#someone take this idea please

[personaltreasures]

Thinking of being mean and writing something about Klein looking more and more like celestial as he advances

[obsessedwithstarwars]

Okay you can’t tell me that Vlad doesn’t have an organ somewhere in his mansion. Upon learning of this, Danny would teach himself how to play the Haunted Mansion theme on the organ and play it at 2am.

Vlad Masters is away on business in Gotham, and the Fentons are coincidentally there for a symposium on ecto-activity. So it’s perfect! Except he goes to the wrong house, er mansion.

Honestly, Danny thought it was one of Vlad’s many mansions. Scaring the old man is his favorite activity after all. There’s a higher amount of ectoplasm here, so it has to be Vlad’s place right?

When Bruce comes out (on one of his few nights off) and sees his carbon copy playing the organ, all thoughts fly out of his head. Danny finally looks up and also blue screens. They stare at each other for what feels like an eternity until Danny’s cell phone rings (the ghostbusters theme??) and he panics. He jumps up and makes a break for the other door rushing through apologies “SorryWronghousegottagobye!” And runs out of the room. “Wait! Who are you?”Bruce exclaims as he rushes after him. They’re on the second story in one of the rooms he rarely uses. How did he know where the organ was? No matter. He’ll catch the kid on the stairs.

Except the kid is already almost at the bottom. How did he get down so effortlessly? The kid practically floated down the stairs.

Bruce gets to the foyer just in time to see the kid realize the door was dead-bolted in multiple spots. He won’t be able to undo them all before Bruce catches up to him.

He slows down and stands behind a pillar, assessing his next move. He needs to be careful here. This is a child after all, no need to spook him any more than he already has. He needs to slowly approach, and ask his questions.

But then the kid does the unexpected. After looking around frantically, he takes a deep breath. Two rings form around his middle and travel up and down his body. His black hair turns ghostly white. He looks back, almost directly at Bruce. His eyes widen as if he realizes he’s being watched. He whispers, barely loud enough to hear, “I’m so sorry, please don’t follow me.” Then, he backs through the locked door and vanishes.

[lucabyte]

On autonomy, and what it means to be Obliged to Help.

Bonus:

[emilnikos]

save me fiddauthor

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Lan Wangji Goes To Lotus Pier AU: Part 1: Dread on Arrival

(Part 2)

[sergle]

You!! Hey you!! Are you looking for a pair of kittens? Do you live In Or Near Oklahoma? Do you wish you could listen to purring all the time? Do you want a cat that looks like an aye-aye?

long story short, we found these two kittens at the bottom of a garbage can!! I don't like to think about how they ended up in there- but we heard them crying while on a walk, and it's very lucky they were so loud! They were scared at first, but now they NEED to be snuggled at all times. Crazy how adaptable kittens are. I'd prefer to rehome them as a pair, but I'd consider adopting them out individually if that's my only option! Please IM me if you're interested in both/either of these babies, or if you have any questions at all!!

[starry-bi-sky]

Blood Blossom Au: Baby's First Commissioner Meeting :)

TL:DR This Post: Danny (orphan) gets poisoned with blood blossom extract by Vlad. He runs away from him and ends up under the care of one Pre-Robin Battinson Batman! Starry is loudly pushing her batdad agenda.

(Also known as "Late At Night, When The Nightingale Sings" on my ao3!)

This was a fun rough idea I've been sitting on for weeks, thinking about how Commissioner Gordon and Nightingale's first meeting might go.

---------------

Commissioner Gordon likes to think that he's adjusting to the new normal of Gotham very well, -- the new normal being grown men running around dressed like bats, in military-grade strength body armor, committing acts of vigilantism, -- and slowly, little by little, he was no longer being surprised when this new normal pops up out of the shadows like the world's most terrifying daisy. His shaving lifespan thanks him for it.

....

The kid is a surprise though.

Granted, he seemed to be a surprise to the Bat too.

There's been a string of murders lately, -- which, in Gotham, is kind of like saying there's been another storm during monsoon season. And there's just been another; in some dilapidated building down in south Gotham, with the broken, boarded-up windows and mildew-crawling walls to match. The victim is a man in his thirties, multiple gunshot wounds to the chest, left in the center of the room for the blood to pool out around him.

