The Random ramblings of a distracted writer.

I like things, do you like things? I like to to theorize and talk about things I like. I like to write stories, can't help myself.

[josephschmoldoff]

Boy has it been a LONG time since I posted

Concept (and I doubt I'm the first one to come up with this):

Amphibia, except the Leif went to earth as a scout for her empire, found humans to be a terrifyingly adaptive and aggressive species, was so afraid of what humans would do if exposed to amphibian technology that she did all in her power to prevent the kingdom from continuing its conquest FOR THEIR OWN PROTECTION.

Upon entering amphibia the girls actually adapt very well, similar to what we see in the show, but adapt in ways that make their outstanding adaptability for combat apparent (we actually DO see examples of this in the show, anne hunts down the giant spider crab when everyone else is scared shitless because she just sees food for example).

When Andreas opens the portal and enters earthspace his army gets nearly instantly annihilated by an overwhelming American force (I mean he does teleport right into LA and like... What the fuck was the navy doing?). Basically the core makes an attempt to use it's power, but rather than space magic saving the day humans just, obliterate it with overwhelming firepower, probably much more anticlimactic, but I felt like the CIA in real life would have tracked down the bounchoys and the planters in less than a day and "disappeared" them anyway so...

Perhaps a more climactic version would be that Andreas never gets to earth because the girls, without backup are already incredibly mighty warriors and in the end it becomes abundantly clear that the amphibians would never stand a chance against a properly trained human military I mean these were just normal highschool girls the military is WAY scarier.

[josephschmoldoff]

From the black

The universe is vast, so much more vast than any one sentient mind could ever truly grasp.  We learned this the hard way when we first reached out from our home world to grasp the stars.  We sought resources: metals, chemicals, minerals, energy etc.  Ours was a peaceful people, we had long been the dominant species on the planet Fureos and we reached into the inky blackness of space with open arms.  We hoped to find new worlds, new resources and new friends.

What we found was the Zarithian empire.  We had not imagined that a predatory species awaited us in the stars, we had arisen from a world that sat within a territory they had claimed.  And quickly we learned to fight, we learned to turn tools once used for mining and harvesting, into weapons designed to overheat ships or crack their hulls and kill the occupants.  The Zarinthians taught us to kill, or be killed.

But we were not a species bred for war, we were not built for combat, and we were slow to adapt our technologies.  The only reason we weren't wiped out immediately was because the Zarinthians weren't certain where our homeworld was, or so we thought.

In truth the universe is vast, it contains things no sentient mind could imagine without encountering it themselves.  As our battlelines we're slowly pushed backwards towards our home we sought any solution we could, we invented new weapons, we tried and failed to invent shield technology, but we did make breakthroughs in communications technology.  In final desperation, as the lines began to close on our home system we sent a transmission outward, into the void, a final desperate plea to any sentient beings listening to help a dying race.

Only silence greeted us in our hour of most desperate need.  As the Zarinthian ships, massive black beasts of jagged steel and minerals for which we had no name closed in we dug in as far as we could, we prepared for the long and bitter end of our people.  The seventh and final planet from our sun fell first, and quickly, we had diverted it's resources to the next planet in line and there we held our place, for ten long years we held, but eventually the Zarinthians broke that line, and we were forced to retreat taking up residence in a series of artillery capable space stations that bombarded the Zarinthian ships, they retreated, returned and retreaded again, for nearly another year before the final station cracked and we retreated to another planet. 

This pattern continued for the next two worlds several years of war, eventually ending in bitter defeat and the deaths of billions of our people.

Nearly thirty years into our war to death we received a rogue signal on the long range transmitter, the same device that we had used to cry out into the darkness had come to life of its own accord.  A transmission had come to us, somewhere out in the endless darkness of the void, a voice had answered.

The transmission was choppy, it's sender speaking our language in a strange broken pattern, but the attempt to communicate was there.

<Unknown sender of this transmission, we apologize it took us long time to decipher your speech.  We are a thing called human, the thing called Zarinthia is our enemy, we have fought many time.  We will fight again, we tire of slave, we tire of untruth, we tire of useless chance not taken.  When recieve this transmission we are close, the thing called Zarinthia should retreat soon, we come, we see new friend, we crush enemy, we build, we trade.  Stand, do not stop fight, we will help you.>

Silence pervaded the war room, the only sounds for what seemed like an eternity were static, and clicking of our reptilian scaled in worry and anticipation.  The Zarinthisn ships were still refueling and re-arming, then the door burst open, the tension broke and the whole war room turned as one to eyeball the one who had entered, a major with a sheaf of papers.  Our eyes silently asked what he had brought.

"The Zarinthians!" He said, nearly out of breath "they're in a panic, I can't tell for sure, but it sounds like they lost something pretty important, something attacked them sirs!" 

The war council looked at each other then chief counsel Frungati returned his gaze to the Major, "are they Retreating?" 

