apoc·ry·phal - implies an unknown or dubious source or origin or may imply that the thing itself is dubious or inaccurate.
a mutuals-only genshin impact && honkai star rail && wuthering waves && zenless zone zero multimuse, written by ventium (she/her, 30+yo). est. January 19 2023, re-made January 1st 2026. slow activity both ic and ooc due to full-time job. please read my rules before interacting!
rules & muses · prompts · thread tracker · other shenanigans i'll think of eventually
credit: @avaere (dash and pinned post graphics), @sweetmelodygraphics (pinned post dividers), @aedearly (icon borders and post dividers)
up-to-date muses list under the read more at the end of this post! (carrd is slightly outdated)
muses list
HONKAI STAR RAIL: aventurine, feixiao, moze, aglaea, phainon, hysilens
GENSHIN IMPACT: xiao, kazuha, ayato, al-haitham, nahida, neuvillette, wriothesley, lyney, capitano
WUTHERING WAVES: jiyan, geshu lin, jingran, lynae, rover
ZENLESS ZONE ZERO: asaba harumasa
ONE PIECE: whitebeard, marco, trafalgar d. law
i like to think that neuvillette, when he sleeps, doesn't exactly dream or have nightmares. instead, sleep is a time when his consciousness doesn't need to be focused in the present moment, and is allowed to follow the flow of the waters of fontaine and merge with them entirely, to span across all the memories that they carry within their essence. fontaine's waters and the hydro dragon are intricately interwoven with the past: in the aq, he connects to his memories from centuries ago through the fontain of lucine, and in his sq, i like to think that his wandering down memory lane after it starts raining on him is not a metaphor or him daydreaming, but him actually, literally taking a moment to revisit old memories. sleep is the moment he is immersed in those waters of memories and histories - he does not have dreams or nightmares, he sees the past and drifts through all the memories accunulated in fontaine since... well, considering his draconic nature and freedom from irminsul, probably since before the fall of the dragons.
the difference between the memories stored in irminsul and in the waters of fontaine, at least in my portrayal of this silly little detail, is that the waters keep the emotion of a memory first and foremost, whereas irminsul is first and foremost a recording device for historical records. of course there is a lot of freedom of interpretation in this, and nahida herself proves it by recording a fairytale as a data entry into irminsul, but to venture a clumsy comparison, nahida's dreams is like reading books (ranging from scientific books to fairytales), while neuvillette's are more like music. the former must be processed and interpreted to trigger emotion, while the latter is more visceral (again, a gross simplification but u know what i mean right -).
the emotion of a memory is what neuvillette experiences first, before the event it is associated with. so, if he has to compare dreams or nightmares to his experience, he would say that a good dream is whenever he sinks into a happy, warm memory, one that brought people joy, relief, solace; whereas a nightmare is whenever he stumbles into the opposite. when this happens, just like humans and nightmares, it is pretty common for him not to remember the specificities of the memory when he abruptly wakes up, whereas the impression it left him remains clear as day and lingers for a little longer than he would like.
@etherealguard said: "Moze whenever we get married know that I will not be sacrificing you for whatever cause I would rather stab my own heart and sacrifice myself." He said this way too casually.
Moze chokes on his drink, rather inelegantly. Not that anyone really chokes elegantly (at least for his extensive experience of choking others, generally into unconsciousness, often to death), but. Thankfully, the tea isn't burning hot, and his lungs shall be spared a scalding liquid invasion for the time being. Moze coughs, his fist lightly hitting his chest before he catches his breath again and looks at Dan Heng, a rare and remarkable expression of pure perplexity on his face.
" ... thanks?" He chances, as though he is still evaluating whether this is the appropriate response (as if there is an appropriate response). Should Dan Heng listen closely, he would distinctly hear the cogs in his brain whirring in a desperate attempt to decipher where on earth this comment might have come from. And if Moze tries to understand what goes on in anyone's mind? This alone should be indication that there is something truly puzzling at play.
... alright, perhaps Dan Heng is an exception.
"I'd rather you don't, though. I'd rather keep you around. If you need to sacrifice me one day, I can show you techniques to make it quick and painless. Or we could establish strategies for you to pretend to kill me. There are injuries you can inflict on me that will give our enemies the impression that I have died, but that I will walk away from." ... back up a minute. He's getting ahead of himself.
And also missed the important point in that outlandish declaration.
The doctor's office makes her nervous. It's white, sterile, and yet, warmer than she would have expected - and naturally, 'Lynae' cannot help but wonder where is the catch. She sits there, across Dr Herssen, the collar of a shirt that shouldn't, that doesn't belong to her, feeling too tight on her neck, as if to remind her of the fraud that she really is. It must be her imagination - she cannot help it. Every step that she takes she expects to step on a landmine; every gaze that she meets, she expects to be read like an open book. Nervously, she toys with the hem of her skirt, cautious eyes looking back up at the man before her, who unhurriedly reads through her report.
