#I would actually love to read pidw how it was meant to be in the first draft and then cry for hours

[shizunitis]

Luo Binghe: Original Drafts Edition! Who and why?

“[…] in fact, in his original outline, Bing-gē hadn’t even had a romance plotline; he had been doomed to fade away, alone and unaging forever.” — The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System, Vol. 4 (Mo Xiang Tong Xiu)

The drafts version of Binghe! Not Bing-gē, nor Bing-mei, but a secret, third thing! (I’m partial to Bing-xióng (兄) myself, just for thematic cohesion. Bing-mei remains as he is: Shizun’s special glass-heart maiden.)

So! Who is this elusive, mythical Binghe we never got the chance to meet? What is he? How do I get to pick this one’s brains?

Why is he haunting me! What does he want! So much to think about.

Listen: I love my trash sons, both the racoon and wet dog variations, but I am curious about this handsome demon lord who did not bed thousands, and did not steal his shizun to lovingly coax him into a loving and respectful marriage. Alas, Airplane-bro, as is custom, has left me hanging.

The solitary quote above has been floating around my brainspace for months. Intermittently, I would look up at the sky and sigh a big sad dog sigh, and think of this lonely demon-man emperor who seems to be both perfectly representative of No-Shizunitis Suffering Binghe, and on the exact opposite end of the line. I have spent many a night trying to rearrange the blocks of both SVSSS and PIDW like a sad toddler with no plan but plenty of amorphous longing.

Thus, Bing-xiong. My beloved new toy.

We know he is left alone and unaging. This means that:

He does not marry even once. (Sorry, Other Bing Variants. This one came broken.)

He is not defeated, killed, or left to suffer his not-father’s fate of sulking under a mountain.

From 1) we can assume two more things! Xin Mo either gets fixed/doesn’t influence this Binghe the same way, or: Xin Mo is completely written off à la Airplane Retconning, making Binghe potentially even more individually powerful than his younger counterparts.

(Or he just. Takes people’s cultivation ad-infinitum. Interesting thought, but too straight-forward for my tastes. Airplane’s thoughts? Unknowable.)

From 2) we can also assume Binghe cannot die, is under the influence of the Protagonist Halo unto infinity, and will only be put out of his misery once the heat death of the universe deems it a worthwhile endeavour. Either that or the story ends, but. It tickles a miserable part of my brain pink to think Binghe will not be let off even then.

Anyway. Bing-xiong, of course, has the same source material to work off of. Up until the Abyss, and including it, the plotline should be if not the same, adjacent enough to be indistinguishable.

However. This means:

Bing-xiong never got coerced into sex by Qin Wanyue, thus not starting him on the path of sex-dependency/addiction, avoiding Bing-gē’s fate by virtue of the Butterfly Effect. (Read this post because it explains Bing-ge's whole thing better than a lot of things I've seen.)

Again, Xin Mo implications.

Alternate Universe Shenanigans make an appearance. (Shen Jiu’s fever and death was actually meant to happen, Bing-ge just got very, very unlucky and his Universe’s Yue Qingyuan very, very lucky. For a few years. Either that or there is a Shen Yuan for every Binghe! Again: sorry, Bing-ge. You need to find your own. Middle child issues…)

Once the drafts/original outline got lost, all bets are off and now the characters become real people, without narrative influence. This also has the very fucked up implication that Bing-ge is actually a result of exclusively external forces and would have never gone down that path if not forced onto it by Airplane’s unwitting hands. I do and do not love this version. Very Mo Ran-esque, if looked at from afar and squinting.

Other options I’m either too not-high to think, or too high to put together. (Cold medicine is insane?)

I am fascinated by this… Schrödinger’s Binghe. A jaded, lonely emperor left in the ashes of his world, gazing upon his own history and finding fucking nothing and no one. Metaphorically and, like, practically, if I’m understanding Airplane’s musings correctly. Isolated, cursed by his own blood in a completely new and fucked up way!

I need Airplane to speak with me for like, half an hour. This is paramount to my mental health, I’m losing my braincells by the hour.

What happened to this impervious, cocky, badass demon bastard lord to become so alone? How did it happen? Why did it not happen to the other two, or at least Bing-ge, who has had every horrible and shitty thing possible and impossible piled onto his head? What the fuck is up with Xin Mo? Why isn’t it eating away at Big Bro Luo? Or, worse: why is it eating away at him in such a way that instead of turning into a violent yet charismatic, horror-creature of a man, it turns him into the existential terror-fate I’ve contemplated and abhorred since I was seven?

Tianlang-jun as the final boss. Discovering Huan Hua Palace Master’s crimes, deceit and… stuff. Perhaps even uncovering Shen Jiu’s backstory.

Ooh! Worse! Or better? What if he finds out everything, after having followed Bing-gē’s path, and simply… gives up? A grown up Bing-ge, minus the marriage and surrogate-lover part(s).

(More unlikely than other options, but still there, I guess.)

Fucking insane of MXTX to do this to me, personally and specifically.

I can only speculate forever, I guess! Left… alone and pondering forever.

So. Not a Bing-ge, and not a Bing-mei. A Bing-xiong, if you will.

[lemonsnapples]

I feel like there are too many people who think that Shen Yuan is lazy and would never work hard. He is usually contrasted with Shen Jiu, who is shown in the extras to be driven by his pride to keep cultivating to become stronger than Liu Qingge.

Sure, Shen Yuan's life goal is to be able to live a lazy, carefree, pampered life, but we've read SVSSS, have we not? Have we not seen how much Shen Yuan will bust his ass for his self-preservation?!

Oh, but Shen Yuan only cultivated once as SQQ then stopped, I've read some people online say. He never considered becoming stronger himself to be able to face LBH.

To that, I give you this quote from Vol 1 Ch 1 of the official English translation:

So damn awesome! Power worthy of a character who was a peak’s sole master. With this level of cultivation, if he diligently trained for the next twenty years, then maybe in the future—as a last resort, if he absolutely had to face that overpowered Luo Binghe—he might just be able to flee in disgrace!

As you can see, he does consider cultivating hard as a strategy. Then he does actually cultivate, and he didn't know how to out of muscle memory or from reading PIDW, either - he had to figure out how, as shown in Ch 2:

He sat on the stone bed and began to cultivate, carefully following the methods he’d memorized from manuals.

But right after he comes out of cultivation SHL attacks CQMS, and he got hit with No Cure, which meant that he couldn't cultivate anymore even if he wanted to.

Did he give up on the notion of becoming strong himself to be able to deal with LBH in the future, so that he's not completely reliant on LQG? No, he then came up with the mushroom body idea, which allowed him to be so strong he could break out of a huge net of immortal binding cables with his raw spiritual powers. That's something SQQ's body couldn't do, even in PIDW!

When Shen Yuan was threatened with his life by the system and by his belief that LBH would want to turn him into a human stick in the future, he went out of his way to do so many things for his own survival. It's not just his own survival that he cares about, either - when LBH was knocked out in the Holy Mausoleum arc, Shen Yuan dealt with ZZL and TLJ, and fought and killed the palace master, all while dealing with No Cure flaring up, all by himself.

Just because Shen Yuan wants to be lazy doesn't mean that there isn't a situation when he could be ambitious and driven - and that situation happened to him right in SVSSS!

In conclusion, Shen Yuan isn't as lazy as people think! For Shen Jiu, you gotta make him feel insecure to get him to act out of his pride. For Shen Yuan, you gotta threaten him and the people he loves to get him off his ass. They're driven by different things, but they can both be super ambitious under certain circumstances!

[jiangwanyinscatmom]

Hi

What do u think about people saying mdzs is a sexist book and that mxtx is misogynistic cuz she killed of the most important women in the story ?

I think when they say this they don't really see the underlying themes as it is of gender critic and juxtaposition of women in the works themselves.

SVSSS her first work, is a parody of the same shallow tropes that plague a very disgustingly misogynistic genre and it's overwhelming base of men it caters to. Our main character himself is in denial about his own sexuality for years and tells himself he must be straight because he reads YY novels, which is honestly some of the most horrendously bad straight machismo power porn put there for men.

Shen Qingqiu doesn't actually stop thinking of the women within the world of PIDW as just part of Luo Binghe's harem, until he has pushed Luo Binghe into The Abyss which makes everyone else, as much as Luo Binghe, to him real. There is nothing tethering Ning Yingying as "just" Luo Binghe's first wife", he begins to see her as a loyal disciple of the sect, talkative and stubborn and maybe just a little stupidly endearing.

This also extends to Liu Mingyan who was only considered to be "worthy" of Luo Binghe's attention as the main Love Interest to be argued about. But, she also had little to no interaction with Luo Binghe from the first time they meet and becomes independent of the harem wife plot so much, she becomes a inversion of becoming an in world writer to the most infamous trash novel of its stallion counterpart.

The women of the work are the ones who poke fun at the idiocy of the men that actually do inhabit the world, especially with Sha Hualing in actual shock at the ineptitude between the conversation of how to get a man's attention that Shang Qinghua, Mobei-jun and Luo Binghe are having, she is the one shocked and offended about the "act pathetic" conclusion they all come to.

As for MDZS, the world explores just how shit it is to live as a woman in a heavily misogynistic political world. It's not meant to be an idealized society by any means. And that does, shockingly, include women dying and all the ugly status that entails. Compared to SVSSS which had highly powerful women, The Jianghu of MDZS explores the opposite. This world shows men have more rights and leniency as a class, and given status, than it's women counterparts. Women are expected to act ideally as it's Confucian basis has set. Confucian practices, in short, are terrible to women. Of course that would reflect on a story that uses it at its basis for storytelling. We see this with Yu Ziyuan, who manipulated those practices, only to find herself in an unhappy marriage and family. Jiang Yanli, with traditional values, tries as well to make the best of an arranged betrothal that she had no say in, broken or not eventually. But she was able to eventually choose to marry and know Jin Zixuan, on her terms, after that as he had to be the one to reach out to her.