The Major tilted his head, confused "no… Sirs did you… do something?"

"No Major." Chief Counsel Frungati answered "the void has answered our transmission."

"Transmission sir?" The Major asked confused.

"From before the war for the system," Frungati said "Thirty years ago we sent a desperate plea into the black void," he looked up at the clock on the war room wall "twenty minutes ago, someone answered, someone called Human."

As he said this another transmission, this one on a shorter range band blared into our war room, reports streamed in, they told of the Zarinthian vessels exploding in massive balls of shrapnel, the remaining vessels retreaded quickly the Zarithians screaming something in near unison:

"The Demons! The Demons are here!

We quickly put video feeds up on screen as massive metal… things, we supposed the must be ships, seemed to melt out of the blackness around them.  Bursts of heat were visible on the thing's sides followed by Zarinthian vessels simply… deconstructing, there was no fire, no explosions, the ships did not overheat, they seemed to just, fall apart.  The remaining vessels ran.

Just what had we summoned from the black?

[josephschmoldoff]

Why Humanity Cares.

Meetings with the human ambassador were always incredibly tense. The man's tongue dripped with honey, but his race was easily the mightiest and most violent sentient race in the Galaxy.

It had been just over five standard galactic cycles since the humans had officially joined the concordat, four cycles prior to that were just worry and negotiations. Teanorc had presided as protectorate of the concordat of stars for three galactic cycles. His predecessor had given him a dossier on humans specifically. Most of what was in it was public knowledge, and Teanorc had been a representative of the golithea at the time humanity had unceremoniously stumbled into concordat space.

They hailed from class-9 death world, the gravity of their home planet alone would kill most sentients, and on top of that extreme weather patterns, extreme temperatures, extreme flora and fauna, some of the flora actually ate some of the fauna. Their world was one right out of old science fiction stories.

As a result humans were likely the most hardy and durable species in the Galaxy, killing a human was an insane feat to pull off, this had actually lead to "human hunts." For awhile before they had joined the concordat, and despite best efforts of fully equipped, military trained professional hunters, only one hundred humans were successfully killed by them. The humans were furious at it though, an attack on one was an attack on all. Yet still they did not declare war.

The humans had approached the condordat with open arms, they always worked to put their best foot forward, and despite their colored past, which they made no attempt to hide, the always spoke of peace. They had been invaluable in defending gur'nak'kir'blim and scientific station there from an exploding star! They had even moved the planet to a new viable location, same type of star, same distance, nobody could do that! Their technology was far beyond the concordat they could easily overthrow it and enslave the Galaxy. But for some reason they didn't.

This was the mindset that Teanorc was in when the human representative arrived at his office for routine cycle dues and updates. He really hated dealing with him, he always felt on edge, like anytime the representative would just pull out a gun, say some quippy one liner and shoot him dead in the spot.

Deacon was his name. He opened the door and stopped cold.

"I'm sorry, is this a bad time?" He asked, right, on top of everything else these people were also powerful empaths, they could literally feel when your emotions were off kilter.

Teanorc sighed, a long hissing sound for his race. "I'm just Stressed Mr. deacon, being Protectorate is a lot of work." Teanorc replied.

"Understandable." Deacon replied he took a step in and handed Teanorc an orange envelope with a myriad of human signatures and holoseals on it.

"That's it?" Teanorc asked as he took the envelope "nothing else?". Still half expecting the the smiling ambassador to slit his throat.

"You always ask that y'know." He said "working with me distresses you somehow, I'm sorry about that, I genuinely don't know why, if I did, I'd do everything I could to fix it."

Something about the Hunan's tone was off, it didn't sound like his normal practiced professional tone, that was still there a bit, but it had wavered. For some reason Teanorc felt that Deacon was being honest with him, though he wasn't sure why. He stared at the human for a long moment before deciding to speak again. Fuck it, if they planned to kill him anyway he supposed it wouldn't matter.

"It's not you specifically Mr. deacon. He said slowly "Humans in generally distress me."

Deacon turned and raised an eyebrow, a human gesture that usually meant confusion.

"I cannot believe you are unaware of why this is. Surely you must know."

"Did we do something recently?" Deacon asked "I'm pretty sure I was careful to honor all the customs I was taught."

Another hiss from Teanorc "fine, you want me to say it, I'll say it." He said "human military forces outnumber the forces of the whole concordat nearly one hundred to one. Human technology is light-years beyond anything we have ever developed, your species has a history of war crimes that make the worst villains of galactic history look like saints. You're nigh unkillable by conventional means, you are capable of reading emotions, and physically enhancing yourselves by getting angry or determined. You could the tear concordat apart in less than a cycle. Yet you speak in honeyed words, open your arms, act with kindness, you moved a whole planet, who does that! Your very existence is like a gun pointed at our heads, and I'm just waiting for it to go off."

