First of, im about to trauma dump, for that im very sorry. I just need to rant to someone who will hopefully read and listen for once.
Elden Ring is one of my favorite games (as hard as it is to like it sometimes). It was my comfort game, well one of them. I was 21 when i played for the first time (got it 3 days after its release.) Prior to its release i was playing my first fromsoft game, which was ds3. I wanted the play Ds1 since i was a teen, but was too scared since it was for 17+ and was called a hard game. My birthday comes around and my mom gives me Ds3. I play it, die over 23 times to Iudex Gundyr but prevail and defeat him. This marked my personal journey with the games. I had heard of elden Ring, saw its trailers, knew it was made by Miyazaki and Fromsoft (who i knew because of my interest of dark souls and the videos i would see about those games). So i got the game.
This game made me feel the same way i felt with ds3. I was, and still am going through depression and thought that it would be better if i was gone. This game brought me comfort. And made me want to live like all those videos on Ds1 and how ds3 made me feel when i played it. Confession time, i almost finished Ds3 by the time Elden Ring came out, but got distracted with Elden and Ring and finished it first. Don’t worry though, i finished Ds3 immediately afterwards lol.
In my family, i was know for being a gamer. I played mario, donkey kong, kirby, zelda, call of duty etc. But none of those games ever made me feel the way Dark souls 3 and Elden Ring made me feel when i was 21. I loved them so much, i recommended the game to my younger sister first. She instantly felled in love with Elden Ring. I tried to recommend the games to my older sister. She wasn’t interested, and laughed behind my back. I tried getting my older sister into the game for 2 months until i gave up and thought maybe it was for the best considering how she treated me with Zelda in the past. According to my younger sister as i would find out later that year, my older sister would make fun of me for playing ER and Ds3 (and as three years will pass, Sekiro, Bloodborne, and Ds1). She would call me a boy behind my back for liking those games. It didn’t help i read berserk, another work that made me want to live and have hope. Ignore i read sailor moon and Magic Knight Rayearth too.
I would be playing in another room and sometimes would scream when i got jump-scared (specifically in BB and Ds3) and she would tell my sister i was annoying. She found my love for those games annoying and boyish. She said she thought it was stupid i said those games saved my life. My sisters know, i was s*icidal since middle school, had to go to therapy until i quitted after a break of trust. She, my older sister went to therapy too. With me. So that hurt to find out. She thought it was illy for me to take “Don’t you dare go hollow” to heart. Thought it was stupid how that line saved me.
In the 2023, around Christmas, i wanted to end it. I played Elden Ring, thought i was going to be my final time playing the game, I made a plan. Knew it was going to be in the woods where we lived. I beat Rykard (my favorite boss in the base game). And I felt happy, relieved, and broke. I realized i wanted to live, that the feeling of preserving and getting better, was something i wanted in my real life. I went outside, posted for help in the souls community. And so many people told me to live. That life gets better. As i was crying inside the woods, my cat pissed on me lmao. Apparently he followed me out and thought it would be nice to spray me. But to be honest, i feel he also saved my life by doing so. It kinda brought me out for a second.
And i continued to live.
In 2024 an incident happened. We were struggling a lot. The worst in our lives. My older sister finally decided to pick up ER and loved it. A part of me was happy, another scared. As i said she treated me pretty badly for playing Zelda as a teen and for being “obsessed with it”. I guide her through the game, she struggles but thats part of the game. The problem starts coming around the haligtree, when she died so much and blamed me. She begins blaming me when she dies, say im a terrible guide, says i ruined her build and made her a terrible player. I the start avoiding guiding her, instead, i begin reading while she plays away from her. She starts trying to talk about the lore with me, will can’t see eye to eyes. Which is part of the experience, i had debated online with others and sometimes had change my interpretations of certain lore pieces in the game. But she gets angry, and talks behind my back to my younger sister, calls me stupid, and a dumbass. Says im wrong because im like a boy. Says the games are for girls and not boys, and since im too much like a boy its not for me. Sometimes i would overhear, and would have to put earbuds to ignore it. Especially since i suffer from anxiety/panic attacks quite a bit. If we disagreed or had different interests in certain parts or with certain characters she would get angry and aggressive with me for hours. She would find any little thing to bug me about or boss me around with. And at this point of my life, i would get so much it became painful and scary being around her.
