#this got out of hand but i kept getting IDEAS for tying the lore together

[legobiwan]

How would count bleck's minions react to seeing Culex in your crossover?

omg, anon, I didn't know Culex was a thing until you sent me this. I might or might not have immediately picked up my Switch to go find him for the first battle.

But! This ask got me thinking about my crossover idea. What if...the Bleck minions were on a mission to stop Culex, but on the way, they end up running into Mario and the gang?

And now I've created a whooole bunch of lore tying together the two games. Buckle in friends. I'm feeling talkative today.

Culex states he traverses dimensions, is antimatter and matter, both, which is a key characteristic of the Chaos Heart, which is able to both destroy and remake worlds in its wielder's image. Maybe Bleck has hit a roadblock as he's conjuring spells to bring the Chaos Heart to fruition, and the presence of Culex is one of the major impediments to his plans.

So he send his minions after him.

Now, I would argue that the meeting between Mario and friends and the minions occurs before their confrontation with Culex and that Mario and the gang are too busy with Smithy and his associates to take this on. (Although the thought is troubling. Nastasia explains that this Culex claims to eat time, that he is matter and antimatter but cannot inhabit their dimension for very long. Geno shakes his head at this, stating if such a being existed, he would know of it, as his people are the keepers of time itself, which is writ, measured and meted out in the cosmos from which he comes. If this Culex is an abnormality, a kind of...Geno searches for the right word, black hole, or void, he is not threat enough to alter his primary objective of restoring the Star Road, whose failure would have far greater ramifications than a single dark entity).

Of course, what the Bleck gang doesn't tell Geno or anyone else is that the possibility of Culex being a void incarnate is the exact reason they are pursuing him. Because, and this is mostly Dimentio piecing things together, a being that is matter and antimatter, that traverses dimensions for time to eat might well be a fragment of the Chaos Heart Bleck has yet to be able to bring under his will, as Bleck has spent the last two years piecing together the broken shards of the heart that had been scattered across the multiverse the last time all worlds came to end, so many millenia ago (an event Geno would rather forget, and one of the reasons the restoration of the Star Road is so important. Wishes are hope, and hope, in its most basic form, is love - a love which can balance out the incursions of nihilism and the likes of Culex. A love, that we, the reader, might also associate with the Pure Hearts, which was this love in concentrated form).

So, eventually the Mario gang and the Bleck gang part ways (stay tuned for some writing about that, as the concept has burrowed into my brain). They finally find Culex and at first, they don't think it will be a huge ordeal. Sure, he's large, with chiseled abdominal muscles, long hair, the body of a lifeguard...well, at least, that's Mimi's first impression, before Nastasia elbows her in the gut and tells her to get her priorities straight. O'Chunks is less than impressed, stating that he encountered men twice his size on the bloodied battlefields of the Andaal plains. Dimentio, for once, is quiet, hanging back, observing the strange, billowing creature.

Of course, that initial hubris is quickly wiped away when Culex summons the elemental crystals, the first hit sending O'Chunks flying with a pitiful, "I might 've been wrong abou'im."

Mimi is enamored, and envious of, the elemental crystals, which hold far more power than her more pedestrian Rubees. But even she knows this isn't the time to barter and that this is a fight she won't win, same as Nastasia, who quickly comes to the conclusion that brainwashing is not going to work.

But Dimentio just floats forward, chuckling. "Elemental crystals," he sings, "how droll. Take away your little baubles and you are nothing but an echo, a parasite with no host."

"Dimentio, be serious!" Nastasia scolds, dodging around a deluge of small, sharpened petals.

"Oh, but I am, my dear Nassy," Dimentio replies, his voice muted by the translucent box he has conjured around himself. "He is nothing more than a puzzle piece escaped from the box. Destroy the crystals, destroy the spirit," he says with a lazy snap of fingers, a bright fireball exploding over a cerulean ice crystal.

"Certainly we have enough potions in our stores to create a counter-effect to each element? It is, after all, the most basic of magics."

"The most basic of magics," O'Chunks grumbles, limping over to join the others.