The place is already secured when he arrives, the building swarmed with officers and the forensic detectives. The Bat emerges shortly after he does -- or, he might've been here the whole time, hiding someplace dark and shadowy. For his own sanity, Gordon doesn't think about it too hard.

The kid is a surprise, and he appears like a bolt of lightning.

He shows up in the middle of a conversation Gordon is having with the Bat.

A whistle, sharp and loud, slicing through the air, meant for open air rather than a confined space. Gordon's ears pierce and protest the sound, and the solemn, murmured chatter floating through the room abruptly cuts off like the swing of a gavel. As he turns towards the sound -- as they all do -- he swears, up and down, that he sees Batman's shoulders jump, just slightly.

At the source, perched on the window, is a boy. A boy in a gray-blue scarf and an oversized black hoodie, one that hangs off his frame and has ace bandages wrapped around the wrists in some attempt to cinch the sleeves. The hood is up, big like the rest of it, and threatens to swallow the upper half of the boy's face whole in the fabric. What upper half Gordon can see, is smeared with some kind of opaque, black face paint. He's holding onto the side of the frame with one hand, on his hip is a grappling hook. A familiar grappling hook.

Gordon has multiple questions, and his officers tense up.

Martinez puffs up, brows furrowing as his face shapes into a frown. Shoulders rolling back. "You can't be here, kid--"

The reaction is immediate, like a spark to gunpowder, the boy yanks his fingers from his mouth and his mouth twists into a scowl. Head snapping over to Officer Martinez, his hood manages to stay on but Gordon swears that as he bares his teeth, the glint makes them look sharper than they should be. His voice is rasp and quiet and harsh; snappish in its hissing; "Put a fuckin sock in it, Martinez. I'm not stayin."

Martinez reels back, and the boy immediately veers his attention off him. Like a switch, his demeanor drops. Despite half his face being covered, his mouth twists into a cringing, apologetic smile. Slanted and off-beat, embarrassed. It'd be disarming if this wasn't Gotham, and if he didn't just hiss at Martinez like he was about to bite his head off.

"Sorry." He whispers, voice deceptively polite and softer now. Gordon has to strain his ears to hear him. "I was looking for him."

He points his finger towards-- Gordon? No, Gordon follows the direction, and finds himself looking at -- the Bat.

The Bat, who always looks stiff as a pole, now looks even stiffer. Somehow. Well, the explains the grappling hook attached to the boy's waist.

"What are you doing here?" The Bat says, gruff and unable to completely smother the stumble of surprise in his tone.

The boy still holds a sheepish smile, and slips off the window ledge. His feet hit the creaky boards with a near-silent thud, the Batman finds his feet and rapidly begins crossing the room.

Gordon notes the slight tremble in the boy's legs as he straightens. He adjusts his scarf, which droops close to his knees now that he's standing, and slings a backpack -- how long has had that? -- off his shoulders. When the Bat reaches his side, he does as he always does, and looms over the boy like a spectre. A threatening mass of shadows cloaked in all-consuming black. Standing next to him, the boy looks teeny in comparison.

The Bat is a man who terrifies even the most hardened criminals, Gordon has seen grown men shiver in fear at the mention of his name. And yet when the boy looks up at him, he doesn't even flinch.

Instead, his sheepish smile melts away like ice under the sun, holding only traces of his previous embarrassment. It remains as a shadow on his face, a small upturn at the corners of his mouth. The boy pushes his hood back just enough to reveal glinting, ice-flint eyes surrounded in tar-black face paint. He holds the backpack up with one arm. "You forgot this."

[sexy-sapphic-sorcerer]

Gwen & Arthur Are Not in Love

Based on the cover of Gwen & Art Are Not in Love by Lex Croucher

also here are some close ups because I spent too long on small details and I need someone to see it

[choccy-milky]

NSFW comic ive been wanting to do for a while of seb getting…influenced…by the dark relic👀👀no idea how long its gonna be or how long itll take, so have a wip for now 🙃

[izzystizzys]

“…I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I still don’t quite understand”, Fox says, for what must be the dozenth time that hour. His heartbeat pounds behind his eyes in an incessant drum of hurt, and his head aches with every breath like someone’s taken a rusty fork to the inside of his skull and raked his brain out. Fox’ eyes are beginning to burn the way they start doing around hour 80 of a shift, and he has to suppress the brief urge to check over his shoulder. Not even Stabby could come up with a ploy this contrived to make him sleep. Probably.