Deacon blinked a blank stare on his face for a breif moment. It looked as though he hadn't actually expected Teanorc to put it in words. He chuckled a bit, though it didn't sound as though it was from Glee. Then deacon did something that Teanorc had never seen him do. He visibly relaxed, his shoulders slumped forward, his head tilted just a bit to the side and he grabbed the chair on his side of Teanorc's desk.

"Do you mind?" He asked. Teanorc waved his hand in a sort of dismissive approval.

"You see us as monsters." He said then turned and stared at the ceiling for what felt like an eternity.

"Am I wrong?" Teanorc asked, venom dripping from his voice.

"No." Deacon answered, there it was, loud and clear, the bolt would come any moment. "We have always been monsters, the chosen companions of death for nearly ten thousand years." Deacon continued, his head finally tilting down from the cieling to look at Teanorc. The man looked tired, exasperated, worried. None of the emotionsTeanorc had expected of this moment.

"But y'know living in a world filled with death has taught us how absolutely beautiful and precious life is.". Deacon's eyes blazed with a passion his tired features did not share. He meant what he was saying. "We weren't lying, we really do want peace. We want to help, we want protect, we want to encourage. We have lived in fear of death, we have lived without help, we do not wish these things on anyone."

Teanorc was surprised, this was not what he had expected, he was certain that the humans were just biding their time, playing with the concordat until they got bored. But this was not what Deacon's voice or impassioned eyes believed, which meant that… Teanorc had been wrong.

"But you have the power to do anything you want!" Teanorc replied, trying to make sense of it.

"And we don't want to conquer the concordat." Deacon answered. "We just want to live the brightest and most dazzling lives we can, before death comes for us too."

[aenor-llelo]

So believe me when I tell you that Technoblade never dies. Elysium dare not take him. The entirety of Hades would tremble in his footsteps, and Cerberus' faces will bow as he passes.

They do not reap him. Blood of covenant, blood of gods, blood of kings- they do not claim him. A king will belong to himself alone.

So believe me when I tell you that Technoblade never dies, because his name, rooted here and now in your memory, will walk this world with you forever.

So do not weep for this man. Do not weep for the king Alexander. Believe me when I say that his body is dead, but you will not find him there. Let me tell you where you will find him.

His eyes the sun. His laughter the wind. His footsteps the dance of trees upon the earth, and his bones the richest veins of gold.

Let his blood be every river, his hands every mountain, his teeth every stone.

So believe me when I tell you that Technoblade never dies.

He lives and reigns and conquers the world.

[drmrckstr]

He has inspired and will continue to inspire others. His humor, talent and legacy will live on.

Rest in peace, Technoblade.

[natsonice]

see you in the next life king!

[spiritinquestion]

Posted this to Twitter yesterday, made it right after watching the video. I can't express the pain this has brought to me.

I had really hoped I would meet him one day. And while I have always loved chronically ill content creators, and known the risks of their passings, my own high risk for cancer and my current chronic illness led me to love Techno more than I can express.

He'll still live on forever in our memories.

May his memory be a blessing

I still wanna draw him all the time. He looks like, in character form, the imaginary friend I had when I was 2-5. I started a cosplay jacket for his character a long time ago. I think I'm gonna finish it.

He never saw my old letter, but I hope he knew how much I adored him. One friend said I was too critical of his work sometimes, but I really did love all of it...

RIP Alex. GG, Technoblade Will Never Die. We won't let you.

[flamedoesart]

Thank you, Technoblade.

[midnightmonochrome]

Reminder that Techno loved fan works created about him so if your on the fence thinking "if I create fan content about his character would it be wrong?" The answer? No. Keep his legacy going

Unless you can't mentally then please take a break.

[wilburapologist]

‘i shouldn’t be this sad, i didn’t even know him’

we knew a piece of him. he shared a piece of himself with us knowingly and willingly. maybe we didn’t know Alex, but we knew Technoblade. he wanted us to know Technoblade. he gave us Technoblade. he was a friend to us, and we lost him. that’s sad. that’s a legitimate loss.

[angst-and-fajitas]

He was one of my heroes tbh, despite the fact that I've always told myself to "have no heroes" because idolizing people is dangerous business. But he was never my hero because I idolized him, or thought he was perfect, unbeatable, or had a perfect moral compass. It was because I saw so much of myself in him in the sort of way that made me believe in myself.

His dry, deadpanned humor, his big dreams, his struggles with adhd and social anxiety, the English major background and jokes...... He was so much like me, and yet so much brighter, and stronger, and even more determined, that he made me want to do even better. When I was struggling and wondering if I should give up and drop out of college, he was the person I thought of. In his silly videos and the personal bits he told us, he reassured me that it would be ok even if I did have to stop, but also gave me faith that I could succeed despite my problems and failures, and that I should never give up on my dreams.