"A strong punch along the grain might also do the trick, for those of us more inclined to use brutish force over subtelty."

"I'll punch those crystals inta' next year.''

"That's the spirit, my large friend."

Suffice it to say that the Bleck gang makes short work of Culex at this point, and while his defeat does not end in his disintegration, his shield is now permanently destroyed, meaning that Bleck will be able to assimilate him into the rest of the Chaos Heart as he pushes forward with his plans to end all worlds.

Ironic, though, that Dimentio would see the flaw in Culix's plan in relying on the crystals as a shield. It would be the same mistake Dimentio himself would make in assuming the Pure Hearts could not be conjured more than once.

[arcxnumvitae]

Who/What inspired my muses

Part 2 babbyyyy I’m sufferinnggg!

Arata: More elf underground shenanigan tomfoolery. Also tying in some backstories for funsies with Val playing a big role in a pivotal moment. A muse I fully intended to have die! For some reason my friends took issue with that!

Katarina: I saw Kirei ( @thewolfisawake) make a fun looking institution and I wanted to stick my big meaty claws alllllllll in it. I asked her, all shy and shit, if I could make a Bastion muse too and she graciously allowed me to do so. Of course I had to make Katarina a half-elf. 

Emil: I thought it’d be fun to make a muse from Katarina’s human side of the family, the one her mom was estranged from. Kirei had included in her blurbs how some older families of the Bastion were still anti-supernatural creatures so I thought it would be an interesting thing to explore further in a muse, but since Katarina was separated from all of that...

Dawn: I looked at how I’d fridged William’s dead girlfriend in his backstory just for the sake of giving him angst and feelings and I really didn’t like that I’d done that! So I decided to flesh out Dawn as a person. Which led to me going to my friends and saying, “Y’all, this muse is deader than a doornail in his backstory, I can’t bring her back, right?!” And then I brought her back. This was when I started to firmly put my foot in fun Greek myth stuff and let my PJO kid flag fly by straight up incorporating Aphrodite into the mix.

Xiaodan: uh. dragon. dragon searching for Jianhuren. Searching with another dragon.

Meihui: uh. other dragon. other dragon searching for Jianhuren. drogon. They actually were made earlier, around Qingshan, pushed to being side muses, and then re-added as main muses around this time when Kirei petitioned for it.

Huaxiu: Hey, same mangaka, he looks like Qingshan-- oh baby we can make some lore from this. This is really where Red Eyes as a concept started to get cemented, a smooth, uh, 2-3 years after I first added Jianhuren, ahahaa. It was also shortly after Huaxiu that I created Zhaohui as a side muse so we were really chugging along the dragon train at that time.

Luiz: No clue. Truly, no idea. I think I just wanted to mash a bunch of different mythological creature facets together and see what I got. I know the inspiration for the gorgon blood he was infused with came from Kirei because her muse Crowe has gorgon blood.

Cornelius: What if I made a family member from the Texas side of Dawn’s family that she had never been in contact with? What if he looked like her dad too in a way to make her force her feelings and her grief? Cornelius truly was made actually as basically to circle around Dawn’s ongoing story, haha. 

Raven: ‘I know it doesn’t make sense, but what if Thanatos had a kid.’ How would that type of godly parentage manifest in someone?

Olympia: Hey, let’s do an Artemis god-touched. I only have Dawn and William at the moment after all.

Ava: Sort of a tie in with Arata’s story as she’s the right hand woman of, like, oh geez, the niece and former fling of the guy who owned him and his mom. I also basically just looked at D&D’s scrying spell, pointed, and went “I want that.”

Eira: What if I did a muse from Katarina’s dad’s side of the family? And what if she was utterly adorable.

Aur: Phew, so, actually, I didn’t have any huge plans for Aur when I first made him! He was an amnesiac and I left his backstory open and vague in case I thought of something later that would be cool to do with him! I figured I could get away with it for a minute since it’s not like he himself knew what his backstory was. In truth, I hadn’t even settled on him being a fae for a while either, I also kept that up in the air! If he didn’t end up a fae then he would’ve been a siren actually I think.