Wen Qing, is also more than just her role of men, as she decided the fates of Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng by being the one to decide ultimately to perform the core transfer. It is her mark, not Wei Wuxian's plan, that changes their relationship for life.

A-Qing herself, is the lead of the entire Yi City arc, and is the one to finally lead to Xue Yang's fall even after her death. This also includes the minor women in story we hear of only in hearsay, Baoshan Sanren, Cangse Sanren, Meng Shi, Lan-furen, their actions and lives are the ones that change the course of the domino effects of the story points and consequences. To read it as something as shallow as only being misogynistic or killing women maliciously, stupidly, and in bad faith, misses the themes of the plot.

There is a difference between the sociological aspect of what it means that media still has to make an emphasis on the issues women face, that are ugly and cruel, next to a power fantasy that women desperately crave, and true honest and hateful misogyny.

[janecrockeyre]

scum villain is a greek tragedy disguised as a regular tragedy disguised as a comedy disguised as a danmei

this is going to be long, and this is only PART ONE.

a.k.a, Analysing the plot of Scum Villain’s Self Saving System through Aristotle’s Poetics, because I Have Mental Issues

Part One: Introduction and the Tragic Hero

Scum Villain’s Self Saving System is a tragedy disguised as a comedy, unless you’re Shen Yuan, in which case it’s a mixture of a romance and a survival horror. It's a fever dream. It's a horrible, terrible book that made me feel new undiscovered emotions when I finished reading it. 

The thing is... SVSSS shares characteristics with some of the most famous tragedies in the West, such as Oedipus Rex, Medea, Antigone, the Oresteia... if you haven’t read these, I’ll explain everything. But the gist of my argument is this: SVSSS is the perfect tragedy. In triplicate. 

Tragedy as a genre is old as balls and so it has meant slightly different things to different people over the last few thousand years. I'll be focusing on ancient Greek tragedy, which was performed at the yearly Festival of Dionysus in Athens during the 500-350s BC (give or take a hundred years). Aristotle, when writing about this very specific subset of tragedy, had no idea that one day Scum Villain would be written, and then that I would be using his work as a way to look at Shen Qingqiu’s Funky Transmigration Mistake. Anyway!

Greek tragedy greatly influenced European dramatic tradition. I have a lot of opinions about white academics idolising and upholding the classics as the "paragon of culture" but I'll withhold them for now. I have no idea if MXTX has read Greek tragedy or not, so don't take this as me saying they are writing it. 

In my opinion, tragedy is a universal human constant. We are surrounded by pain and hurt and none of it makes any sense, so we seek to process that pain through drama, art, literature, etc. We want to understand why pain happens, and how it happens, and try to make sense of the senseless. The universe is cold and cruel and random. Tragedy eases some of that pain. 

On that note: Just because I am analysing Scum Villain through a Greek lens doesn't mean that it was written that way. I'm pasting an interpretation onto the book when there's probably a very rich and deep history of Chinese tragedy that I just don't know about. If you ever want to talk about that, please, god, hit me up, I would love to learn about it!! 

Anyway, tragedy. MXTX is excellent at it! Mo Dao Zu Shi? Painful dynastic family tragedy. Heaven Official's Blessing? Mostly romance, but she managed to get that pure pain in there, huh? 

But in my opinion, Scum Villain holds the crown for the most tragic of her stories. MDZS was more of a mystery. TGCF was more of a romance. Neither of them shy away from their tragic elements. 

Scum Villain would fit right in between the work of Sophocles, Euripides and Aeschylus. How? Let me show you. Join me on my mystery tour into the world of "Aristotle Analyses Danmei..."

Part One: The Tragic Hero

What is a tragic hero? Generally, Greek tragic heroes are united by the same key characteristics. He must be imperfect, having a "fatal flaw" of some kind. He must have something to lose. And he must go from fortune to misfortune thanks to that fatal flaw. 

There are two (technically three) tragic protagonists in SVSSS and all of them are tragic in different but formulaic ways. Each protagonist has their own version of “hamartia” or a “fatal flaw”. 

Actually, hamartia isn’t necessarily a flaw - rather, it is a thing which makes the audience pity and fear for them, a careful imperfection, a point of weakness in the character’s morality or reasoning that allows for bad things to happen to them. For example, in Oedipus Rex, the king Oedipus has a “fatal flaw” of always wanting to find the truth, but this isn’t exactly a flaw, right? Note: this flaw can be completely unwitting, as we see with Shen Yuan. It can also be something that the protagonist is born with, some kind of trait from birth or very young. 

Shen Yuan

Shen Yuan’s “hamartia” is his rigid adherence to fate and his inability to read a situation as anything but how he thinks it ought to be. He believes that Bingmei will grow into Bingge, and it takes several years, two deaths, and some truly traumatising sex to convince him otherwise. 

Shen Jiu

Shen Jiu’s fatal flaw is his cruelty. It is his own sadistic treatment and abuse of Binghe which directly leads to his eventual dismemberment. This is kind of a no-brainer. Of course, it isn't all that simple, and as an audience we pity him for his cruelty as much as we fear it because we know it comes from his own abuse as a child. This just makes him even more tragic. Delicious. 

Luo Binghe

Luo Binghe’s fatal flaw is a complicated mix of things. It is his position as the “protagonist” which compels him to act in certain ways and be forced to suffer. It is his half-demonic heritage, something entirely out of his control, which sets in motion his tragic reversal of fortune when he gets yeeted into the Abyss. He also, much like Shen Yuan, has the propensity to jump to conclusions and somehow make 2 + 2 = 5. 

As well as having their respective “flaws”, all three protagonists match the rough outline of a good tragic hero in another way: they are in a position of great wealth and power. Even when you split the different characters into different “versions”, this still holds true. Yes, Luo Binghe is raised a commoner by a washerwoman foster mother, but his dad is an emperor and he also ends up becoming an emperor himself. 

Yes, Shen Jiu is an ex-slave and a victim of abuse himself, but Shen Qingqiu is a powerful peak lord with an entire mountain’s worth of resources at his back. 

Shen Yuan is a second generation new money rich kid. 

Bingge is a stereotypical protagonist with a golden finger. Bingmei is a treasured and loved disciple with a good reputation and a privileged seat by his shizun’s side. 

In a tragedy, having this kind of good fortune at the beginning of your story is dangerous. Chaucer says that tragedy is (badly translated into modern english) “a certain story / of him that stood in great prosperity / and falls out of high degree / into misery, and ends up wretchedly”. If we follow this line of thinking, a good tragedy is about someone who has a lot to lose, losing everything because of one fatal point of weakness that they fail to address or understand. 

If we look at Shakespeare, this is what makes King Lear such a fantastic tragic protagonist. He is a king in control of most of England, who from his own lack of wisdom and excess of pride, decides to split his kingdom apart to give to his daughters, favouring his murderous, double crossing progeny, and condemning his only actually filial daughter to death. He loses his kingdom, his mind, and his beloved daughter, all because of his own stupidity.

This brings us to:

Part Two: Peripeteia

This reversal of fortunes is called peripeteia. It is the moment where the entire plot shifts, and the hero’s fortunes go from good to bad. Think of it like one of those magic eye puzzles, where you stare at the image until a 3D shark appears, except you realise the shark was always there, you just couldn't ever see it, waiting for you, hungry, deadly, always lurking just behind that delightful pattern of random blue squiggles. 

Each tragic hero has their own moment of peripeteia in SVSSS, sometimes several:

Shen Qingqiu

In the original PIDW, SQQ’s peripeteia presumably occurs when he finds out that Bingge didn’t perish in the Abyss but has actually been training hard to come and pay him back. There’s really not much I’m interested in saying here - as a villain, OG!SQQ is cut and dry, and the audience doesn’t really feel any pity or fear for him. As Shen Yuan often mentions, what the audience feels when they see OG!SQQ is bloodlust and sick satisfaction. There is also the trial at Huan Hua Palace, which I will talk about in Shen Yuan’s section. 

Shen Yuan (SQQ 2.0)

One of SY’s most poggers moment of peripeteia is the glorious, terrifying section between hearing Binghe for the first time after the Abyss moment, and getting shoved into the Water Prison. 

“Behind him, a low and soft voice came: “Shizun?”

Shen Qingqiu’s neck felt stiff as he slowly turned his head. Luo Binghe’s face was the most frightening thing he had ever seen.

The scariest thing about it was that the expression on his face was not cold at all. His smile wasn’t sharp like a knife. Rather, it showed a kind of bone-deep gentleness and amiability.”

This is the moment of true horror for Shen Yuan, because he knows what happens next: the plot unfurls before him, inevitable and painful, and he knows that death awaits him at Luo Binghe's hands (lol). Compare it with the bone deep certainty with which he faces his own downfall during the sham of a trial later in the chapter (I’ve bolded the important part):

“In the original work, Qiu Haitang’s appearance signified only one thing: Shen Qingqiu’s complete fall from grace. [...] Shen Qingqiu’s heart streamed with tears. Great Master… I know you’re doing this for my own good, but I’ll actually suffer if she speaks her words clearly. This truly is the saying “not frightened of doing a shameful deed, just afraid the ghost (consequences) will come knocking”!”

After the peripeteia is usually the denouement where the plot wraps up and the threads are all tied together leaving no loose ends, but because this tragedy isn’t Shen Yuan’s but the former Shen Jiu’s, it’s impossible to finish. 