I hope he knew how much he meant to us. I hope he knew that every time we lamented his absences and teased him for his upload schedules, it was because he brought genuine value to our lives. We will keep missing him, and even more than us will the people who knew and loved him irl. All the work he did for good will live on and keep helping people.

Technoblade never dies💜

[josephschmoldoff]

When legends die, the somber silence that remains, echoes into an empty eternity. It is only by the reverent remembrances of those who yet remain that these echoes may be drowned. By the harmonizing of the discordant cacophony of many into one beautiful melody that uplifts a single name beyond the reach of that cavernous abyss. This being the only form of immortality that we mere mortals may grant, with heavy heart we bequeath it unto thee, a man most deserving, that perhaps, at least, in this one small way, may Technoblade never truly die.

So I don't post super personal pieces, but I wanted to share how I feel in the wake of a recent event, I find odd how I feel, in fact, I'm not even sure it's normal to feel this way. But I'll get to that later.

A long long time ago (well over a decade) I first began to enjoy a little indy game called Minecraft. At the time my brother and I called it "Lego the game," or "building blocks the game,". My dad called it "digital Linkin logs." I played it on and off, at the time there was no "end" there was barely a nether even, I can't remember what version of Minecraft was even out back then.

At the time I was starting to watch a lot of YouTube, Ray William Johnson was the most subscribed to user on the platform, and gaming YouTube was WAY LESS REGULATED. At this time one of my favorite YouTubers was a talented ADHD prone guy with a seemingly unending number of shows in production named "Tobuscus" and it was his Minecraft let's play that was the first Minecraft let's play I ever watched. It would be years before another YouTuber would make me care enough to view Minecraft content again, this time nearly a decade later Markiplier would upload his drunk Minecraft videos with Bob and Wade. And this is when I started getting back into Minecraft, I wanted to build grand cathedrals and castles, huge fantasy builds etc. I started researching how to build various things. But aside from tutorials my mind held little interest for any Minecraft "content" on the platform. Until about two years ago. (I promise I have a point here, I like to wander, bear with me).

I found something I thought was an amazing idea, it looked incredibly fun and over time it evolved into an amazing series of death defying (literally) stunts and escapes. This was Minecraft Manhunt, uploaded by the eponymous Dream. I LOVED manhunt there were five out when I discovered it, plus assassin and death swap, and I binged watched them. But you can't go too deep into the well of dream content without learning about his titanic clash with another massively successful Minecraft YouTuber, orchestrated my Mr. Beast himself. Dream vs Technoblade. Who was technoblade? Well by the time I cared enough to learn, he had become a staple of the now massively popular Dream SMP.

"TECHNOBLADE NEVER DIES!!!!!" oh boy, I wish that were true. So Technoblade, as I discovered had been a force of such magnitude in Minecraft competitions, they had to change the rules and purposely pair him with players that were known to be bad to give the others a fair chance to win. And he still won sometimes. This insane gambit of high level play and consistent survival and winning earned him the above catch phrase.

On the Dream SMP he was a legendary warrior, an old friend to Wilbur, called in to help the banished revolutionary against the sinister machinations of the horned devil Jschlatt. He upheld ideals of Anarchy and a bitter hatred for the government, but outside that he was largely amicable and honorable. Outside the SMP he was one of the most considerate content creators in Minecraft sphere, according to practically everyone else in that circle, out of character, no one ever had anything negative to say about him. He was wholesome and positive and upbeat and charismatic, with a pension for dark humor. Oh... Thats why I like Markiplier too... Hmm.

But sometime in the last few weeks, I imagine, the man known as technoblade, having fought cancer for the last year or so, died. And today his family put up his final video. It was titled "SO LONG NERDS" which is completely consistent with his character. He's played tricks with video titles before so, part of me genuinely thought it was just him saying "I'm taking a long ass hiatus from YouTube while I recover.". But the video opens on a blank white field, an old balding man sits in a black chair, and a curly haired white dog runs up to him. He opens by saying "Hi, I am Technoblade's dad." And at that moment I knew the man was dead. Looking back I think he knew he was dying. He invited the other Minecraft YouTubers to come see him, he only uploaded a few videos, and none of them featured him actually playing Minecraft as he spoke.

I hope that one day, when I too shuffle off this mortal coil, I have touched even a fraction of the people he did.

I feel strange, I'm sad, my eyes are tearing up, why though? I didn't know the guy. He is an inspiration to me though, I suppose I'm more mourning that loss of that than the loss of a person, not sure what else to say but to Parrott his father's final words to us *I miss Technoblade."

Edit: I finished the poem

[josephschmoldoff]

The Last Of The Eldritch Ones

Part 2: Ahriman

With the sanitized Octarian bound to to an operating table in the new Squidbeak splatoon's newest base just outside the splatlands, four proceeded to brief the captain.

"It was one and half to twice the size of an inkling adult, and it made guttural screams or something."