Soon-hee: She’s not really online anymore now but my friend Angie had come up with the idea to do a seven deadly sins thing and asked if I wanted to make a muse or two for it too. And I, contractually obligated by my love for F.MA, couldn’t refuse.

Arya: Ditto, seven sins inspo.

Matthias: Also another Angie-inspired, she came up with a pantheon of deities and asked if I wanted to join in. I thought for a good minute on what domain of power I wanted his to be and I settled on storytelling. Him having muses for sisters was inspired by Greek myth...and H.ercules. His current name came from my white boy of the month every month in a book series called S.ix of C.rows as a sort of homage. And his rings, silver eyes, and some personality beats came from the character Po from the G.raceling book series.

I’m panting..........but part 3, we’re on the way....... 

[mrpenguinpants]

Xiao: First Kiss HCs

I’m so sorry it took me actually forever to reply to you. But I really hope you like this and it was somewhat worth the wait;; I tried really hard but ty for liking my Xiao content and yes! Let’s be absolute trash for Xiao. In this house we only believe in Xiao supremacy 💕💕

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Semi Part 1: Friendship

Semi Part 2: Falling in Love

Semi Part 3: Cuddles

Semi Part 4: Protective

Semi Part 5: Affection

Semi Part 6: Jealously

Semi Part 8: Opposites Attract

Semi Part 9:  String of Fate [Soulmate] HCs

Semi Part 10:  [ Fainting ]

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Childe Ver: First Kiss HCs

Venti & Kaeya: Mistletoe HCs

Venti, Xingqiu, and Razor: Kissing HCs

Considering how many more Xiao fics I need to write. This semi part link might not be a good idea lol. Also let’s ignore if I wrote in a kiss in a previous post haha.

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[taglist]  <- if you want to be added, please read this first.

@hanniejji​​  @mikeysbike​​ @unionwitch​​ @musekala​​ @twistedsunnshiii​​ @stanzastic​ @akaasea​​ @xoneaboveallx​​ @adoring-ghost​​ @asheseiler​​ @childelover​​@youaskedfurret​​ @snowy224

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Xiao: First Kiss HCs

When you and Xiao first got together. It was a slow and steady process of learning each other boundaries and what felt comfortable. Xiao knew he was a difficult partner but you loved him and even becoming his friend was a slow and worthwhile adventure. It started off small leading from small handholding, to cuddling, to showing each other affection. But the one area that you both weren’t familiar in was kisses. He was an isolated adepti and you were an adventurer. You didn’t have any experience in being kissed and Xiao sure as hell didn’t either. Plus it was a lot more intimate and nerve wracking compared to holding hands and that was an hard hill to tackle in itself.

You didn’t mind that he wasn’t comfortable with initiating affection or never went in or talked about kisses. You were just happy that he was by your side and that your love was reciprocated. That he was comfortable in your presence and seemed content in your arms. It still made you a bit giddy when you reflected on how far you both came and that was enough for you. Xiao, on the other hand, couldn’t exactly say the same. While he was happy and he was content, he couldn’t help but feel that maybe your relationship was too one-sided? He knew that you were comfortable and okay with waiting for him to work out his issues and figuring out how to love again but he also really wanted to do more. He just wasn’t sure how to start.

It suddenly dawned on him one day when he saw you off on your next journey, that he had never really kissed you. Even a small goodbye kiss. It was usually you initiating affection or giving words of love and you always told him that it didn’t matter if he said it or not. His actions said more which always made him flush a bit. But on slow and quiet days where you were off on another adventure and Liyue was calm, he couldn’t help but let his mind wander to you. To your face, your bright eyes that would light up whenever you talked about the interesting sights you saw on your journey, the curve of your nose whenever he tapped it when you started to ramble on to much, your lips and how they would spread into a soft smile when it was just the two of you.

Xiao quickly flipped himself up into a sitting position and groaned into his hands. What was happening to him? He needed to take a walk to clear his mind again. He’s been going out a lot since he met you. He had faced an army of demons and fought in a war and yet this felt like the hardest challenge of his entire thousand year long life. He could almost hear Guizhong’s laughter at his predicament and her words of wisdom saying to take whatever problem he had and face it head on. Just without his spear. The spear needs to stay home.

