an artistic than strictly mathematical tact with his sorcery. i feel like much like with thops' experiments, that's something that would not exactly be looked highly on, "oh, so you're just not smart enough to follow along the proper way, is that it," but could actually be an entirely new field of research in its own right if it were given serious consideration. like yeah the idea that the stars/planets make music or can be expressed as sound is definitely a really common recurring concept/theme, enough that i could have sworn it made it into elden ring somewhere, but i can't find it now so i must have been misremembering lol. welp that just means we get to put it in now ourselves

this also puts me in mind of the description of the starlight spell- "Even during the blackest nights, sojourns underground, or imprisonment in gaol, the stars are never far from a sorcerer's side." like yeah he probably hasn't seen them in ages even before he was blinded, and he's never seen them from the angle they're at in the lands between period, but he doesn't need to! he can still hear them and feel them no matter where he is. and i love the idea of arthur, who has so little faith in. anything really, still having this connection to something celestial that is for him probably not even about divinity or belief. it's just the beauty/harmony of the natural world, which he clearly already finds a lot of comfort in imo.

i would LOVE if he invented his own spell too tho. ooooh i wonder if it would be a sort of. reckoning by star positions type thing? something that he can generally use to guide/orient himself without needing to see or be directed. hmmmmm

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

Just some unimportant ponderings for your mv x ev crossover. You mentioned them possibly going after Astel as a false lead and I got caught in a spiral on how tf they get there without the ranni quest. So if we want a fun detour we can say they are looking for mentions of a fallen meteor. Arthur, who has dabbled in Carian magic, makes a logical leap that a place of astrology and knowledge would be a good start. No academy key so that's not an immediate option, but the Carian study hall may have information. Perhaps they do get info there, maybe not. Their proximity to Ainsel river and the fact that it sits down there and is accessed only through the Ranni quest really can be stretched to there being some sort of lead to find in either there or the manor. They head to Ainsel river pursued by runebear. Ants. Void creature throwing rocks. Stumble their way accidentally to lake of rot overlook. Arthur falls down as a plot device. Back in the rot... again. Fight some fucking rot cultists. Fall down in the coffin. "Arthur! There is a huge fucking Void monster! Arthur! It's about to sh-!

PURSUED BY RUNEBEAR WHKJWHWJH also the amount of falling into things arthur does. incredibly correct. falls the whole way down from the overlook and gets another rot bath™ and somehow survives. trips into an open coffin and it turns out to be the lands between's only public transit vehicle. that's arthur for you. or maybe he was just so fucking exhausted from fighting/running from the dragonkin AND the tree spirit AND the cultists that he was just like john, listen, i'm gonna fucking, i'm just gonna take a nap. in the coffin. it looks so comfy. yes i know i can't see it you described it as comfy. well you said it could physically hold me which is basically the same thing. fucking. shut up, i need this. and then they fall off a cliff Again this time in a coffin. or, possibly more believably, the pests in the area knock them out and put them in the coffin for some ritual purpose known only to them. or to say 'get out of our cloister you weren't even invited.' OR they have to hide in the coffin from the pests. idk why i'm so hung up on getting him into the coffin but i guess we have a lot of options now

ok wait more Plot Thoughts about this. the astel in ainsel is already so like, Barely overtly relevant to the ranni questline as it is, that i almost feel like it would make More sense if they were pursuing astel on purpose rather than just running into it completely accidentally while helping a living doll take over her step-mom's civilization. i think caria almost definitely has a connection to the eternal cities, so maybe while they're in the study hall they find references to the ill-starred monster from the void that totally wrecked one of them. and obviously they're like oh shit, a monster that came in on a meteor and destroyed a city?? this has GOTTA be what kayne wanted us to kill. it's a slam dunk!! and then it's. still. the wrong. fucking. meteor monster.

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

the more i think about it, and i may change my mind on this later. but i think the most likely course of events after finding parker dead is actually that arthur hunts down and kills whoever directly ordered the assassination like a mad dog and then just lets them lock him up. like, he is not the type of person to just Stop without a fight. but if he got that eye-for-an-eye and then had to confront the fact that parker was in fact still dead i feel like that would be the end of it. he got his last wish, he's satisfied. now he's just fucking tired and there's no more reasons left for him to get up. you can do whatever you want.

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

i know the main-gauche is a dlc weapon but i kind of want arthur to have it as a starting weapon either in addition to or replacing the usual prisoner estoc. because. i think using a close quarters dagger would maybe be much easier than a giant precision piercing weapon for someone who can't fucking see their opponents.

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

god help me the mv x er au might actually grow a plot if i keep thinking about it for too much longer.

anyway i've already basically said this but i think that in this scenario john is treated as a, like, 'ember' of the Flame of Frenzy that has taken root in arthur's eyes. a shabriri-like being that is SUPPOSED to overtake someone else's will and burn their eyes out of their head and use them to spread the madness.

i enjoyed the moments in season 1 where the king's cult KNEW john was there and recognized him as their god so i think it would be fun to riff on that further. the three fingers' followers, such as they are, Know that arthur's infected, and maybe even expect him to grow into their next lord—meaning, of course, they expect him to surrender his body and allow his spirit to be burned and melted away. this all started with a joke about someone trying to feed him grapes but i don't actually know why they would do that for a lord. i just think it would be fun to force arthur to eat eyeballs. but also, hyetta needs those eyes. fuckin, greedy much. of course it's also possible that his OWN eyes are becoming diseased. and someone may even want to harvest them, eventually. which would. also. be fun.

anyway uh. if this were an actual au with A Plot and not just joke goofs it would also make sense obviously for their partnership to like. start when the game starts. like, arthur crosses the fog and gets blinded. or maybe it happens when he dies to the grafted scion? maybe this is an arthur who starts At Bedrock and thus vulnerable to the flame, but also still so fucking stubborn that it Loses that battle of wills, which it was Not Expecting, and tada you get a john.

i'm actually not sure if he can see grace? i mean. obviously he can't lol. what i mean to say is i'm not sure if JOHN can see grace, and if he can't, if that's because arthur doesn't have the grace of gold, or if it's because john is himself and is not privy to the greater will's offerings. either way that May cause problems re: the standard tarnished ability to not perma-die.