Shen Yuan cannot provide the meaningful answers that the narrative demands because 1) he doesn’t have any memory of doing anything, and 2) he wasn’t the person who did them. Narratively, he cannot follow the same path as the former SQQ because he lacks the same fatal flaw: cruelty. 

This is why Binghe doesn’t kill him - because he loves him, rather than despises him. And this is why Shen Yuan has to sacrifice himself and die for Luo Binghe in order to save him from Xin Mo: because the narrative demands that denouement follows peripeteia, and SQQ’s fate is in the hands of the narrative. 

(Side note: I believe that this literal death also represents the death of OG!SQQ's tragic arc. The body that committed all those crimes must die to satisfy the narrative. SQQ must die, like burning down a forest, so that new growth can sprout from the ashes. After this, Shen Yuan's story has more room to develop instead.)

It must happen to show Bingmei that SQQ loves him too. And this brings us to Bingmei.

Bingmei

Bingmei has two succinct moments of utter downfall. The first is a literal fall - his flaw, his demonic heritage, leads his beloved shizun to throw him down into the Abyss. From his point of view, SQQ is punishing him simply for the status of his birth. He rapidly goes from being loved and cherished unconditionally, to being the victim of an assassination attempt. 

He realises that he is totally unlovable: that for the crimes of his species that he never had a hand in, he must pay the price as well: that his shizun is so righteous that no matter what love there was between them, if SQQ sees a demon, he will kill it. Even if that demon is Bingmei. 

The second moment is when SQQ dies for him. Again, from his point of view, he was chasing after a man who was struggling to see him as a human being. Shen Qingqiu’s death makes Bingmei realise that he has been completely misunderstanding his shizun: that SQQ would literally die for him, the ultimate act of self sacrifice from love: that SQQ loved him despite his demon heritage. 

Much like King Lear holding the corpse of his daughter and wailing in sheer grief and pain because he did this, he caused this, Bingmei gets to hold his shizun's cold body and cry his eyes out and know that it was his fault. (Kind of.)

(Yes, I’m bringing Shakespeare into this, no I am not justifying myself)

Maybe I'm a bit sadistic, but that scene slaps. Let me show you a comparison of scenes so you get the picture. 

Re-enter KING LEAR, with CORDELIA dead in his arms; EDGAR, Captain, and others following

KING LEAR

Howl, howl, howl, howl! O, you are men of stones:

Had I your tongues and eyes, I'ld use them so

That heaven's vault should crack. She's gone for ever!

I know when one is dead, and when one lives;

She's dead as earth. Lend me a looking-glass;

If that her breath will mist or stain the stone,

Why, then she lives.

[...]

 KING LEAR

And my poor fool is hang'd! No, no, no life!

Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life,

And thou no breath at all? Thou'lt come no more,

Never, never, never, never, never!

Pray you, undo this button: thank you, sir.

Do you see this? Look on her, look, her lips,

Look there, look there!

Dies

Versus this scene in SVSSS: 

Luo Binghe turned a deaf ear to everything else, greatly agitated and at a loss of what to do. He was still holding Shen Qingqiu’s body, which was rapidly cooling down. It seemed like he wanted to call for him loudly and forcefully shake him awake, yet he didn’t dare to, as if he was afraid of being scolded. He said slowly, “Shizun?”

[...]

Luo Binghe involuntarily held Shen Qingqiu closer.

He said in a small voice, “I was wrong, Shizun, I really… know that I was wrong.

“I… I didn’t want to kill you…”

PAIN. SO MUCH BEAUTIFUL PAIN. Yes, I know Shakespeare isn’t Athenian, but he was inspired by the good old stuff and he also knew how to write a perfect tragedy on his own terms. Anyway. I’ll find more Greek examples later.

This post was a bit all over the place, but I hope it has been fun to read. Part Two will be coming At Some Point, Who Knows When. This is a bit messy and unedited, but hey, I’m not getting paid or graded, so you can eat any typos or errors. Unless you’re here to talk to me about Chinese tragedy, in which case, please pull up a seat, let me get you a drink, make yourself at home.

ps: if you want to retweet this, here is the promo tweet!

[captainsupernoodle]

Fic Recs!

Metagaming by esama - WIP, SVSSS, 30k, M

[Self-Saving System Activated! You will be now returned to your original starting position.]

Shen Qingqiu dies and gets a second chance and decides to try a different approach.

some perfectly crafted and in-character alternative character dynamics with sqq actually dealing with some of the shit he goes through! latest chapter is binghe pov and the way esama tracks the ripple effect from just one person's change in behavior is super fun to read.

The Bird Under the Water by vibishan - oneshot, MDZS, 914 words, NR

He knows Jin Guangyao thinks he keeps Chenqing in the vault.

Jiang Cheng has kept Wei Wuxian’s awful relative-murdering flute on his person for ten years, and if the lingering air of resentment is having detrimental effects on his personality, it’s not like anyone would be able to tell.

No, the relic of Wei Wuxian in the deepest Jiang vault is far more precious, and far more vile.

A daemon AU that's so short and yet it rips out so much of my heart. I love daemon AUs of all kinds but i think this is one of the few where the daemons aren't just a fun addition, they're integral parts of plot and character dynamics that add depth and complexity to an already fraught relationship. This is part of a series of MDZS daemon fics and there's a sequel in the same continuity, but I'm not sure if they all will be.

the bite that binds the gift that gives by sixthmoon - series, SVSSS, 9k total, T & E installments

PIDW AU, where OG Shang Qinghua decides the best way to avoid his impending death is to force Mobei-jun to marry him...or die.

Joke's on him, OG Mobei-jun is into that shit.

Speaking of amazing character dynamics, sixthmoon has a few OG SQH fics that boil my brain in a wonderful way. it's surprisingly sweet for the amount of viciousness OG SQH is packing in that devious brain. It's an ongoing series but each oneshot is wonderful on its own. The latest installment has a confrontation with OG Luo Binghe (Bingge?) that's just *chef's kiss* for the sheer amount of interpersonal dysfunction.

pride is not the word I'm looking for by Tossawary - completed longfic (400K DUDE IT'S LONG), SVSSS, M

Shang Qinghua goes to take a self-indulgent peek at his baby protagonist son and gets a kick to the shrivelled heart for his troubles. He gave up on changing the story years ago! Yet he finds himself helping his protagonist son's adoptive mother anyway. Just this one change won't matter too much, right?

One little change leads to more. Shang Qinghua never meant to care, but he becomes invested in making sure that his new family survives the looming plot. With the changes to the world cascading around him, with his position as a traitor pulling him between his sect and a certain ice demon, and with the protagonist growing up so quickly, how is one displaced author meant to ensure that everything turns out all right?

I would have to break this fic into chunks to actually comment on a fraction of what I love about it, but a few of my top favorite things:

Absolutely delicious character development of the type you only get in longfic. There are time skips, but given this starts pre-canon and runs up to just after the Immortal Alliance Conference, we get a look at a SQH who actually feels like he's growing into his years. There's an age to him that's refreshing amongst the "eternally 20" vibes in a lot of fic. There are seasons of family dynamics and odd friendships that grow across years, really allowing time to dig into difficult characters and let them develop in a natural time frame.

Incredible description absolutely peaking in combat and a series of dungeons where poor SQH has to go fetch miracle cures and things. There's a chapter that introduces multiple powerful demons and the DESCRIPTIONS. IT WAS CINEMATIC. i could picture it SO CLEARLY and it gave me CHILLS before they even did anything. The dungeons are described in such luscious detail that it feels like stepping into some really cool videogame locations. If I could do art i would do an art series for these dungeons and then plaster them all over my walls.

It's cute. like that doesn't sound like a big thing but SQH building (or being built into lol) a family that keeps growing and loving is the glue that holds all the intrigue and drama together. The amount of found family warm fuzzies (sometimes with some gentle angst to make it even better) cannot be overstated. People like each other and encourage people to be the best versions of themselves here.

I know it's intimidatingly long, but at the end of every arc (ranges from about 60k at the beginning to 100k at the end) Tossawary wraps up the most immediate plot points and makes a note that it's a good place to stop and rest. They also warn for cliffhangers, so if you want to treat this like a series it's easy to break up the reading experience.

[baoshan-sanren]

Hi, I just finished SV and I Loved it! I have a question though that irks me and I'd love to hear you opinion on it. It's said in the novel that LBH knew no kindness except from his mother and then NYY & SY!SQQ. It seems to me a little like he fell in love with SY's kindness and not really with his personality. He didn't fall in love with NYY's kindness so it could also be an authority thing. My q is, do you think LBH would fall in love w any other Shizun who showed him the slightest kindness?

Okay bear with my nonsense here for a minute because, aside from making fun of everyone and everything, SVSSS is a pretty good study of what happens when reader expectations meet real situations and real flesh and blood people, and just how unrealistic most of them turn out to be. We see PIDW and LBH in SVSSS via mirror of only SY’s perception and his preconceived notions, but we’re also bound to only see SVSSS and SY via mirror of our own perception and with our own preconceived notions (and boy, do a lot of people miss that about SVSSS completely even though SY the judgmental reader and all his baggage are right there). How many chapters does it take for SY to admit that he hasn’t been really viewing LBH as his own person, but a fictional character he had only gotten to know through airplane’s bad writing? I remember how fucking frustrated I kept getting the first time I read SVSSS because SY kept that picture of LBH (the one we never met bc we never read 300+ chapters of airplane’s novel like SY did) firm in his mind despite all evidence that they were not the same person. Who is it that said “compared to the dullest human being actually walking about on the face of the earth and casting his shadow there, the most brilliantly drawn character in a novel is but a bag of bones?" SY’s whole issue with PIDW is that the novel sucked. That most of the characters were one-dimensional and unrealistic, and that even his own scum-villain character had no story/background that would justify his attitude or behavior towards LBH. We only get to see SJ as a person with a history, and grievances, and a boatload of unaddressed trauma because SY digs up and improves all those storylines that airplane had left out. But even knowing that, SY still keeps seeing LBH through the lens of his own preconceived notions, and keeps assigning him motivations that LBH clearly doesn’t have. So I guess my thing is, if it took SY nearly a decade of flesh and blood contact with LBH to figure out that all of his expectations were wrong and inaccurate, can we (the readers of SVSSS) ever view LBH accurately? 