So the next time you visited Wangshu Inn he asked for you to close your eyes. You complied but you were surprised, sitting by the railing facing Liyue up on the balcony. Was he going to gift you something? This was the first time he asked you to close your eyes but you trusted him. You could almost feel the anxiety waving off Xiao so you kept quiet and patient and waited for him to be ready.

He was ready. He could do this. You weren’t even looking at him so what was there to be worried about? He slowly leaned in, just hovering above your lips. But then he leaned back a bit, flushing red. He nearly chewed his lip before stopping since you probably didn’t want to taste blood. It wasn’t that he wasn’t ready or he thought that you would hate it, he was just nervous in messing up. What if his accidently transformed? What if he accidently pushed you off the railing? Even worse, what if someone showed up and saw you both like this?

Turns out he didn’t need to worry. Somewhat. Zhongli, who Xiao knew now was actually Rex Lapis in disguise, made a sudden appearance behind him. The whiplash of suddenly seeing his Master, the nervous butterfly’s fluttering in his stomach, and pep talk Xiao was trying to pound into his mind made him suddenly lurch forward and kiss you deeply. A bit too deeply as his little fangs nipped at your bottom lip.

“Zhongli!?”

“Rex Lapis?!”

You both quickly broke apart as your eyes flew open when you heard the man but also surprise at the sudden but, not completely unpleasant, pain and pressure on your lips. You could almost see the soul leave Xiao’s body when he spun around to see the surprised Zhongli. It was silent for a moment, all three of you just staring at each other. You were still processing what the hell just happened, Xiao was trying to find a way to astral project, and Zhongli was computing the fact that yes, the ever grumpy and “don’t touch me” yaksha both had a lover and was in the middle of...courting.

“Oh. My apologies. I wasn’t aware you were both occupied. I shall take my leave and visit another day then.” Zhongli simply nodded and left before you or Xiao could say anything. You both stared at the empty figure of where Zhongli was before you started to burst into laughter at the situation. You really felt bad, you did honestly, but with all the overwhelming emotions you couldn’t help but laugh.

“I’m...sorry. I didn’t know he was going to visit today,” Xiao muttered as he pressed his hand into his face and groaned at the embarrassing moment. You could see the tips of his ears were getting redder by the second which made you chuckle. For such a fearsome Yaksha he was really cute sometimes.

“It’s okay Xiao. I don’t mind. But are you alright?” you stifled the last of your giggles and reached out to pull him closer and remove his hand from his red face before cupping his cheek. He huffed but leaned into your hand. He really was sometimes like a cat.

“Are you hurt? Was I...too forward?” Xiao asked but he still wouldn’t look you in the eye. The floor was very interesting this afternoon. Wood was nice. Wood was good.

“No! It was...nice,” you answered, starting to go a bit pink yourself now before you felt a stinging pain in the corner of your lip, “Ah. I think you might accidently bit my lip though.”

“I see,” Xiao was now looking at you with his piercing eyes as he watched your small pink tongue brush over the corner of your bottom lip. His attention began to focus on that small part as the world seem to narrow down. Just the two of you. But unlike when you both would lie on top of the inn and watch the sun go down he felt hungry.

“Do you-”

Before you could ask anything Xiao suddenly pounced and pressed his lips against yours in a heated kiss. He took you by surprise but you quickly recovered as you gripped the purple ribbon on his back and yanked him forward as his hands slammed against the railing, trapping you. You felt his tongue press against your lips as you slowly opened them to let him in. It was overwhelming and you were sure if you hadn’t been grabbing onto the purple ribbon you would have fell over but then a sudden deep rumble snapped you out of your trance.

“Xiao? Are you...Are you purring?” you giggled when you got a tiny but of separation from the lack of air but he frowned at you, really it looked more like a pout, before leaning over once again.  Just barely brushing over your lips as he whispered

“Meow”

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This isn’t even OOC anymore. I feel like I’m writing a fucking k-drama right now, what am I doing anymore? English? Huh? I do not compute.