In front of him, General Grievous coughs awkwardly, long spindly durasteel limbs shivering with its force. “Certainly”, he vocalizes, in that deep, watery cadence. “For your glorious triumphs in battle, your awe-inspiring victory over me in close combat, and your undeniable warrior spirit, I accept you as my consort. I have proven my skills through the ritual capture, and thus, by Kaleesh custom, we are now wed, Commander Fox. I will honor you as my war-bride, and visit vengeance upon your enemies. I swear it to you.”

Expectantly, Grievous tilts his faceplate to the side, and Fox only just catches the suppression of the manic giggle that wants to escape him. Yeah, probably not Stabby - maybe a dying fever dream? Has the infected gash from that skirmish on the lower levels five rotations ago finally decided to end him? If so, it’s not fast enough for Fox’ tastes.

Here’s how it happened: Fox has no kriffing clue. All he knows is one moment an emergency alert tore him from precious Scream Closet time this morning, he went to rescue the Chancellor’s dumb ass again, and whoop, here he is on General Grievous’ ship with the war-criminal himself declaring them happily married. And eyeing him up and down like a piece of candy.

Why, Fox thinks, desperately, does this always have to happen to me?!

Chancellor’s still kidnapped, by the way. Fox has other priorities for the time being.

“I swear to aim my weapons in your service”, Grievous continues, when it becomes exceedingly clear Fox is not going to break out of his shocked stupor anytime soon. “I swear to aim true and strike with murderous intent, I swear to uphold the sacred bonds of our clans in the name of our union, I swear to raise a strong, bloodthirsty brood of warriors with-“

“Wait”, Fox interrupts, once his brain has caught up past the astromech dial-up sound it seems to be playing on repeat. “Uphold clan bonds? You murder your way through my brothers like a rabid nexu on spice on the regular!”

Grievous’ faceplate, which should be for all intents and purposes totally expressionless, does something that reminds Fox strangely of contrition. It has him gaping and shivering in discomfort, in any case. “A fact I regret, but acknowledge lies in my past before the fateful crossing of our paths. I am a warrior at soul, you must understand, my worthy mate.” Durasteel faceplates don’t turn soft. They don’t. And coughs don’t sound loving. They simply do not. “But I uphold the bonds of these sacred vows under Kaleesh law, that I swear to you, my beloved.”

“All I did was grapple you to the ground”, Fox says, mourningly. “Cody has kicked you in the head dozens of times and you’ve never tried to marry him.”

“He is not you, and his battle lacks the lustful vitality and love of violence of yours”, Grievous declares, and Fox really cannot tell whether the sound that erupts from him is a lovelorn sigh or a hacking death-gurgle. This cannot be his life.

Just then, a droid conveniently enters, putting a pause to all Fox’ sufferings. He’ll need to tell Thorn to research Kaleesh divorce proceedings. Or, better yet - he needs to blow up this whole karking ship including himself and destroy all evidence of this ever happening.

“Generals Kenobi and Skywalker awaiting in custody, Sir”, says the droid, nervously. “They are here to rescue Chancellor Palpatine, but we cut them off just out of the hangar bay.”

Internally, Fox rolls his eyes so hard it hurts his brain. “The Jedi can wait”, Grievous hacks out, and for once Fox agrees with him. Let the two dick around onboard, there’s bigger issues at hand.

“But Sir”, says the droid, all twitchy with an anxiety Fox eternally wonders who the kriff programmed into the damn things, “what if they try to escape and -“

A deep, growling noise erupts from deep within Grievous’ massive metal chest, amplifying Fox’ pounding headache by a thousandfold. “I have no time for this”, he snarls at the cowering droid. “Remove yourself from my and mine beloved’s sight.”

“Roger Roger”, the B2 squeaks, hesitantly, before adding on - “The Chancellor-“

Harrumphing petulantly, Grievous stomps one massive, clawed foot and makes what feels like the whole viewdeck shake. “I will twist his head off his body like a rotten fruit”, he declares. “That will get those pesky Jedi off my ship faster, and then we can continue saying our vows.” He pauses, thoughtfully, and then hooded eyes ringed by what must surely be rotten flesh fix on Fox inexorably. “It will be my wedding gift to you, beloved, an offering of peace to your brothers.”