Anyway, not to write an essay (too late) but I guess if I were to speculate on the subject via my own subjective interpretations, I would say that airplane wrote a pretty shitty stallion novel for $$ during which LBH fell for NYY for her “kindness” but right off the bat in SVSSS, we see that NYY does very little except managing to make LBH’s life harder. Still, despite being a character that solely consists of bouncy breasts and questionable life choices in PIDW, she does seem to harbor genuine affection for LBH, and PIDW LBH, who has not gotten affection since his adoptive mother passed, is likely to have latched on to any affection, no matter how destructive it turns out to be, for some self-preservation of his self-esteem and self-worth. Obviously not the healthiest way to obtain either, but hardly unexpected (and we see him doing the same thing with literally every female character in PIDW - Freud would have a field day with just a quarter of this novel). Again, we only know PIDW LBH through SY’s perception, and SY is clearly not the most objective witness, but I find it hard to believe that PIDW LBH ever truly loved any one of the 300+ women in his harem. There is no indication (in what we get from airplane’s writing) that he trusts any of them, and it even seems as if all the harem infighting served as a means to keep them from focusing too hard on LBH as anything other than a prize to be obtained. I mean clearly, PIDW was not meant to be that deep, and we don’t get to read it, so there’s no use speculating much. (I’m sure you noticed my theories are all psychology/trauma centric, which is my bread and butter, and subjective as fuck, so there’s half my point made).

As to whether I think LBH would fall in love with a different shizun who showed him kindness? If kindness is the only factor, I don’t think it’s likely. After all, the 300+ women in his harem in PIDW have all probably showed him some kindness at one time or another. In that respect, SY is certainly not special. There are theories about LBH not actually being sexually attracted to women in PIDW at all, extrapolating on the idea that a more supportive and loving environment during his development years has allowed him to grow up without repressing many things he has clearly repressed in PIDW, his sexuality included. That theory, I suppose, could support the idea that LBH could have just as easily fallen in love with a different man in his immediate vicinity who showed him kindness?

Idk how much I buy into any that; like I said, PIDW was never meant to be that deep, and SVSSS is just full of loose threads I love to yank on (always aware I’ll never see where they lead without an access to MXTX’s brain). I think we’re meant to view PIDW for what it is - a poorly written story for $$ with cardboard cutout characters that, once permeated with “real flesh and blood humans,” turns out to be nothing like the story that the reader (SY) expected to find. And since there’s the same degree of separation between PIDW and SVSSS, as there is between SVSSS and us (the readers), speculating on who LBH might attach himself to if SY was someone else, and how his story might go under any other circumstances, is bound to be as accurate as SY’s predictions concerning PIDW LBH, which turned out to be (as we clearly find out in SVSSS), inaccurate as fuck :)

[writing-frenzy]

Seer!Airplane + Harem AU

Brain: Let’s give SQH a Harem :D

Me: SQH doesn’t know what to do with himself, he wouldn’t know what the fick to do with a harem :|

Brain: :D of course, the man doesn’t realize he even has one.

Me:... wut

Brain: And here is the totally new AU drabbled and noted out for how it happens~

....

So, my brain gave me this, so I hope to infect others with it as well.

Ever since Airplane (Shang Huan), was young, he’s always had strange dreams and an interesting ability with words and languages. Not to mention just how he always seemed to know certain things, simple really, like how he knew to bring an umbrella one sunny day that wouldn’t remain that way, to even what paths to take to avoid the bullies in his life. He’s grown this way, never noticed it was strange or unusual, and with parents more focused on tearing each other apart and ignoring any memories of when they were together, Airplane figures it’s just like the rest of his anxieties and worries, though at least the knowing can get him out of being beaten up or a perfect sale at the supermarket.

(The nightmares aren’t worth it; nameless amounts of people, that if he looks too hard at, he can know their entire backstories and futures no longer possible, cut short for blood and sport and greed.)

It is only one day, with desperation and hunger biting in his being, dreams stolen and ruined by others (And how was it, did he know this was still the best outcome? What could be worse- no, don’t ask that, it could always lead to ruin that question-) that Airplane, with only his little talent for script writing and his nightmares to aid him, starts to write, hoping for just enough money to get dinner eventually.

It... proves surprisingly popular. Just write what he dreams, maybe embellish here and there, take out that part, work around here, and just ignore that certain event and hey, this story is surprisingly coming together well. Are there a few plot holes? Sure, but considering the literal mass grave of answers for those holes, Airplane is content to leave them like that (pleasedon’tmakehimwritethatseeingitwasalreadyhorrifyinghedoesnotwanttoreliveit).  

Things are going good; all his hospital bills that his father’s insurance doesn’t cover have been paid, his rent money has already been turned in, and hey, he even has some extra cup noodles. How can life get any better? (thedreamscouldstop-)

And then the world turns strange; weird creatures have started to be discovered, strange flora has been unearthed, and natural disasters seem to not be so natural as once thought.

Not to mention just how people have changed as well; or if they were ever regular people at all. Some seem to turn feral, no mind to think with as they act like zombies all of a sudden, supernatural feats of strength suddenly coming about...

Strangers suddenly flying about on swords, letting loose great shows of light...

Airplane ignores it; it’s all he can do. (Thereisnothingtobedonebutwait.) He codes for his story, makes some noodles to enjoy as he reads some comments, and naturally dies. (right on time)

Airplane is admittedly taken off guard when he actually wakes up, back in his crappy little apartment, terrible bruising all up his arms (therearesomanypathssolittletime), when he looks around and sees the change in the world.

And he knows; his stories are no longer mere words and nightmares anymore, but now combined with his waking world, now and forever.

- Read under for more notes and such on this world~

So, basically, Airplane/Shang Huan has been dreaming of the world where his stories takes place, the PIDW world, and using it to make money because he is a desperate little gremlin. (Now, with his powers, he can see multiple paths, and all, but he doesn’t see everything, especially if he himself changes fate, making the paths shrink and become a little more hazy.) 

So one day, his world and PIDW world merge, causing countless calamities and disasters, even as the world heals and blossoms under it all. See, what happens is that when Bing-ge’s Harem finally turned on him and all (I don’t know if this is canon or fanon but it fits), Bing-ge in turn used the Wrath of the Heavens, which is not something even the craziest of Heavenly Demons would do if that says anything, which wreck a whole bunch of shit and mashed a few planes of existence together.

A lot of people died because of this... and yet, a lot of peeps were brought back because of this as well. Airplane did in fact die because of being electrocuted, but because of that, the energy left from the WOH merged with it, ending up kickstarting and powering him up instead of killing him outright.

And it is a very good thing SQH got that power up; he is going to have so many nightmares about it, but being able to manipulate, control, and use electricity and lightening are what ensure him survival for a good month before his city is made livable again. (He would do worse to survive, has done worse, what is a little electrical trauma in the name of his life?)

And look, even his intuition and foresight seemed to have greatly improved! Yay? (Nay so many n i g h t m a r e s)

He’ll be fine, he can walk it off. But as it is, Airplane starts to be rather... lucky with some of his finds.

-

Ironically, it starts with a man dressed in pale blues, eye tired and ever so dead, blood covering his fancy fantasy robes, a familiar crest/symbol (To Airplane) stitched over where the heart would be. A Traitor abused and used up, nothing left but rock bottom and yet still willing to dig if it meant living. (Oh, how that rings familar~)

Airplane has seen the past of Shang Family’ Honorable Third Son Shang Shaoqing and the future of the backstabing An Ding Peak Lord Shang Qinghua. Airplane knows that this is a desperate man who has done all he could to survive, with the mind like so many steel traps and mazes to dig around in...

Airplane saves them, avoiding a slow death the man would have had, earning him gratitude and suspicion all at once. The Writer doesn’t care, he just knows that having this guy on his side is just a logical choice; the man not only has more insider knowledge then anyone else in the world, but even knows how to use it.

On Shang Qinghua’s side.

With all the karmatic debt I have, I can not avoid this Life Debt... but once I pay my debt, I am gonna blow this popsicle stand.

Huh, this guy is actually kinda useful, maybe I should stick around

OH FUCK WHY DOES HE HAVE HEAVENLY TRIBULATION LIGHTNING?! HE NEEDS TO START CULTIVATING STAT

WHY IS THIS MAN SUCH A DISASTER?!?! NOW I HAVE TO TAKE CARE OF HIM AND MAKE SURE HE DOESN’T GET HURT.

*Airplane tenderly taking care of his injuries, nervous smile on his face even as it is so soft* “You didn’t have to take that attack but... thank you for having my back” SdndejnejdbbhjD no, you have no right looking so cute, fuck why is this happening?! 

.... This man is a fucking Seer... Actual, full blown, Doomsayer Seer, Not the Succubus Soothsayers who can just see little things, no, actual, can literally effect the fabric of Fate and Destiny Seer.... Fuck his life, he probably owes this guy even more now...

*Shang Qinghua snarks in response, only to get equally snarked in reply* .... I won’t say I’m in love...