I’ve just awakened something in me with Cat! Xiao and I am flying with it (and casually ignoring lore. Isn’t he a bird?). Heading straight for the stratosphere and you cannot stop me. Just gonna hide away in shame now don’t look at me.

Okay. Time to commit sleep for uh 2 hours lol. I’m really tired but I feel kinda proud of myself haha. Tomorrow’s fics are going to be Venti, Lisa and Diluc pairing, and Venti and Barbara pairing. Good night!

Oh, and yes there is a lot more Xiao content to come and uhh might continue this cat!xiao idea. Unless that’s too weird. I’m sorry don’t shame me pls 😰

my god tumble just work. i dont want to deal with you and your tags. 

[milf-shizun]

Allowing me more opportunity to be hungry for character lore? Excellent! Vorna: ☀️ 💐 🌼 👀 ❓; Luca: 🌙 💎 👀 ; Althea 🦋📚 👀

Allowing me more opportunity to talk about my dumbass children??? DOUBLE excellent! No seriously, ty, ilysm.

Vorna:

☀️ What makes your OC genuinely happy? A person, an item, their hobby? Where is the place they’re happiest, or most at home? What is the happiest they’ve ever been?

Her family makes her genuinely happy. All she wants is to see Moroven again. As far as hobbies/activities go, she's really into cooking. She knows how to handle rations and she's not opposed to simple foods, but if you give her the opportunity to make a real meal, she's almost too eager.

As of right now, she's the most at home whenever the group stops to make camp. When she was a soldier, they had to do that a lot. And the people she's with right now, while most of them clearly aren't soldiers, they remind her of people she used to know.

The happiest she's ever been, I can't quite share yet. But it was before she left her clan. She had everything she thought she could ever want.

💐 Does your OC like flowers? What are their favourites? Do they keep a garden of some sort? What flowers would they use in a flower crown? (and if you like, research the meanings behind those flowers!)

Ooh, good question. I don't think I've thought of that before. I think that while Vorna is definitely a pretty hardened individual, and she's come to appreciate some of the little things. She's no flower aficionado, but I think she would be really touched by the gesture of someone giving her flowers.

She doesn't keep a garden, but her favorite flower would be a snowdrop. If I were to make a flower crown for her, it would consist of snowdrops, pansies, anemones, gladiolus, and white heather. We love flower symbolism, folks.

🌼 Write a short drabble from your OCs POV meeting their LI (or if they don’t have a love interest, their best friend. If you don’t want to do a drabble, describe their first meeting instead!)

Okay, so I started writing for this, but I quickly realized that it was getting WAY too long. But I loved what was going on, and I didn't want to cut it, so I'm gonna keep it and finish it at a later date. But for this ask, I'm gonna try and explain how Dekran and Vorna came to know each other.

Dekran and Vorna actually knew each other as children. They played together with the other children in the village. They even both went to begin training to become soldiers in the same class, but Dekran dropped out after a month. He was really mouthy and sarcastic, and it got him in trouble with authority a lot. It drove Vorna insane, as someone who took her future as a soldier very seriously. So she wasn't too heartbroken to see him leave.

It wasn't until Vorna finished her training and became a member of her troop, the War Pigs, that Dekran popped back up again. He'd become a hunter/trapper and a bard (not like a battle bard, but a bard, he sings really badly). He'd begun trying to get Vorna's attention so he could start courting her, but she just.... REFUSED to give him the time of day because she thought he was a disobedient, immature little twit. But then also he was really funny and sweet to HER. But Vorna is Vorna and so she crushed those feelings under her iron boot. And Dekran didn't push her.

One day, Vorna was training with her friend Bushki, and Bushki was teasing her about Dekran so they could throw Vorna off balance. And it worked. But Dekran was there watching, and Bushki quickly pushed a sword into his hands and was like "oh hey you, you have a go" and he was just like "uH".