Fox opens his mouth to protest, but quickly snaps it shut again when his husband already turns tail and storms off.

Huh. Maybe this marriage thing isn’t all bad.

[icarusredwings]

Thinking about Wade just... being normal(?) For a day. Doing house hold chores, watching shitty live tv, goes out to walk Puppins, showering with no smart remarks.

Yes, he still hums and taps on stuff, but it's much.. calmer.. now. In the sense that he doesn't want to cause a scene and would rather just be left alone right now.

But then... when he gets out. Surely he's going to be his silly self and say something, right?? Right???? Wrong.

He just... sits there. Boredly looking at those free magazines that you find sometimes at doctors' offices. The ones that are like "Home improvment for your loved one with dementia" or "50 dinner ideas for someone with diabetes"

Logan just blinks after watching him all day and goes "...Are you okay?"

Without a beat, he awnsers pretty monotoned. "I can't be manic all the time. That's just stupid to think." Before realizing he said it outloud. He perks up and starts laughing. "I mean- Yeah I'm great! What about you, Tiger?"

Again Logan just stares, blinking some as he tries to process.

"....How long have you kept up that act..?"

"I don't know what you're talking about, pumpkin!" It was like watching someone trying to impersonate themsleves.

"....Wade.."

"What is it cupcake?"

"...You don't have to do that."

"Do what? Gosh your so silly. My silly little sunflower."

Logan just stares at him for a bit more and quickly he panics, swallowing and starting to say anything he can to make him believe it was a joke but he dosn't believe a single word of it.

"...its not an act.. is it?"

It eventually ends with wade running out of excuses or things to lie about. He sits there, tears starting to run down his face as he thinks of words to say. You can see just how desperate he is to say something but he can't seem to get it out.

"..I....I-i."

"I know."

Wade just looks at him with this big scared eyes as if he was about to accuse him of faking or telling him he liked this wade better or something terrible like asking how to keep him this way but Logan pulls him into a side hug.

"...are you okay?"

His throat tightens, shaking his head. "..no."

"That's okay." Turning to give him an actual hug, Wade cries. Not because he's sad though. But because to Logan, it doesn't matter how high or low he was on the chart, who he was or how he acted. He loves him. He understands that acting like a crazy childish phycopath isn't a mask but rather who he was sometimes. And sometimes he prefered to silently lay his head on his shoulder.

Eventually Logan asks him if he has a personality disorder and Wade just shrugs. "Probably.... is that an issue..?"

"No.... do you want diagnosed?"

Wade pauses, remembers the last time he asked for medical help and shakes his head. "Nah... I'm good.. besides. I've come to like him."

"How long has he been in there?" Logan playfully knocks on his head and wade giggles a bit. A genuine true laugh. "I don't know. Probably forever.... are you sure it's not a problem?" He bites his tounge, waiting for the "because I like him better" but it never came.

"Why would that be a problem? Sure, you're a pain the ass but you're my pain in the ass." He says, mindlessly sitting for a second before quickly saying "DON'T-"

As wade is on the brink of explosion from laughter and some smirky comments.

[ffc1cb]

happy to announce i’ve finally lost it and spent a considerable amount of time making a dragon age inquisition mod that lets your inquisitor use they/them pronouns. if there’s anyone out there besides me who wants to use it, here it is on nexus.

detailed description and personal commentary under the cut

update: as of 3.05 (may 3rd), the mod has been uploaded to nexus. see download link above for any future updates.

this is a mod for frosty mod manager 1.0.6.1. you MUST install the bioware localization plugin for it to work, otherwise the game won’t start. on fmm 1.0.6.2, the plugin is already built in, so you don’t need to worry;

this mod is a simple overhaul of the game’s base text; no changes were made to the actual voice lines. this mod also does not affect default romance flags (just like in vanilla game, you can only romance sera with a "female" inquisitor (or dorian with "male"), but the mod should, hypothetically, be compatible with other mods that edit romance flags);

you can install it at any point of the game. starting a new playthrough is not necessary;

works for all races and with all available dlcs;

along with the pronouns change, this mod changes all gendered words used to refer to the inquisitor to be gender neutral, i.e man / woman have been replaced with person or contextual variants. my lord / my lady and other similar titles have been replaced with messere (on the basis of this reddit thread);

some of the dialogue could've been mistakenly changed, since context was not always easy to parse. if you try this mod out, i’d greatly appreciate any help with pointing out my mistakes (blackwall’s romance in particular has given me the most trouble); additionally, i might have missed some lines in the codexes, since i skimmed through them very briefly.