It was hard. A Game that brought me comfort begin becoming a bane to my existence. I felt like i couldn’t like the game. That it wasn’t meant for me. That i was too stupid to like it. I stopped playing it for half a year.
Remember how i mentioned that an incident happened? During that incident i lost the xbox i played on and all my fromsoft games i had at the time were for xbox. I had recicved a playstation from my mom and Elden Ring (ps5) from my younger sister on 2023, months before that incident. I played Elden Ring 2 times, readying myself for the DLC while remaking my two first ER characters I’ve played as. At that time, i played Bloodborne too, literally two months before the incident. On my birthday of 2024, when we struggling so much, My mom decided to buy me Ds3 again. My mom isn’t perfect, but man did that show how much she knew i loved the games. The game that i played first (didn’t finish first but still). All the games had become unplayable because i had them on the xbox one (yes, ER looked kinda bad on it but i still loved it). Aside from ER, that my sister bought for me on Christmas. So the fact i could play another game, my first game, again brought life back to me.
In January of 2025, We had moved on from the incident and had lived in a better environment. One with two rooms instead of one. Obviously the playstation, being mine, was going to my room. And she got angry, my older sister. She said i hated her, that i just didn’t want her to play it, that i was gatekeeping the game. I was going to let both my sisters play it still, i just want my playstation in my room. For a moment i was going to let her keep it. But my younger sister reminded me that the playstation was a gift from mom to me. That it was mine. So i kept it.
She still decided to play on it, even if it was in my room.
It took until march for me to begin playing Elden Ring again of 2025. Probably because i saw my xbox collection and missed my other characters and builds in that game. Suffice to say, i stopped playing around when she would enter my room. And she stopped playing when i would enter my room if she was playing on my ps5. I begin to heal. She would still say some mean stuff once in a while, still talked behind my back (I could sometimes hear from my room from hers). But we begin to avoid talking about the game to one another. Only talked about with our younger sister who was also struggling liking the game because of how she was made fun of too, but more than anything because of how it affected our relationship.
She still likes the game, I’ve come to like it again. Even if a part of me hates it too. Again, depression never levees. I almost ended myself last year again. Until, somehow a miracle, comments on posts and threads begin receiving replies somehow. From the community again. And it saved me again. And i realized that the games are not only important because of how much it changed my life, but because of how much their community changed my life too.
Sometimes She gets on me for disagreements or for liking other characters. She loves Malenia. I like Rykard and Radhan and Ranni. We both like Miquella though. She likes mohg and says im dumb for liking Rykard because hes insane and a hypocrite and evil. Which he certainly is, but Mohg, I mean look at him. She thinks im dumb for liking Relanna because she has no cutscene. But I mean, i get. But im also someone who played Dark Souls and Bloodborne and a chunk of the don’t have cutscenes. I get that Elden Ring has a chunk of cutscenes with the bosses but I can still enjoy fighting Relanna. She wants to play the other games. I wont stop her obviously. But I am afraid. Elden Ring meant so much, and she ruined it for me. I don’t know how much more it will hurt with Dark Souls and Bloodborne. She confessed to me and our younger sister that Elden Ring saved her life. And she gets it. Gets how it saved me. But i didn’t feel happy. I just felt empty or worse, terrible. After everything she said about me, to me. It just left me bitter. Of course, Its a good thing it saved her. But it saved her at the cost of her ruining the game for me, running a part of our relationship.
Because after all. Im too stupid, a dumbass, too boyish— to love and understand the game. Because after she confessed that, that still hasn’t stopped her treatment of me or stopped her from saying those stuff to me.
But i still love the game. Because it doesn’t change the fact it saved me.
I wont pretend depression leaves. It never leaves. The same thing with s*icidal thoughts. It never leaves. You can be better at times, but it never leaves. All you can do is Try to not go hollow (i know, it’s cheesy but seriously. It helps). And those games helped me see that. Even if hards because of what I associate Elden Ring with now.
I hope this wasn’t too annoying. I just had to get this out considering it keeps bottling up and how i had a panic attack literally today. But Playing Ds1 helped. Even if Elden Ring caused my older sister to scorn at me today.
And Remember Don’t you dare go Hollow.
P.s Im sorry i just had to do it again. It means a lot.