Fuck, if anything happens to his disaster of a Seer he will go on a massacre and then probably become a demonic cultivator to revive him...

 So yeah, over the course of maybe a few months, Shang Qinghua has regretsTM and Airplane gets an actually loyal bodyguard... Meanwhile~

Airplane: -Sigh- As nice as it is to have Shang Qinghua around, it won’t last forever; once the man pays back his debt, he just leave (like everyone else).

And then time for drama! The two get separated by unsteady space rips, Airplane having enough time to yell out a safe place for them to meet again before they end up on opposite sides to each other. So now, not only does Airplane have to work on surviving, but on the (hopeful) reunion between the two.

Cue Airplane’s next ‘Lucky Find’

- 

Airplane hears the sound of sword and spell before he ever actually sees anything. Looking over the top of his nice ledge, safe enough from from any ‘friendly fire’, the young man feels his eyes widen when he sees who is fighting.

A beautiful, tall man in cream and tan colored robes, the ashen brunet directing their sword around them, using their other hand to throw out talismans when too crowded. And oh, how the mob surrounds this tired, too kind man, so weary for lost, all his grief stricken love no where to go in the lost of his family. (Oh, how jealous one can be, that someone got that love, no matter how fleeting it was in the end)

Airplane taking in Mu Qingfang, a healer forced to be a killer, a man with so much heartbreak in his soul, even as he determinedly live on, that shattered heart still wanting to help as much as it could. The Seer takes on how the other will die here, nothing left at all of such a heart, and in the end, Airplane helps, letting loose lightning upon the mob as he does.

Just makes sense, to have a Healer with you if you can.

On Mu Qingfang’s side:

This man is terrifying, how does he have tribulation lightning at his command??? but he did save me there, it’s only right I accompany him until I can pay it off (not like I have other things to do)

I am very, very grateful you saved me, but can you for all that is health PLEASE REST?!

Oh to the gods, how is a disaster like you alive? No, don’t eat that!

*Airplane, a tired smile on his face as he shows off some potent healing herbs he found* “I managed to find them, a little tricky but I was wondering if you can make use of them, maybe? I remember you saying you were running low and all.” .... damn his heart for being weak to sincere care and actually thoughtful gifts.

*after a terrifying nightmare, Airplane nearly bleeding from his screams, eyes so haunted and terrified even as he clings onto Mu Qingfang* “Please, I-I I just don’t want to be alone right now... please.” bjhbdjd shit, how can he say no, letting the other cling to them as they finally fall asleep. (Do not think about how cute the other is, cuddled up against him)

...A Seer... a fully realized, Fate altering, Destiny denying Seer... Gods, that explains so damn much... Maybe he can make him a Dreamless Night tea? would at least help with headaches if nothing else.

And so, over the time they have together, Airplane has unknowingly received the care and affection of one powerful as heck healer, who can and will be willing to cut a bitch if it means they have to.

But on Airplane: *le sigh* ah, once they feel like I’m well enough, they’re probably go back to trying to find their Martial Brothers and Sisters.... I’ll at least help them as much as I can...

Now, they don’t get separated: which is good, considering this next er... ‘Lucky’ Find.

-

They feel the temperature drop before they ever actually see the cause. Warily, the two men look to each other, but with no other way around it, move forward through the incredibly icy landscape.

It does not take them long to find the cause of it.

It is a Demon, Skin pale with a ghostly blue tint to their skin, beautiful snow white antlers branching out from their hand, ice collecting on the ends to make them even more deadly beautiful then before. And yet, for all that deadly beauty, are those ice like eyes, backdropped in the night sky look ever so tired, so betrayed (like always)

Mo Bolin, formerly Mobei-Jun is not one who has nothing left, but his willpower is draining, trapped as he is between the cursed artifact before him, no hope to escape it unless someone is willing to help.

Airplane sees this demon, this man who he greatly admired and aspired to be like, able to stand on their own and keep standing no matter what, no matter what the world came at them with, no matter the misery that had twisted a previously loving and warm child into the hardened, determined Warrior before him.

Letting his Lightning destroy the Artifact, the world weary youth takes the demon’s face in his hands, letting those icy night eyes look into his lightning bright ones, Mu Qingfang quiet but his sword at the ready behind him.

It will not be needed, as his Seer powers go to work.

“You find so much betrayal, just seemingly never able to escape it.

You soul has had so much darkness and hurt just let sit.

You Fate is said to be a cruel one for a cruel being,

Hurt, fear, blood, Ice, and broken bonds and dreams are all I am seeing,

I do Not agree.

So, From this wicked Fate I will set you free.” and as those eyes stare into each other, Mo Bolin can’t stop how he gasps, hand going to his heart, feeling lighter then he has in years.

Meanwhile, Airplane faints, having healed a better Fate for the former Mobei-Jun draining him good.

On Mobei-Jun’s Part

 sdhkhbfwkkjdejdehjdehj Why? Just Why? What’s the reason the Seer did that?

Well, considering what he did, Mobei/Mo Bolin will have to find a way to pay the other back.

...Why is this Seer so Cute? He wants to pet it. (note: hitting will make the Healer stab him)

*Airplane, tired out from a long day having to fight through a bit battle, smiling in thanks, help Mu Qingfang with patching everyone up* “You know, I really admire you; your strength and determination to always do your best, no matter how many people try to tear you down... I wish I could be like that.” wait what, no, you’re perfect like you are, you little gremlin seer. (Mu Qingfang agrees.)

*Airplane, suffering from a Fever, which means he has to cuddle with a certain Ice Demon to cool down* “Ah, sorry for troubling you like this, my ideal man, but you are so cool... *snuggles* .... Damnit.

Like, Mobei-Jun/Mo Bolin knows Airplane can kick some ass already, but by the ancestors does he love seeing this little disaster of a man just wreck everyone around him.

So yeah, add one very smitten Demon Lord to the roster~ :D Oh, the loyalty was hard earned, and there is no way Mobei-Jun will be willing to part, even as he has to share with a Healer and whoever this Shang-Er they will be seeing soon.

For Airplane: ah, so cool to see my Ideal Man, but of course there is no way he’ll stay by my side forever, what with all the things he probably needs to do.

 and this is all I got for the Harem on my side: now for the dynamics with each other:

Mobei-Jun and Mu Qingfang:  the demon respects the healer greatly, and since they are both quiet peeps they don’t have much conflict. as for the Healer, after his sect got destroyed, he’s had to do a lot of things to make sure him and his surviving disciples lived, so he’s not too against demons, and Mobei-Jun is very useful in fighting, so for now they cool.

Both when they see Shang Qinghua; ... D:<

On Mobei-Jun’s side: his little traitorous spy just had to be back and be that Shang-Er close to Airplane. He does not like this, wants to smack the other around, but that would upset Airplane So he just glares. Shang Qinghua is not happy with this arrangement either, fully prepared to curse the other out and everything, but not going to stir the pot up more then he has to.

On Mu Qingfang: .... his backstabing martial brother is alive, but the thing is that Mu Qingfang and his disciples wouldn’t have lived if it wasn’t for the other; Shang Qinghua had saved them, transporting them away from the bloodshed that was about to happen. On Shang Qinghua’s part, the Healer was the only Peak Lord to give him any damn respect and care, so he of course gave him an out along with his own peak disciples; he pays back debts. 

(This is ironically the reason he got killed by Mobei-Jun, because he saved those disciples)

So, there is much drama for a while, the three having big shouting matches and discourse, but these guys will turn into Enemies to Frenemies to Salt Lords and then to the Airplane Protection squad... because when these three get together and agree on something, well, you just combined the only competent people from PIDW together~ 

And they all love Airplane :D

Thank you all for reading the insanity of this, I enjoyed writing it out~

[phoenixtakaramono]

Does Bing gē Have Descendants in ‘The Untold Tale?’

This topic has come up a few times since The Untold Tale takes place in the PIDW universe (post-Bingge vs Bingmei extra), I figured I might as well compile and archive my official answer here for me to refer my AO3 readers to in the future for convenience’s sake. I hope everyone doesn’t mind. :) I’m always happy to answer questions!

TL;DR

Q: Will we see Bing gē having fathered children with his harem of 600 or so wives in TUT?

A: For TUT, the answer is a definite “no.” There were a lot of factors which’d contributed to my decision. I’ll try to explain my reasoning down below.

Context

In PIDW, it is canon that Luo Binghe has a bountiful number of descendants with his harem of 600-or-so wives. It is a detail that has been mentioned even in ch1 of SVSSS and in ep1 of the donghua.

(SVSSS Excerpt - ch1)

(SVSSS donghua - ep1)

I like to plan things ahead of time. So from very early on, I knew this would be something I would have to decide on whether or not to address when I’d finally decided to expand TUT from just a prologue into a full-blown story. And after contemplating it, I decided against adding children into the story. It is because 1) it would make the situation more complicated, and 2) it would take TUT in a different direction that wouldn’t be fun for me to write.

I’m a very decisive writer, meaning when I make my mind up about something, chances are I won’t change my mind. This is because I would have already planned it into my plot outline, which means changing a decision would require me to change other details in the other chapters I have planned for that story. (I’m typically not a spontaneous writer; I try not to write spontaneously because when you’re a writer who rotates through multiple WIPs with different characters across different genres or writing styles, you inevitably have writer’s block because you probably won’t remember all the ideas or the direction you had whenever you return back to a different WIP. To reduce this shortcoming, it helps me personally to have a plot outline. This way I can return to any WIP, read my notes and then transcribe them into legible paragraphs, find a way to transition between the story beats I have to hit for that chapter, and then eventually post the final draft to AO3 when I feel it’s ready.)