i’ve no previous modding experience, so i went with the easiest option and, like i mentioned above, brute forced it and made a complete overhaul of the base game text as opposed to a pickable option i’d like it to be. ideally i’d love for this mod to be bundled together with this other one that switches pc pronouns (which was a partial inspiration for this mod). if anyone here has any knowledge on whether this is something that could be done, please hmu.

also, since in order to make this mod i had to read through the entire game text (it was torturous. not gonna lie) i collected some of my personal favorite bits and pieces along the way. if anyone’s curious, you can look at them here. there’s surprisingly many developers’ notes in there.

[canisalbus]

I want you to know that your art is very important to me, and I'm very invested in all of the characters I have seen from you. Also, the discussion about Finnish and other languages having gendered words or not has been the last little push to get me to start learning Finnish which I think is fun.

I'm making this a little compilation post of all the language asks I got. Thank you for sharing, this was genuinely really interesting!

[skylersprompts]

DC x DP Prompt *31*

Dan… no, Bruce often thought back how his life had started. A young kid – not older than four years of age - had died in his sleep. His soul was leaving for the realms. And the Ancients had asked him if he was ready for redemption. Ready to live a new life, with all the happiness and pain it had to offer. He said yes, because nothing could be worse than rotting in the Thermos.

He had been wrong.

He had been shoved in the dying body of a little kid, his memory's of his past life simplified, so that his new brain could still grasp them without hurting him. He knew that he had been Dan once. Now he was little Bruce Wayne. He wasn’t allowed to ever take a life while he had his free will. He wasn’t allowed to ever tell anyone about his past live. He wasn’t allowed to use his powers, should he ever find the strength to reach his core again. The Ancients had made it clear that they would otherwise take everything from him. He remembered that his original, Phantom the Ancient of Balance had been against this, but he had been outvoted. If he should be able to heal his obsessions and never kill somebody, he and his family would share an afterlife together. His obsession unwrapped itself. Without being able to reach his core it was easier. His core was mending itself back together, his broken obsessions healing. From Danny's side he got the obsession to protect and belong in his fraid. From Vlad he got the obsession for control and family. And everything seemed to be perfect in the beginning. He had his Mother and Father. They were all safe. And he had as much control as a small child could have. He really was striving.

And then his parents died.

It broke him, not completely, but enough. And then he became the Batman. Being a hero, while also having something that was so vampire-esque was almost like a homage to whom he had been made of once. And even though he didn’t have a family anymore, except for Alfred, he at least could protect other people and gain some control back.

Than he got Dick, his first Robin. And everything was wonderful again, he healed again. Then he found Jason and he was brought into his little family and he loved it so much. All of this was worth it. Having his two sons and his father in all but name by his side was so much better then the Thermos.

He had been wrong again.

Bruce need for control and protect made him sometimes a bad parent, he knew this. But he never wanted to push his children away. He needed to find Jason and apologies.

And then he hold the broken body of his son.

This time the crack was bigger. Because he should have been able to protect his family. Because it was all his fault! He wanted to hunt down and kill the clown, he was holding onto a thread. He knew he would lose everyone if he let himself slip, but it was so hard.

And then Tim came into his life, holding him together, even though it shouldn’t be his job. But he healed, little by little. Until the Red Hood came. Until Jason came back and asked the impossible.

He couldn’t damn everyone and Jason to be erased. He couldn't lose his family, his son again.

[foundfamilywhump]

see like the thing with 'carewhumpers' as a concept to me is it just like... i know this is prrrrobably not really how it's meant but something skeeves me out about the idea that kindness or caretaking mixed in with hurting someone can somehow meaningfully complicate or dilute the harm done to the point of making that character no longer a 'whumper' whereas someone doing the same 'bad' things but not ever being gentle or caring for them would just be a straight-out whumper. when like... that's how 90% of irl abuse dynamics work? so i just... don't really get the point, i guess. like to me it implies something about the 'care' provided somehow mitigating or combating the harm done that. i just do not personally appreciate or enjoy.