Cuttlefish listened to the tale for awhile before he sighed he mumbled something about it being just as he was about to retire.

"I don't know what you saw 4," he said "but if it's voice could paralyze, it's bad news." The captain appeared to be deep in thought.

"I'm sorry," the quiet voice of agent 8 chimed in from the couch across the room "so, such terrible monsters exist? We never found anything like that in octo canyon."

Cuddle fish sighed an uncharacteristic thing for him to do "there are many strange things in this world we have yet to understand." He said in a less cheerful tone than usual. "And just when I was ready to retire."

Four grimaced, she hated to pile more problems onto the captain.

"It's an ancient one." A voice came from behind them, from the operating table. The three turned and looked in the direction of the bound Octoling.

"You call them human." He said "it… it made me feel… afraid. I have never felt afraid before."

"What were you doing with it?" Four asked.

"We… we were monitoring it… we did not know what it would do if it awakened." The sanitized Octarian said

Cuttlefish stood and hobbled over to the operating table, "you and your allies,have been silent," he said "You refused to speak with us before, why talk now?"

The sanitized Octarian lay there, still and silent for a long while "it made us feel fear," he said "we.. we don't feel most emotions, it could make us feel something, so… maybe… maybe with your help we can use it to fix what was broken."

Four smirked "Looks like it made you feel hope too."

"Hope?" The sanitized Octarian asked "what is hope?"

The three looked at each other unsure how to answer. Eventually it was eight to break the silence

"Hope is the feeling that you can reach your goal," she said "that feeling that, no matter what anyone else says you just know that you can do it, that it'll happen."

The Octarian stared blankly at the ceiling for several moments "yes," he said "I believe I do feel hope then."

"Well," cap'n Cuttlefish uttered "if this thing can help us fix the sanitized Octarian problem, we should make the effort to secure it's help. But if it is what you say it is… I'd better call Judd, this is beyond the normal ken of squids and octopus."

Several hours later

Judd had hemmed and hawed, but eventually relented. He had gone on and on about the horrors of humankind and how he wanted nothing to do with it. Agent 3 had been asked to accompany cuttlefish, and had convinced Judd by telling him that it had only just woke up, so if it was going to be weak enough to kill, it would be right now, before it's body recovered from thousands of years of atrophe. Judd had agreed with that assessment.

The whole of the squidbeak Splatoon had been gathered and they had moved to re-infiltrate the sanitized Octarian's lair, the male four had captured was with them, bound despite his objections.

Gutteral sounds were audible from deep within the facility, loud, but more melodious tones seemed banter back and forth with the gutteral sounds.

Callie barely contained her excitement, she was going to meet an ACTUAL human, a living relic of an ancient time! She had so many questions, so much knowledge lost to the degredations of time!

Marie was much more worried, if four's report was accurate this thing could incapacitate them simply by speaking, like some magical super-being, would they even be enough to stop it? She supposed that with Judd here, the cat would withstand the voice, he had lived with humans once after all.

They approached the central chamber, where the human was last seen, a bluish white light poured forth from the room. It blinked red briefly and the sound of heavy footsteps and growling could be heard. More gutteral sounds followed. And another melodious tone answered back.

Without warning the hallway they were in lit up brightly and a louder gutteral tone blasted out of the room with angry energy.

"He knows we're here," Judd said "he wants us to enter the room, he wants to know why we came."

Cuttlefish sighed and directed the group to do as instructed.

Stepping into the now well lit room, they all saw the beast before them, easily a foot and a half taller than any of them, several feet taller than Judd. This thing looked less anemic than four remembered, though it was clothed now so it was harder to tell, the long unruly growths on its head had been reigned in and it's face was more visible.

It spoke, it's voice grated angrily against the inkling's eats and they grabbed at them and shrunk away from the sound. Which abruptly stopped.

Looking up the thing seemed to have it's attention focused squarely on Judd. The two stated at one another, but moved as if in conversation.

"I told him his voice was uncomfortable to you." Judd said to then. "I'm going to try to allow him to speak to you through a telepathic link, I'll translate what he is saying."

Sever more moments passed, the two seemed to be ingrossed in some kind of puzzle. Then a new voice, deep and rich filled the psychic connection.

"Welcome squid people, my name is Vance, why have you come here? How long have I slept?"

_______________________________________________

Ahriman is the true name of the ruler of hell in D&D who goes by "Asmodeus,". He is actually the oldest evil of the age of gods, I thought the name would be fun

Edit: added series name at top

Edit: added spacer between chapter and note

Edit: fixed name to Vance

[josephschmoldoff]

ELDEN RING IDEA REVISION:

WARNING MAJOR LORE SPOILERS!!!!!!

I must revise my original Elden ring idea, as more information has come out regarding the tarnished and their nature. First of all, the tarnished were all warriors in the service of Godfrey. Unbeknownst to them or their Lord, Marika stole their grace as part of an experiment to learn more about the nature of the greater will and the golden order. An experiment that failed as a result of Lunar Princess Ranni's meddling.