Having made a decision, I knew I had to set it up in TUT and give a “reasonable explanation in-story.” Hence, in ch2, we see:

(Excerpt I - ch2)

Basically the set-up is TUT takes place post-Bingge vs Bingmei, but between “the third or fourth book” of the hypothetical PIDW webnovel series aka before Airplane wrote the fanservicey chapters where the luckier of LBH’s wives give birth to children during the harem drama plots and the children are probably rarely, if ever, mentioned again in the story as a lot of stallion novels tend to do.

(Excerpt II - ch2)

(Excerpt III - ch2)

Contrarian Tendencies

You know the saying: Monkey see, monkey do? In my case, it’s monkey see, monkey do not do.

A little fun fact about me as a writer: if I have already seen a fanfic where someone has already written a concept or idea into their story, chances are I will just avoid it entirely in my own stories. I don’t know why this aversion exists, but I’m assuming it’s because of my counterculture hipster inclinations and an intrinsic fear of plagiarism which has been beaten into all of our skulls since adolescence. There’s nothing wrong with being inspired by other people’s works. Technically everything’s been done before in writing so, as a writer, a good rule of thumb is to always try to give it your own unique spin on things. So for me, my brain somehow interpreted this a step further. This is a reason why I try to avoid reading stories from whichever fandom my WIP is from during the writing process of updating a fic, because this is how I get influenced. Once I see an idea or interpretation from another fanfiction, it influences me to not want to write it into my own. This is a very strong unconscious impulse for me. I guess this is just the neurons in my brain’s thinking that this way, it won’t be something my readers will have read before and the story idea will come across as different or fresh, and mine. In a way this is also how I show respect for fanfiction writers in the same fandom—by being inspired to not be inspired, ha. I like to think every story in the world serves a niche audience, so seeing a diverse range of originality and interpretations in a fandom is a good thing. This is also how I feel when I am able to identify certain popular tropes or depictions or patterns in a fandom; 99% of the time, it makes me feel a compulsion to “go against the grain” or write the opposite. For example, you have no idea how long it took me to come around the idea of incorporating the fanon “A-Yuan” into TUT. However cute it is, the moment it dominated the fandom (well, “dominated” is an exaggeration; it’s more like I’ve seen enough, especially in the Original LBH/ SY | SQQ tag), my gut reaction was to nope out of using it. But after seeing a lot of comments in my inbox with readers affectionately calling SY “A-Yuan,” I’d contemplated it for a long time and it wasn’t until ch4 that I decisively decided that yes, I can have Bing gē calling SY “A-Yuan” in TUT—but it has to be at the right moment for maximum dramatic and emotional impact. (See this thread that started it all. And this is the small sneak peek I wrote where LBH will call SY that for the first time.) <- This is the rare 1% where I actually conformed to what’s popular.

In this case, when I finally decided to expand the prologue into a full-blown story, coincidentally I had just recently read a good Binggeyuan (Bingyuan) fanfic which featured a kidnapped Shen Yuan interacting with Bing gē’s harem and LBH’s children/descendants. I’d liked their portrayal and even thought the children were cute. <- However, with me having reading this, the problem came up: I felt the familiar stubbornness in me rearing its head. So knowing myself, if I had included children, it is very likely the direction that I would have gone down for TUT would have been the opposite. To further complicate matters, you have to keep in mind the kind of writer I am. I tend to like grounding stories with a semblance of realism, no matter if the genre is pseudohistorical fantasy, romance, sci-fi, etc. And this writer has seen and read quite a few harem and palace intrigue Chinese dramas/ premises.

For further context, in those types of “historical” C-dramas^, in that sort of environment which fosters scheming, competition, jealousy, etc, it is almost expected to see heirs aka children aka descendants harmed along with the women. Innocent parties are often victims in these sorts of cutthroat premises, to underscore the underlying message the show or novel wishes to present. (See Ruyi’s Royal Love in the Palace. See Yanxi Palace. See The Legend of Haolan. See Nirvana in Fire. See The Rebirth of the Malicious Empress of Military Lineage. Etc.) And me being me, this would be the direction I would take. Remember, while TUT is meant to emulate a legitimate danmei C-novel reading experience in a fantasy world, I do drop pseudohistorical and cultural Easter eggs into the story. So trust me when I say you would not like the direction TUT would have gone down in, had I made LBH have children with his harem. I mean, theoretically yes, we could’ve seen endearing children characters from me, but you would have also seen me addressing a lot of the baggage that comes with (see Comment III Excerpt down below).

The situation with dissolving Bing gē’s harem is already complicated enough. As his romance with Shen Yuan develops, I didn’t want to have an additional headache thinking about how to address the issue of LBH having children already. Divorces in a pseudohistorical context is already a heavy topic—even more so when it’s divorces with children in the mix. Naturally I will still have SY and LBH eventually discuss the matter of legitimate heirs since LBH will essentially become the Sacred Ruler of all Three Realms and it’s a traditional precedent for an emperor to bed his empress, noble consort, and imperial concubines until he has his heirs (plural, because the rate of mortality was high in ancient China). In TUT’s case, at that point in the story SY will remind LBH that he’s essentially an immortal sovereign so there isn’t any need for an heir unless he wishes to retire. Furthermore, he will inform LBH that he could set a new precedent since he’s already different from the other emperors from history (with him being of half-Heavenly Demon and half-human cultivator lineage); as long as LBH is fully aware of all perspectives of the situation, he doesn’t necessarily need to conform to all traditions if this is something he really feels strongly about. But this future conversation(s) is likely the extent of it.

But wait, you say, what about a certain someone who’s going to be transmigrated as an imperial crown prince? Isn’t he going to be in that sort of vicious upbringing? <- Yes. But that’s an entirely seperate matter. In a way, since I’ve decided Bing gē will not have had any children or descendants in TUT, with Airplane, this now presents an opportunity for me to show the consequences of being one of the many children of an emperor with a harem of women vying for one man’s attention—and the power struggle that’d ensue in this kind of environment. It’s an interesting What-If parallel, if you think about it.

AO3 Comments

Although these are just small excerpts from replies I’ve written before, it’s nice and orderly to just compile them here for everyone since these will be buried underneath all the comments as TUT updates:

(Comment I- ch3)

(Comment II- ch4)

(Comment III- ch4)

Because of seeing comments that have asked me for my thoughts on whether or not I will include LBH’s children, I’ve had so much fun seeing theories thrown around: from LBH’s blood parasites being able to control conception, to someone’s headcanon about LBH being a hybrid and all that entails scientifically (think: mules). I will say in TUT, it’s more the former since in PIDW he’s supposed to have descendants; we’re pretending Bing gē doesn’t have any yet (and now definitely won’t, especially after having heard SY’s “prophecy”) because he subconsciously does not want children due to certain fears, trauma, etc. And his Heavenly Demon’s “blood parasites” (blood manipulation) is a convenient story device to explain why no wife has gotten pregnant yet.

I hope this explanation makes sense! Mainly I just wanted to have this archived on tumblr so that I have this post to refer to moving forward.

On a side note: especially since ch4 had been posted, quite a few people have actually mentioned they’ve read my replies to other comments and/or I have seen different people having hopped onto other readers’ comment threads (for example, imagine my pleasant surprise when I saw a reader you lovely person, you helpfully jumping in to respond to another reader’s questions about TUT, and their answers were actually aligned with what I would’ve answered!), so it’s always such a thrill whenever I see this level of engagement happening. I can’t explain why, but seeing this happening is just so cute to me. It really makes this writer feel so warm and fuzzy inside!

[eldritch-elrics]

svsss: the (not so) grand return of peerless cucumber

so a LOT happened in the chapters i read last night (44-49) and i have. SO many thoughts

not as many as i had right after i read but i really had to go to bed so i couldn’t write them all up.....

i put some reactions in individual posts but i’ll repeat them here!

first of all. shang qinghua. fucked off to the demon realm. like, good for him? but also. i want to see my boy

binghe keeping sqq’s body??? xue yang vibes OFF the charts

so I’M IN LOVE WITH THE MUSHROOM PLOT

i love how every so often sv will hit me with a twist that is SO up my alley that i just. lose it a little bit

HE MADE HIMSELF A CLONE BODY OUT OF MAGICAL MUSHROOMS AND TRANSPORTED HIS SOUL INTO IT.

i love mushroom shit and i love bodyswapping and. my god.

the fact that sqq has died twice and been forced to inhabit 3 different bodies??? wei wuxian wishes he were this cool

sidenote but the mental image of sqq doing radio calisthenics in the forest is really funny. or maybe it’s just funny to me because of the associations i have with this one time in japanese class?

sqq’s new body looking like a cross between shen yuan and shen qingqiu is really interesting and perhaps... symbolic....?

also hey does this mean he doesn’t have to deal with the cureless poison anymore. i assumed that it would be cured in his eventual sexytimes with binghe but hmmm i guess not!

the point where i really lost it was when he realized he was disconnected from the system. i know now that it wasn’t permanent but that was just so interesting, how much he hates it and wants it gone. which makes sense! even though it has helped him get out of bad spots at times, it’s a sign that he’s not really from this world. now i’m just really curious what’s gonna happen to the system at the end of the novel. maybe it’ll shut off once he achieves the “goal” it’s seemed to have set for him and gets together with lbh?

also i’m glad that sqq seems to have matured a little bit in terms of his people skills / problem solving skills? though uh. remains to be seen how he’ll act in front of binghe when binghe realizes who he is

it also seems like i was completely wrong about sqq’s motivations for sacrificing himself lol. lot more selfish than i thought? but it makes sense! fun twist

mxtx sure likes to have her protagonists execute plots that they don’t tell the reader about until after they happen lol (i’m thinking of the golden core transfer)

uhh back to plot reactions

love the running joke about peerless cucumber. also the demon names... six balls <3

also hold on a minute, peerless cucumber is a dick joke? lmao

thank you airplane for making it clear binghe has a big dick. absolutely vital character information

so i’ve said this before but sqq’s narration really CARRIES this novel. here i’m thinking specifically about his diatribe against sha hualing’s nails

shl is pretty fun. sexy evil lady!