[starry-bi-sky]

Okay so this is almost a direct copy-paste of my earlier reblog but only the Xin Yuan parts, because its long enough to be its own post and i want to share it! It deserves it's own post <3 typical starry stuff to write a 2k word long reblog, unfortunately.

I say almost because I went through to proof read and ended up adding more stuff.

I've been cooking on this idea for the last two days since I saw the Xin Mo!Shen Yuan post but??? I can't find anything on Xin Mo's backstory or how it came to be -- which means that's free fucking plot right there baby. That's a sandbox and im making LIFE SIZED CASTLES. I'm so excited.

The idea of Shen Yuan transmigrating centuries before the events of PIDW as Xin Mo -- but when he wakes up, he's not the sword. He wakes up in the body of a young boy named Xin Yuan. Now it makes sense for this boy to be a demon, but the drama, the intrigue, the spice of Xin Yuan being a human child.

SY wakes up as a boy below the age of ten, and the System tells him where he is, and SY is excited to meet his favorite protagonist -- only to gradually realize that he's like, a thousand years or so before the events of the novel. The rant he gives the system is legendary.

Bc what's the point of getting dropped into PIDW if he's never going to meet his favorite character??? This is a scam! BUT he settles into his new life, he's like, some orphan street rat or some other tragic airplane-esq backstory.

The system gives Shen Yuan his first mandatory quest: become a righteous cultivator. Which was like, kinda his plan/hopes anyways, except! There's like?? No official cultivator sects anywhere? The Cang Qiong Mountain Sect hasn't even been established yet, and there are pockets of cultivators running around, maybe some groups or schools popping up and then sinking back down, but nothing's really taken root!

If he asks someone how to become a cultivator, there's no straight answer. No "oh you can go to X to do that". He's pissed! How can he become a cultivator if there aren't any schools around to teach him? Deus ex machina, that's how.

Out of sheer luck, SY manages to help save a rogue cultivator, and promptly gets adopted by said rogue cultivator, who gives SY the name 'Xin Yuan'. He is ecstatic. And you know what? It's actually pretty fun!

He's getting to travel the world of PIDW in its early stages, and gets to see the building blocks for the eventual main story. He's discovering all this local flora and fauna that are foreign to his old world and unmentioned in the book, and he's learning cultivation! Granted, its unsafe, newly(ish) discovered cultivation, but it counts!

Wistfully, he thinks about perhaps he'll do something grand and get his name carved into legend. Something that would eventually help the protagonist later down the line in his quest for revenge.

The system remains silent to his thoughts.

But Xin Yuan doesn't take much stock in that daydream anyways. It's nothing more than fantasy to him; wish-fulfillment. He does discover however, that he is positively brimming with spiritual energy. Overwhelmingly so.

It's both a blessing and a curse, as it puts a strain on his meridians if he's not careful, and leaves him prone to qi deviations for the exact same reasons. He already has a heart demon or two from a few traumatic experiences in the past.

(bc hey! angst a day keeps the writer sadism at bay, and all that)

I'll say he's about... eight when he gets picked up by the rogue cultivator, who I'm calling Lin Kai bc he deserves a name. They travel around PIDW up until Xin Yuan is twelve, where he goes through a traumatic experience that results in a heart demon.

It's after that that Lin Kai decides to put a stop to his wandering, and find a place to settle down to raise Xin Yuan in. Coincidentally! They settle down in a nice mountain region that's thriving with spiritual energy. The mountains at the time were called something different, but they will be eventually known as the Cang Qiong Mountain Sect

Coincidentally, the mountain Lin Kai and Xin Yuan end up on is Qing Jing Peak. XY does not realize that the mountain he's on is Qing Jing. The System does not tell him. But he likes it there, more than he was expecting. And as much as he's traveled around, he really does enjoy being in one place.

He has a tendency to go down the mountain and help the village setting up down there, and when he's a teenager he starts venturing out more and more.

Xin Yuan forgets sometimes that he's in a novel, especially after settling down on Qing Jing peak. The system becomes remarkably quiet since there's no quests for him to do and not a ton of opportunities to get B-Points. He cultivates with Lin Kai, helps tend to the garden they're growing, goes down to the village to play with the other kids.