Also new information has come out regarding the land of reeds (well it's not really new, but I didn't put two and two together very well). The land of reeds holds some interesting possible connections with the Mohgwyn dynasty and the outer god they serve: the formless mother. The land of reeds is indeed filled with civil war, but it is also said they are list in the madness of blood, a trademark of the formless mother, an outer god "that desires a wound."

So I've edited my character's backstory a bit:

He saved as a mighty warrior under the first Elden lord, and as all the warriors of Godfrey did, he bacane tarnished, banished from the lands between he followed his lord a long way. But like many he lost himself in the land of reeds, amidst the bloodshed and carnage. He died fighting for something he barely comprehended. But then did grace call to him, raising him from the dead to return to the lands between. A land now ruined.

[josephschmoldoff]

I don't remember if I posted this ever, I once had an idea for a story that followed Isabelle from animal crossing in a scenario where she ended up in the world of doom 2016 and doom eternal.

In the doom games it is explained that the "hell verse" was a dimension that was constantly growing as the demons actively sought new dimensions to connect to their own. Once a suitable candidate was found, contact would be made with the inhabitants and deals stuck to eventually open a rift between the dimensions. Through this rift the demons would eventually pour forth and as the hell verse belched it's evil energies into the new dimension that dimension would erode, eventually becoming one with the hell verse, usually sometime after the demons had already conquered the target dimension.

Nothing stopping the animal crossing dimension from being chosen, in fact it would likely be seen as easy pickings, once a rift was opened. The initial connective rifts are always very small, in DOOM 2016 the initial rift found by humanity was a small fissure leaking argent energy on Mars, something similar could appear in the animal crossing world.

The basic idea was that Isabelle falls into a small rift and finds herself scrambling and running, trying with everything she has to hide and escape the demons. With nothing to eat and nowhere to run she was doomed to die... That is until doomguy finds her, shortly after arriving in the hell verse during the events of doom 2016 he finds her hiding in a small alcove as imps try to claw her out and devour her. He kills the imps and starts to leave when he hears her scared and wavering voice. The small Isabelle reminds doomguy of daisy and he cannot help but pick her up, place her on his shoulder and take her with him. He continues his slaughter, but protects her, she comes to depend on him, but if course such an experience is not without trauma. After accompanying doomguy through the events of doom and doom eternal he help her find her home dimension and close off the rifts, killing the few demons that were trying to get the animal crossing world to fall.

After everything she makes it home, and doomguy leaves to his own dimension. But such an experience as she has gone through does not leave a person unscathed, while her body may be healthy, her mind is not, having witnessed the horrors of demonic war, she is traumatized, and no one in her utterly peaceful universe (so much so they have never invented firearms), can even hope to understand it help her work through this trauma.

The villiager/mayor is invited to a multiversal battle tournament called SMASH! he has worried about Isabelle for some time, but can do nothing for her. Until now, at SMASH! the mayor meets many people and learns that what Isabelle is going through is not unique to her and that others have been through horrible events like hers across the multiverse. Surely among these beings is someone that can help her move through her trauma. After the first tournament the mayor begs those in charge to extend an invitation to his friend Isabelle, initially there is hesitation, until he describes her former companion. The admins seem to know who doomguy is, and explain that he was once invited to this tournament as well, but had to banned due to his overly violent tendencies. Since their concern was that the people of the mayor's universe were to peaceful to be worthy combatants they agree to give her a chance.

Hoping to have finally found a way to help his friend, who has been spiraling uncontrollably into deeper and deeper depression, the mayor arrived excited and hands her the invitation. But this does not evoke the response he hoped for, Isabelle screams and locks herself in her house for several days. Eventually the mayor sits outside her door as she shivers inside and he pours out his heart explaining that he met so many wonderful people, that he had learned that other people had been through similar terrible experiences as her and had hoped she could make friends that could do what he and the others in town could not and help her with the trauma she had experienced.

Isabelle finally opens her door, she cries into his shoulder and tells him that she was just so scared to step outside this dimension again, horrors beyond imagining exist out there, the things she saw, the thing she had to do, she never wants to go through it again. They stand there for awhile and after talking it out over the course of a few hours Isabelle agrees to give it a try.

When she arrives she is quite frightened, the fights scare her, but after a few she realizes that this is a tournament that prides itself on the safety of it's combatants, and the entertainment of it's viewers. A few times sees demons in her eyes and almost goes too far, but holds back, always returning to reality.

Samus Aran notices this behavior and speaks with the mayor about it during one of her bouts. The mayor briefly explains her situation and Samus approaches her after her match, the two become good friends,. Samus explains that she too used to almost go to far while the memories of her parents deaths, and ravaging of world's at the hands of the Metroids was fresher in her mind. Isabelle, having never met another person who truly empathized with her traumatic experiences (other than doomguy, and he doesn't talk) feels a weight lift off her heart and begins to throw herself wholeheartedly at the smash tournaments as she continues to make friends and learn how to handle the terrors she once suffered.