" ... I'm perfectly healthy, you know." She finally finds the courage to shoot out, both to break a silence she is finding way too uncomfortable for her taste, and in an attempt to defend her still shaky image. "Barely ever had a cold in my life! Right as rain all the time, really. There is no need to concern yourself with that, really. Lotsa students must need you more than me, right? I've lost count of how many of my stressed out seniors I've seen since I arrived." A touch of humour, a touch of light-heartedness. Surely that will be enough to put any defiance to sleep, right? Riiiight.
i finally 'played' (more like speed-ran) the blade update, and man skipping almost every dialogue scene really puts in perspective how little gameplay vs dialogue we are now getting (and a single fight in an entire update vs 4 or 5 platforming mini games is ludicrous). oh well, i hope the blade lovers at least had a good time, i know i did in amphoreus even when it had the same issues. now, is 'how i met your father' the new update or part 2 of the blade update -
capitano-related leaks under the cut (not related to the main quest, only background information)
okay i have no idea what the readable really is, but it looks like we might be getting several stories about each individual harbingers and that this is capitano's.
pulcinella identifying capitano as a potential mentor for childe, and putting the idea in his head, how about i cry, HOW FAR WE'VE COME FORM CHILDE'S INITIAL (and very misguided) LINE ABOUT THE CAPTAIN NEVER NOTICING HIM. and the old pens capitano left to ajax before he left for natlan, i'm going to cry, this is such a nice detail. i said since natlan that the captain was much more interested in childe's progress and had much more esteem for him than childe's assessment let on, and i am very glad to see it confirmed - although i'm sure his natural reserve didn't exactly help childe clear his doubts.
capitano said no silly names and i love it.
i am so invested in whatever the hell pulcinella and capitano had going on, like, sirs, what is this. gossip masters who never discuss gossip. partners in secrets. those who shall not discuss the things. somebody please give me a pulcinella to write with, i am begging on my knees.
when i tell you the pulcinella/capitano energy is immaculate. WHAT IS THIS. PULCINELLA GETS MAD AND PETTY SO CAPITANO GETS HIM A BOTTLE OF WINE TO DROWN OUT DOTTORE AND PANTALONE'S ANTICS. i cannot. pulcinella and capitano being the new harbingers duo was not on my bingo card but i admit i'd been hoping for it, and i am so glad to see it happen AND surpass my expectations.
so what i'm reading it, capitano was the harbingers' unpaid counsellor, and he never protested it. but also on a more serious note, that he must have been on relatively good terms with most of the harbingers and that the glowing reviews his playable colleagues give him in their voicelines stand from more than his reputation alone. they talked to him, seemingly beyond the realm of work alone (nothing surprising anymore about him getting an invitation to sandrone's tea parties), and they (or at least most of them, if it was a universal consensus) trusted him with their secrets.
and of course, the detail about his heart, which at the time was still carrying the souls of his fallen khaenri'ahn comrades. he truly was hearing those dying screams of agony non-stop for 500 years, huh. no wonder he seemingly had the patience of a saint (without being a pushover) and listened without finding issue with it.
this is more of a confirmation of what we already learnt in natlan, but it's great to have more details, namely: 1. there was a time when he would take off his mask in front of his colleagues and men, before his face deteriorated too much - it was a few centuries ago, for sure, but what this tells me is also that he doesn't have an issue with people seeing his state of decay, but takes issue with scaring or scarring people with the sight of it now that it... definitely must not look remotely human anymore. the mask isn't there to protect him, it is there to protect others. and 2. confirmation that was lies beneath the mask is not pretty blue glowy abyssal corruption a la dainsleif, but really, just... a face that no longer heals. scars that don't heal, tissue that doesn't repair itself over time. 'the flesh still rots' was indeed a very literal statement, even though according to mika testifying to the capitain's glowing dark blue eyes, his eyes have somehow been spared from the same fate.
and lastly, a small hint to one of capitano's duties under the tsaritsa: training new recruits, training them for combat specifically. at least that was the case a few hundred years ago - his responsibilities have probably evolved since, but perhaps this hints at his partial prowess being one of the reasons the tsaritsa (and presumably pierro, a fellow khaenri'ahn) got him to join their ranks as the first harbinger.
excuse the incoming spam but we are finally getting capitano lore in the leaks and i need to post about it and cry (it will all be under a cut i promise)
i have a very strange and specific question: do i have anyone in my mutuals who owns an xbox, and would be able to send me screenshots of warframe's store page on xbox in english.