There's one boy he's best friends with, a boy whose not all that good with words, named Liu Zhihao. He's got potential for cultivation though, so Xin Yuan drags him up the mountain when he can so that Liu Zhihao can sit in on lessons with Lin Kai. He drags him all over the forest at the foot of the mountain to go look at bugs and animals.

(One time, when they're fourteen and Liu Zhihao has been learning cultivation for a few years now, Xin Yuan drags him out of bed late one night to go look at the stars. Xin Yuan tells Liu Zhihao about ascension -- something that still feels like a far off dream to many in this time -- that night, while they're sitting on the wet grass.)

("We should ascend together." Xin Yuan tells Liu Zhihao, jade eyes gleaming. Never let it be said that Xin Yuan doesn't love deeply, no matter what kind of love it is. He was always so lonely as Shen Yuan, Liu Zhihao is his best friend. "We'll become immortals, and then we won't ascend until the other is able to.")

(Liu Zhihao stares at him silently, his face unreadable. Then, quietly, he asks; "Promise?")

("Promise.")

When he starts adventuring outwards, further away from the mountain and the village, Liu Zhihao sticks to him like rice. Not that Xin Yuan's complaining, that's his best friend after all, and Liu Zhihao has become a formidable cultivator. He deserves to show off his skills.

He starts making something of a name for himself by the time he's, like, 18 -- although that name is in its baby steps, along with Liu Zhihao. They're slowly growing renown.

Perhaps XY uses his knowledge of PIDW and cultivation in general to help make advancements in the cultivation field. Although the system prevents him from sharing too much, it doesn't mean he can't practice it himself. Perhaps he's one of the first cultivators to develop a golden core. One of the first known immortal cultivators. One of the first to have a spirit sword.

(Although I don't know the logistics of any of this since my knowledge on xanxia/cultivation stuff in general is all still pretty new and google wasn't all that helpful lol.)

Either way, its my excuse to eventually make Xin Yuan come across as ethereal to other people. Peerless beauty SY for the win. Hs wifebeam is too strong, Xin Yuan has a line of suitors following after him and he's completely unaware of it. The rest of history is not.

Demon realm stuff has been stirring up since Xin Yuan was a kid, but at the time it was rare and in the beginning stages. Its been steadily ramping up and the system is sending him on more and more treacherous quests -- some of them mandatory, some optional. SY doesn't often take the optional ones unless it comes with a sufficient B-point reward.

for all intents and purposes though, he's a wandering rogue cultivator with Liu Zhihao, going from place to place to either help a town or village, or to discover more creatures or artifacts (although there aren't that many). Just all around living his life. He participates in a few major quest lines that are sure to get him mentioned in legend, even if it's a background character way.

(Unbeknownst to him, rather than being a side character in these legends, he's named directly. You can't become one of the first immortal cultivators and NOT get name dropped for clout.)

He has a spirit sword named Shā Mó, (杀 shā - to kill/weaken/counteract/reduce) (魔 mó - evil spirit, demon, possession). He routinely goes back to QJP to see Lin Kai, or to rest when traveling has worn down on him and he wants nothing more than to sleep somewhere he knows he'll be safe in. It becomes more frequent as Xin Yuan becomes more famous. Liu Zhihao often comes with him.

it all comes to a head though when the rifts between the demonic realm and the human realm become too great, and the balance between both realms becomes unstable. A demonic emperor's influence, wanting to merge the two realms so he could conquer both to satiate his own greed.

Typical evil king stuff. This comes to a climatic head in a great battle between every cultivator available and the demon emperor's army. Xin Yuan was one of the many who helped lead the charge.

In the end, it was Xin Yuan who ends up defeating the demonic emperor, but the rift that the emperor used to cross between worlds is destabilizing as well. Except instead of trying to close, it's getting bigger and bigger, threatening to swallow the heavens and earth and demonic realm whole.

You know how Yue Qingyuan's soul is bonded to his sword due to a qi deviation? Let's take it a step further >:)

Xin Yuan uses himself and Shā Mó to close the rift. However, it takes all of his spiritual energy to do so, as well as him filtering the demonic qi into his body to redirect it back to the demon realm.

In the end, Xin Yuan and his beloved sword Shā Mó fuse. Xin Yuan's soul becomes trapped in the sword. His physical body is unable to handle the immense amount of power it takes to close the rift, and is destroyed. He is immortalized in legend by his grieving cultivators.