And Vorna was like "FINE just to prove that he's a weak lil bitch and I do NOT have ANY positive feelings towards him, I Will Fight Him." And Dekran, bless him, is no soldier. And Vorna laid him out on his ass.

But you see Dekran, having one brain cell when literally under the boot of a punk lady with a greataxe, just smiles dumbly and calls her amazing. That just makes Vorna *windows dial-up sound*.

He kept showing up for sparring practice after that, and Vorna didn't stop him. And the rest is history. Though, fun fact, it was much later during one of these sparring sessions alone, when Vorna pinned him by the chest under her foot, that he once again only had one brain cell and asked her to marry him.

👀 Describe your OC through the eyes of another person! (bonus + specify who)

Oh BOY. I don't even begin to know where to start with this one, aside from just copy-pasting her character description, and that seems very uncreative of me. YOU tell ME how your character sees her, how about THAT? Gotem.

❓ A random fact or short drabble! Or make up your own question to ask the OC!

Random fact? She loves snow. She would die in snow, if she could. I mean, she wants to die in battle, but preferably a snowy battle. She's also EXCELLENT at making snowmen.

Luca:

🌙 If your OC could have one wish come true what would it be and why? Would there be consequences to this wish or would they regret it once they get what they want? What would they give in return for this wish to come true?

Luca would give almost anything to know who his parents were. I have NO IDEA what my DM has planned, so the consequences of this wish are currently unknowable to me. But he does wish he knew who his parents were, and had gotten to stay with them instead of being raised by an Orc warband. The only good thing that came from the Orcs was that he met Mafareth.

💎 Does your OC collect anything? Is there a reason? When did they start and is it beginning to turn into a little bit of a hoarding issue? What do they do with their collection?

Does "things i've eaten that i probably shouldn't have" count as a collection? Because so far, he's eaten iron bars, giant spider webs, and an unknown number of mysterious mushrooms (one of which made his teeth into a lantern light). He's been eating random shit for most of his life, and he's only planning on eating more random shit in the future.

👀 Describe your OC through the eyes of another person! (bonus + specify who)

I CAN actually give you "Luca the Feral through the eyes of Gnerkle" considering Luca is 6'3" and Gnerkle is like 3" or something, ahsjdkd.

Luca is just a towering hunk of tatted-up, red-skinned muscle with a handlebar mustache and two big ol' bull horns on his head. And he swings a really, really big sword, and stands over Gnerkle like a safety barn whenever demons are about. Which is a lot.

Althea:

🦋 If your OC could change everything (or just something) about their life would they? What would they change? What do they think would happen if they did? What would their loved ones think?

Before going on her adventure, she would've changed everything. She wanted a sign from Oghma so, so badly.

But now, with the campaign over, I think she's happy. She's felt what it was like to have a purpose, to have people need her, to love two people more than herself. And now that she's saved the world, they can do anything they want.

The only thing she wants now, I think, is maybe to start her own library in Oghma's name. She'd be really competitive about it and make it big and full of MORE BOOKS than ANY OTHER temple to Oghma. Aolis would think she's pretentious and probably threaten to burn it down whenever Althea got on his nerves (though I don't think he ever would). Terri wouldn't understand who COULD or WOULD read that much, but if Althea needs her to swing her axe at some monsters in order to get an ancient tome, hell yeah she will.

📚 If your OC was given some kind of forbiddon knowledge, what would they do with it? Would they tell anyone? Use it for evil or good? How would it change their outlook on life, if at all?

Oh, boy, that's all Althea is AFTER is forbidden knowledge. She would curate it for her future library. Probably put it in the restricted section. She wouldn't use it for evil or let it be used for evil in any way, though. Knowledge for the sake of knowledge is Althea's creed, but not at the expense of others.

👀 Describe your OC through the eyes of another person! (bonus + specify who)

She just LOOKS like a nerd, especially to Aolis. Terri sees Althea as tall, bony moon elf with almost no meat on her bones, but to quote Terri's player Rae when Althea cast a level 3 Guiding Bolt with a nat 20 and killed a giant worm, "I just remembered that Althea could seriously fuck someone up if she wanted to".