sqq can turn his fan into a blade. nie huaisang get ON that smh

yang yixuan my beloved!

also HAHA i predicted that sqq’s super mushroom powers could help the xin mo thing and i was RIGHT

so sqq is just. SO invested in getting the plot back on track. like with all the harem members and stuff. it’s so funny because like bro. surely you’ve noticed by now that things are going very differently than in pidw. and also... you don’t WANT to go back on the pidw track bc that would kill you!!!

so the system reactivates when binghe turns up right? i am thinking about. the fact that when it tries to reboot it’s like “contacting customer service”

WHO IS CUSTOMER SERVICE.

it’s so interesting because like... obviously the whole system thing is so much bigger than just A Book? it’s even got airplane trapped inside it. and he’s the fucking author! who is running this thing? and for what purpose?

sqq listening in on the gossip about how lbh is DEFINITELY obsessively in love with him was SO funny. poor man

so binghe. he has become so COLD

i don’t like it :(

once more. my dude go to therapy.

wait also random but sqq has a beard now and for some reason that’s so funny to me

life at the palace seems terrible lmao no one is doing ok

smh, mxtx protags keep dying and staying dead for huge amounts of time and then coming back in different bodies

the fact that binghe’s happiest memories are training with sqq :(

THE FACT THAT BINGHE IS ABSOLUTELY SHIT AT KISSING

my god. that entire scene

went from “awwww headpats” to “AAAAAAAA”

the fact that the system congratulates him i’m sjkdhgjhsdhgjsds poor sqq.... didn’t ask for this shit.......

after 50 chapters, he’s finally realized he turned the male lead gay <3 say goodbye to all those funny oblivious moments!

i had to stop there because it was way too late at night but wow. we shall see how this relationship progresses

i can’t see it improving anytime soon but at least sqq knows lbh likes him now???

i had a LOT of thoughts last night but now i’m pretty much just like. i really need to see where it goes before i make any judgements on bingqiu

rn i’m not a big fan because 1. sqq is so wildly uncomfortable (understandable lol, even if lbh thinks it’s just a dream) and 2. lbh is very obsessive and that’s not really my favorite trope. but like it’s obviously not meant to be a healthy relationship, at least definitely not right now, and i do like some good fucked up romance! i’m excited to see the developments where sqq realizes what his real feelings are

i’m also fairly neutral on binghe as a character atm. his main personality traits seem to be “obsessed with sqq” and “trying not to die from evil sword qi poisoning” and i don’t find that all that compelling? between him and lwj i have to say that mxtx’s love interest characters are not really my favorite, though i wouldn’t say i dislike either of them.

furthermore i’m slightly concerned with how lbh’s “i’m the main character and i get what i want” attitude is gonna affect the romance. i know there’s some dubconny stuff later which i can’t say i’m excited for but i am excited to see how binghe’s character is gonna develop in general

my aspirations for bingqiu is that they’re both able to eventually break free of the expectations of the system

because, look at this from sqq’s pov. there’s this ai in your head that has, for literal years, been steering you towards a romance that you (at least outwardly) don’t want. isn’t that fucking terrifying? i love it. the system (at least how i see it) has been bending the established plot of the world in order to make this happen. it’s like fate but you can see the gears turning.

and even if sqq does end up liking lbh back, can you imagine the existential crisis of like. wondering if he really CHOSE to get with binghe or if he was somehow compelled to by the system which acts based on binghe’s emotions?

i think that would be so interesting

however what i think is Actually going to happen (based on that one time when airplane was like “hey cucumber, uh, is lbh just a character to you or is there more...”) is that sqq is gonna realize that he’s had a bit of a crush on binghe since reading pidw and is only just now dealing with his internalized homophobia. so him getting together with binghe has less strings attached

i think there’s some opportunity here for a commentary on the soulmate trope? because svsss is just so steeped in themes about agency and fate. i think that would be really cool but we’ll have to see. i feel like the ending is gonna be simpler and happier than i want it to be but obviously i cannot make any judgements yet! i’m just having Thoughts :)

so, i also read one of the extras (the one where he goes with lqg to battle succubi) because the translation i’m reading recommended it! it was pretty fun

sqq SO clueless. like i get it, he doesn’t think he’s into anything other than Pretty Cis Women, but. sqq we’ll work on this

also ASKING LQG IF HE’S A VIRGIN. sqq literally stop

(that was so funny though)

liu qingge ACE RIGHTS

actually lqg’s outburst in this chapter was kind of bizarre and can be explained in a few different ways i think?

i really like the idea of him being aroace. thinks true love doesn’t exist etc

i feel like the intended implication of lqg’s outburst is that he’s realized madame meiyin is referring to binghe and is like “holy shit no sqq can’t be with Him”

maybe lqg is just homophobic?

but i. also kind of wonder if lqg is gay and in love with sqq? and is just putting up the “such deep love doesn’t exist” thing because he really doesn’t want sqq to know

there was that whole line where the succubus was like “well you’re not his soulmate you don’t know” and it made me think

on the other hand i can’t really see lqg liking sqq that way; they seem to have more of a Bro Bond

then again lqg does keep fighting binghe for sqq’s sake

either headcanon is fun! i’d be excited for more insight into lqg in general i think

[baoshan-sanren]

So thanks to your metas I've finally read SV in like 3 days and now I'm back with a question. Let's say if hypothetically SJ and YQY talked things out and by some miracle SJ wouldn't abuse LBH, do you think that LBH would fall in love with SJ as well given that he'd always thought his Shizun was beautiful, elegant and untouchable. Do you think his feelings would grow into something more with time? I'm living for your takes on blnovels. Thanks in advance

Idk if you can start with SJ not abusing LBH, I think you would have to start with Qiu Jianluo not abusing SJ, or maybe even earlier than that, before he was sold into the Qiu household by human traffickers. To me, there’s no conceivable way where the same SJ who walks away from the carnage at Qiu's Mansion with Wu Yanzi, and later enters the Cang Qiong Mountain, would turn out to be some type of kind and benevolent shizun on par with SY. We don’t get a lot of detailed descriptions of his time with Wu Yanzi, but there is no indication that he enters Cang Qiong Mountain with any intention to give up his festering resentments, regardless of whether YQY can give him a reasonable explanation for never returning or not. 

Look, SJ found himself in the shitty situation in Qiu household because he had been trying to protect YQY. That, on its own, shows he was not yet the heartless villain that the later events would forge him into. But this particular rant of his is also very telling:  

“Of course it’s all your fault! I blame you. We weren’t close with those newcomers, so what if we were stepped on a little? Why did you have to play hero! Are you afraid that people like us with such lowly lives can’t bear it?! If you hadn’t played hero, why would I have helped you? If I hadn’t helped you, how would I have provoked him, and how would that Qiu guy have ended up buying me?! If he hadn’t bought me, how would I have become like this?! Every two days I get beat up a little bit and every three days I get beat up a lot━he plays me like I’m a dog!”

SJ is very young here, but the difference between him and YQY is starkly obvious. MXTX makes use of this dynamic, this clash of personalities, in both SVSSS, MDZS, and TGCF. “Why did you have to play the hero” should be familiar line to readers of MDZS too, and despite some fan opinions, it’s just not... what the so called “good guy” in the narrative would think, let alone say out loud. (Btw, TGCF is the only one of MXTX’s novels in which we see this type of character actually grow and change with time). Right off the bat, we see this very young SJ as someone who only values (and is willing to protect) those of immediate importance to himself, while YQY, as the typical “hero” of the narrative, tries to protect everyone and ends up harming the person he cares about in the process. You will find these two personality types thrust in these types of situations in 90% of danmei (and wuxia/xianxia) stories for a reason. You are supposed to know that YQY will end the tortured hero and SJ will end the blackened villain, the only differences being other related plot lines and their eventual downfall/redemption. (Or in MDZS’s case, absolute stagnation, which flies in the face of typical development for someone like SJ and apparently, confuses a lot of readers as well).

The second part I think is important to mention about that little rant up there is that SJ is already a person who takes no responsibility for his actions. YQY had “acted the hero” so SJ was forced to act as well, therefore his action is YQY’s fault. He is very young at this point, so no one expects him to be a paradigm of magnanimity, but at the same time, he never grows and matures out of this way of thinking. So SJ who enters Cang Qiong Mountain is already proficient at holding resentments and shifting all the blame for his misfortunes to others. At that point, even if YQY had explained how his haste to cultivate quickly had resulted in a qi deviation and the subsequent confinement, there is no indication that SJ would have found him any less guilty for failing to return in a timely manner. (Don't forget that one of the last admonishments SJ gives to YQY before they part is to stop being so brash. YQY doesn’t listen, which results in qi deviation, which results in SJ being stuck in Qiu household for years. It’s unlikely that SJ would find YQY blameless).

However, if you go back further than all the misery and abuse SJ suffered at the hands of Qiu Jianluo and change things (perhaps the human traffickers sell him into a different, better household, etc) then his path would probably diverge too drastically to continue onto the trajectory towards the Cang Qiong Mountain. 