(Liu Zhihao ends up ascending alone. He ascends with the hope that one day he'll see Xin Yuan again, even if it's in the face of someone else. Lin Kai does not ascend, too weighed down by the grief of losing his son.)

Xin Yuan, now Xin Mo, falls into a stasis. He's very confused and disorientated when he regains 'consciousness'. The system has been silent for most of his life, only popping up to give him mandatory quests, hints, points, or to answer any questions.

But once he wakes up, it cheerfully pops up again, congratulating him on completing the origin story of Xin Mo. SY freaks the fuck out. he'd shake the system screen if he could, but he doesn't have arms. or legs. or eyes for that matter.

He can sense his surroundings, but its all like imprints to him. He can sense the energies, but he can't see anything. It's all very disorientating and horrifying after years of being human. Like a sensory deprivation chamber.

The closing of the rift and the cycling demonic qi tainted both Sha Mo and Xin Yuan irreparably, and it did some kind of damage that resulted in SY needing to feed in order to use the spiritual powers. Kinda like how Xuan Su uses YQY's life force for it's spiritual energy, but instead of feeding on his own lifeforce, Xin Mo feeds on others.

The rest is history. Xin Mo is originally tied to the story of Xin Yuan -- believed to be all that remained of the man after he sacrificed himself to keep the realms separate. It's believed that the force of the realms closing permanently infused Sha Mo with demonic energy, turning it into Xin Mo.

But, like many stories do when faced against the tide of time, things get lost; chipped off; changed. Xin Mo is steadily separated from Xin Yuan, especially once it becomes clear how parasitic the sword really is, until they are all but separate entities themselves and the origin of Xin Mo's creation all but forgotten.

The years blur together when Xin Mo is not being wielded, and at first Xin Yuan was agonized by the fact that he stole the lives of all his wielders. He knows it's only a novel, but his decades spent in this life have softened him, and he's grown attached to the world around him.

But time erodes the mind like water erodes stone, and he becomes numb to it, then eventually anticipating of it. He forces himself to remember what he knows of PIDW's plot, and kinda fixates back on his old obsession on Luo Binghe. But while PIDW stays in his mind, his memories as Xin Yuan fall to the wayside.

Not forgotten, per se, but... tucked away. The system prevents him from forgetting fully.

Xin Mo isn't fully a demonic sword either i think, but instead harbors an ugly cocktail of both spiritual and demonic qi. Special circumstances and all that. Everyone just assumes he's a fully demonic sword because that's usually at the forefront, his spiritual qi weakened from the initial fusion and from years of not being fed spiritual qi. It's part of the reason his wielders always end up destroyed by him, other than the whole, yk, 'overwhelming qi' thing.

Nobody would recognize Xin Mo's human form as Xin Yuan other than some truly ancient demons. Of which Meng Mo might. But even that's iffy because there's a lack of surviving paintings of Xin Yuan, but also because of XM's demonic appearance and supposed lack of connection to XY.

Xin Mo has never spoken to his wielders before, not in the same way he does Luo Binghe. He tells Luo Binghe this, and he also tells Luo Binghe down the line that he is both spiritual and demonic -- something he also never told his wielders because there was no point to it.

okay okay i've got to end it here because its already gotten ridiculously long -- of which im both apologetic and unapologetic for -- but i DO think the Shang Qinghua and Shen Yuan meeting (and reveal) would be fucking hilarious. Especially if SY has learned how to pop between sword form and human form by then -- although i guess it doesnt matter either way because SQH's reaction is still the same.

And that reaction is internally screaming and going "hey what the FUCK?? WHY DOES XIN MO HAVE A HUMAN FORM??? WHAT IS THIS??? SYSTEM??? EXPLAIN???"

meanwhile from his place on the sword hilt xin mo is squinting at Shang Qinghua in bewilderment and going "aren't you supposed to be dead" but doesn't pay too much mind to it because its not like its going to change anything.

...up until he catches shang qinghua going "WTF" silently from his little corner while all eyes are off him. One moment SQH is standing beside his king, and the next he's been tackled to the ground by one wild-eyed, human-shaped Xin Mo.

everyone, including SQH, thinks Xin Mo is going to kill him. It is a surprise to everyone when he does not, and instead dissolves into deranged, uncontrollable laughter after spitting out some phrase in some ancient tongue and watching SQH's eyes grow wide in recognition.