[josephschmoldoff]

THE HERO OF POWER PT II.

He could hear the sound of voices speaking to one another. One was quiet and he could not place it. The other was unmistakably this time's re-incarnation of Zelda. His hatred burned for a moment before his goddess's voice rang in his mind. He would have to swallow his pride.

"I don't see why you want to do this." Zelda's voice stated "you saw all that malice coming from his body, he might BE malice itself, the source of it all!"

"Those trappings are Gerudo." Link answered simply "he might be someone's son, or someone's brother, we should at least give them closure, if he's dead we'll bury him."

"He was bound up down there for reason!" Zelda said "The sheikah don't just hold people against their will."

Gannondorf could feel the rough dryness of his throat and could no longer bear it. With all the might he could muster he wheezed out a single word "WATER!"

Zelda just about jumped out of her skin, she dropped a glass she was holding which broke upon impact with the stone floor in this place. Link whirled around, master sword drawn and ready.

Gannondorf stared up at a familiar ceiling, he was in the Hyrulean palace.

"Please," he begged "I… I need water "

Link was suspicious but Zelda quickly claimed a pitcher from a nearby table and poured a glass. They would learn nothing if this person could barely speak.

She tried to hand him the glass, his arm shook with effort, but he could not lift it, he turned his head away in shame. Link sheathed the sword, he walked over to the one he did not even know was his ancient enemy grabbing the glass from Zelda he lifted the man's head and placed the glass to his parched lips, he poured a little at a time, slowly, it took several minutes for the glass to be drained. The man still wheezed and link brought him another glass, and another. Finally the man said "enough" with a little more gravel in his voice.

"Sit me against the wall." He asked "so I can see you."

Link and Zelda grabbed an arm each and pulled him up against the wall of what had been a throne room long ago. He stared at them for many moments. To the ancient eyes of the champion of power he could barely make out the azure and emerald auras that had once shone so strongly about his enemies. When Din had said she and her sisters were tired of this cycle he had not realized she had meant that they were spiritually exhausted from this conflict.

"Why?" He croaked out "why show me kindness, champion of Nayru, champion of Farore? Are we not enemies, have we not been enemies since the first incarnation?"

The two looked at each other "champions of Nayru and farore? Do you mean us?" Zelda asked.

"Who else" Gannondorf answered.

"I'm sorry but we do not know those names," Zelda said "Do you mean the dragons Naidra and Farosh?"

Gannondorf's eyes went wide with shock, they did not know of the three golden goddesses!? The start of everything? They did not know of their sources of power?

"How long…?" Gannondorf asked

Again the two looked at each other, it was link that answered this time.

"How long what?" He asked confused.

"How long was I bound?" Gannondorf asked.

Link tilted his head, then looked to Zelda, he was still getting used to speaking his thoughts out loud. "I don't know…" he answered slowly, "Zelda, did you father's journal…" he trailed off.

"No, nothing about a prisoner, or a man bound." Zelda replied. "What is your name?"

Gannondorf sat silently for many moments, trying to decide if he could share that information. He sighed, a long raspy breath.

"My name is Gannondorf," even before he finished his sentence the two heroes recoiled from him in shock "you would likely know me as the demon called Gannon."

In less than a second the tip of link's blade was at his throat, fury and hatred burned in the hero's eyes, gannondorf had never seen a hero with hate before.

"Do what you must." Gannondorf uttered sadly "I cannot say I don't deserve it."

Link grit his teeth and his muscles began the motion necessary to plunge the blade through the dark champion's throat.

"WAIT!" Zelda cried out, and her knight stopped just short. "Why?" She asked "why did you do all this? Why did you attack this kingdom? Why did you kill so many! What did we do to deserve this!?"

Gannondorf looked out at the reincarnation of heroes from ages past. Mighty legends that clashed and defeated him time and time again… and for the first time he saw them for what they were: children; scared, confused children, trapped, imprisoned in an endless cycle they had no control over or knowledge of.

He hung his head in shame, his pride shattered, his world broken. He uttered words he NEVER thought would pass his lips. " I am beginning to wonder the same thing princess."

[josephschmoldoff]

So I have been playing A LOT of Elden Ring and I wanted to write a story about my journey through Elden ring from the perspective of the tarnished you play as. Obviously this will reflect my personal journey and not the journey many of you may have experienced.

SPOILERS AHEAD

In order to properly put myself in the tarnished's shoes I needed to find out what IS a tarnished? The game describes a Tarnished as "one who was spurned by the grace of gold." Which is a super vague statement and apparently not all encompassing, the traveling merchant Kalé tells you that his people have long been spurned by the grace of gold, but that it is a similarity shared by his people and "your people, the Tarnished." Which implies that the nomadic traders are NOT tarnished, despite being spurned, so being tarnished means more than JUST being spurned by the grace of gold.

So what the hell is a tarnished? Well later in the game you learn that Godfrey was a man named Horah Loux and he was the chieftain of the people's in the badlands, he was taken by queen Marika the Eternal as her consort and given the title "Elden Lord." When this happened Godfrey gained the familiar golden luster that most people, blessed by grace, have in their eyes. Later on this golden luster faded and Godfrey was banished from Leyndell, "becoming the first Tarnished."

This combined with the words spoken in the opening cutscene "and one other, who grace would again bless, a Tarnished of no renown.". Seems to imply that the tarnished are people who once possessed the grace of gold, but at some point the grace of gold spurned them, thus they became like tarnished gold, be this as a result of their actions or something else I do not know. Kalé's nomadic tribesman on the other hand never had the grace of gold, so they were never "tarnished." The word "tarnished" in the real world refers to precious metals oxidizing and losing their luster, so this makes sense. Once golden, now tarnished.

A number of nations are implied to exist "beyond the fog," I'm not entirely sure what "beyond the fog" means, but I AM certain it refers to lands that are outside of the lands between. It is heavily implied that these are lands are inhabited largely by tarnished, perhaps after being spurned most tarnished left the lands between and settled elsewhere, "beyond the fog?". Or perhaps these lands always existed outside the lands between and the tarnished simply tended to leave the lands between, going to one of these places after becoming tarnished? After all "the lands between" are likely between SOMETHING.

I have started two games, one as a hero and one as a samurai (cuz that Bow makes beating the grafted scion at the beginning SO MUCH EASIER). from the armor sets thereof I learned that the hero is a member of the tribes of the badlands, who holds some renown with said tribes, and the samurai hails from the land of reeds which is a land embroiled in constant, bloody civil war. I'm going with my samurai, I picked the seafarer as my base template, so I'm thinking he is not native to the land of reeds, but went there and fought in the war for some time before eventually hearing the call of grace to return home.

On a side note, I kept trying to come up with Japanese names for my samurai characters (which I kept deleting and restarting with so I could beat the damn scion and get the pretty gold shield). I eventually ran out of names I knew and decided to call the last one "Gaijin" as a joke, and of course Gaijin is the one that finally beat the scion… *sigh.* So I think I'm gonna have him introduce himself as "Gaijin" because this is what the people of the land of reeds called him (since the land of reeds is heavily based on Japan and Gaijin means foreigner in Japanese). But it is not his real name.

Of course there is one other detail I've thus far glossed over, our character was dead when the grace of gold called to them, so I think that he returned to the lands between either just before he died or, his body was returned to the place of his birth by those he had aided in the land of reeds as a sign of respect for ultimately giving his life to their cause. The call of the Erdtree and grace of gold woke him from death much later. As the fall of Marika's golden order and the shattering war were not brought to a stalemate overnight, and it has been a very long time since the victorless war ended. My thought is that Gaijin has not been in the lands between since before the night of black knives.

Further we see in the opening cinematic that our character was interned in a sarcophagus, the sarcophagus is shown to be brought out into the middle of a room in the cinematic. After awakening we encounter a dead finger maiden with fresh blood (which we learn she has later when Varre asks us to soak a tissue in the blood of a maiden, this dead maiden is one option for doing this). This leads me to believe that this finger maiden was meant to be yours but she died before you resurrected, either at the hands of the grafted scion, or I think more likely, at the hands of Varre, who knew you would soon awaken, and by his hand, be maidenless, and thus less likely to be as accepting of the two fingers.

I say all of that to give a basic background for this character so you can see where he is coming from, details will get filled in as time goes on, but for now I just wanted to make it clear what his basic backstory was and why I felt that fit within the world of Elden ring.

So to recap: a man (who's name will remain mysterious until I come up with a proper - ah I mean to say until later, when it will be ceremoniously revealed) was a warrior blessed by the grace of gold in the lands between, he became tarnished, either dishonoring himself before the golden order or breng no longer of use to it. Knowing that most people would not choose to understand him he departed beyond the fog and found himself in the land of reeds, a nation embroiled in an ever evolving civil war. The man offered to help one of the sides of this war, he donned the armor of the samurai and took up one of their blades. The other Reed folk called him "Gaijin" or "foreigner" but he was fine with the title, using it in leu of his name. After a great battle where he fought a champion of his enemies, yet another tarnished outsider like him, he died. The people having won the day due to his sacrifice carried his body across the sea and through the fog to the lands between that he may be buried in the lands of his birth. Given to the cathedral of anticipation he was interred in the crypt there. Until one day long after the Erdtree called to it's once spurned warriors, begging with golden grace for the tarnished to return and aid them.