Basically, I see two paths where SJ does not end up the exact heartless scum villain he is in PIDW:

SJ escapes with YQY and they enter Cang Qiong Mountain together. From their earlier relationship, we can infer that SJ is prone to guilt-tripping YQY for his decisions, and seeing himself as the wronged party whenever the situation doesn’t go his way. Would YQY still end up the Sect Leader with SJ by his side? If YQY had never qi deviated and SJ had never started his cultivation so late, would there be a noticeable difference in their skills and strengths? If SJ was more powerful, would YQY not willingly cede the Sect Leader position? And if he didn’t do so, would SJ hold resentment for it? Would the same level of resentment between SJ and LQG still exist? 

YQY manages to go back for SJ before the slaughter at the Qiu Mansion. At that point, SJ had been suffering abuse by Qiu Jianluo for years. Would he blame YQY for not coming for him sooner? For the fact that YQY’s tardiness meant he started cultivating late and may never catch up? If SJ’s resentment is the same and YQY’s guilt is the same, would their relationship be any better? People seem to think that SJ would have held so much gratitude for YQY’s (attempted or otherwise) return that he would wipe the slate clean between them, but this is the same person who had blamed YQY’s heroics for his own situation in the first place. Does that seem like the kind of person who would just... feel so much gratitude to let everything else go? 

And since only that SJ, the one who had lived with Qiu Jianluo’s abuse, who had slaughtered all of Qiu Manor and was further twisted and warped by Wu Yanzi, since that SJ took LBH on as a disciple out of jealousy and resentment and spite, wouldn’t it make more sense that a less villainous SJ would not give LBH a second glance? Rather than being a better shizun, is it not more fitting that he would have allowed LBH to go where he is likely to have gone without SJ’s interference, which is Bai Zhan Peak? 

To me, any possible scenario where SJ (at the moment he is watching potential disciples digging holes) happens to be a better person, is a scenario in which LBH does not become his disciple. 

So no, I don’t see any possible scenario in which LBH falls in love with SJ. I believe that SJ was meant to be seen as flawed from the very beginning, from the moment he had blamed YQY for “playing the hero,” and I can’t imagine any twist of circumstances that would make him similar to the type of person (SY) that LBH would fall in love with. 

[writing-frenzy]

Care to Make a Wager? (SVSSS Fic)

Summery: No System AU: In which Airplane finds he has a new lease in life, but of course it would have a cost. Of course, being the creator of this world gives him quiet the price cut. Not to mention the untended bonus content.

Still, he did not expect the direction his life would go.

(Warning: mentions of death, violence, and most stuff you could find in SVSSS Canon. You should be good, but here is a just in case.)

---

When one Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky was reborn, he really wanted to curse his lot in life. Sure, he had been born into a rather well off Merchant Family, but when the Lord of the Family has two Official Wives and a crap ton of Mistresses on the side, things were bound to get crazy.

Luckily one Shang Huan had one hell of a Mother; in another life, Airplane might have described her as a ‘killer queen or a ‘boss ass bitch’, but as his mother, he just thought of her as the most amazing woman on the planet. As it was, She alongside a whole bunch of tutors taught him everything he needed to know about the world and then some. 

(Sewing was a bitch to get right.)

But with those lessons, it didn’t take long for Shang Huan to realize he was in his own fucking novel; it had not been a happy realization, making him break out into a truly childish tantrum, filled with screaming and tears that only calmed after he was given some delicious melon seeds.

(Luckily it had been attributed to wanting a snack after a morning full of lessons, otherwise he probably would have gotten the switch for it...)

But with all this knowledge of his place in life now with him, Shang Huan needed to start planning; good thing that was one of his specialties.

Noting down every bit of information he could, Shang Huan mapped out as much items and cheats he could afford to take from the Protagonist, as well as places he could and couldn’t go, hazel eyes narrowed as he messily scratched out his plots with his trusty quill and journal. The many lessons he Mother made him go through only helped to sharpen him, as well as learn the world’s common sense.

He was having a good go at it, building himself up as much as he could before something completely from left stage truly changed his course.

“There is a legend of Dreaming Glory, said to be a treasure to ensure great health and excellent rest. Though be cautious, for it is guarded carefully by the spirit of a Felled Divine Beast, angry and resentful of the betrayal it had faced.” was a tale a wandering storyteller spun, a group of children ooooing and awwwwing at the right places, even as Airplane felt his jaw drop at the information, focusing more on those words then the candy his mother allowed him to buy at one of the festival stalls.

See, while the Legend of the Dreaming Glory was definitely right at home with this world, it actually hadn’t been anywhere in Proud Immortal Demon Way; it had been in one of his earlier short stories, where Airplane had been practicing with the Xianxia/Xuanhuan genres (and didn’t need to rely on it, dreaming more of the theater then writing). (Until a mugging gone wrong and dreams cut short-) 

This... opened a few more roads then expected, especially if all his fantasy stories came into play, as there had been a lot of experimentation with plots and ideas until he hit his cash cow with PIDW. After all, taking something from the protagonist was always going to be a risk of somehow getting his attention, no matter how much the man wouldn’t actually need it.

(After all, showing off had always been a part of Luo Binghe’s character; showing that he was no longer the penniless street kid, no longer the weak disciple, no longer the one who was always pushed around, but now the one who can take.)  

It also meant more research; thankfully, his Mother was one to always encourage more in the way of learning, thankfully humoring all the ‘trips’ he wished to take.... In hindsight, he probably should have questioned why she was always willing to take him and go, but at the time was just thankful that he could indeed confirm places he would need to visit later and squirrel away items that were within his reach. (An actual legit Cultivation Manuel, even if it was only directed for growing crops and alchemy, was still his most proudest find, only needing a riddle to get and easily hidden in his pouch with his other learning books. Being an Author only got him so far, as every little detail was needed to ensure one stayed on a steady path, though did provide it’s own little boosts here and there.)

------=------

One day, when Shang Huan had been 13, sneakily already past the first part of Cultivation Qi Refining and entering into the first stage of Foundation Building, found his Mother to be ill, no Doctors seeming to be able to cure her (or willing too as he saw a servant of the Second Wife slip a few gold; he got his revenge in the end), Shang Huan took a deep breath and buckled down, doing all that his Mother said to do with the time she had left, learning as much as he could before it would no longer be open to him. 

(Like he could stay here in this den of vipers, without his Mother’s protection and love; there was nothing else for him here after all.)

In that time as his Mother stubbornly clung on, he listened as she mourned his chance to enter into the prestigious Cultivation Sect of Cang Qiong like the First Wife’s Third Son, Shang Shaoqing. She apologized greatly that she could not fight for him to get that chance, like so many of the other Mistresses did for their own children.

‘Huh,’ Airplane couldn’t help but think, ‘looks like I just dodged a arrow.’ though it was good to finally know just what the timeline was for the story; Shang Shaoqing was to be a certain traitorous Peak Lord after all.

As it was, his Mother showed her determination and spirit greatly, lasting till he was 16 before she finally past away, a smile on her face as she did, her son long gone with his inheritance and her blessing of broken ties, carrying her name meaning of Shang instead of his Father’s.

(If the night before, Shang Huan had decided to tell her of his other life, told her how this was a story he had happened to read, showing her a few of the treasure he had gathered, how he cried when Shang Wenyan had only smiled with a few too many teeth, her voice fierce as she praised her son with all her heart, hugging him close with what remained of her strength as she told him her last words.

“Live life however you want my child, live and dream and hope, do not be afraid to destroy any your way, and know I will love you always my greatest pride and joy.”

Well... no one needed to know about that.)

But with this new freedom came it’s cons as much as it’s pros. As he was stuck at a bottleneck in Foundation Building at Middle Stage, there was still a number of things outside his reach until at least Core Formation First Stage...

------=------

It was during his wandering, selling talismans he could make at his level, along with tales he made up that he finally got his big break.

He first heard tales of a powerful Resentful Spirit that was residing in a broken land near the Borders, no one from Demons to Humans wanting the land as it was deemed useless for all the resentful energy there, and no one bothering to pay a sect for what they considered a waste of money and time.

Shang Huan saw this, and wonder if it was what he recognized... Taking in more details and scoping out for any information, Airplane couldn’t help but wonder how lucky it was; this was indeed a spirit from one of his very first stories in fact. He knew exactly what to do.

Instead of fighting the Resentful Spirit, Shang Huan brought it pure cave water and incense, smelling of ash and jasmine. 

This certainly got the Spirit’s attention.

“What do you want Rogue?”

“I want for many things to be honest.” the brunet Cultivator smiled, not showing any teeth so as to make it look falsely gentle, “But for now, I admit I do desire your land.”

That got a huff for his efforts, the spirit a mass of negativity and ire, but actually still listening.

“You have provided the right offering, so I will give you a chance; bring me wine of the Soothing Jade Flower, the Broken Sword of Chun, and a branch of Deathly Yew... You get me these three things, and the land will be yours.” And with that shopping list given, the spirit was gone, even as the energy seemed thicker then before, the incense and water gone.  

And with an absolutely evil grin, Airplane was off; he had already remembered the Wine and branch, had even gotten them first as he had plans for them, but he had not remembered the broken blade.

Fortunately, it wasn’t too hard to find; he had written that the blade had been struck with a heavy stone in a battle between Demons and Cultivators on the borders of the land, where it would lay forever. And lo and behold, there was only one ancient battlefield it could be abandoned in, as this was PIDW.

There weren’t many left over from the borders after all, most of them being purified already. And as he thought, the Bloody Sword Grave was still around, a testament to just how much the resentful energy had soaked into the ground, demons and cultivators alike avoiding the place like the plague, even as bloody rusted swords stayed stabbed into the ground, their thirst and hatred still felt even to this day.

Couldn’t be compared to Xin Mo of course, but for being swords on the surface they sure were impressive. Ignoring all these deadly, intact blades stabbed into the ground, Shang Huan covered his face with a scarf drenched in purified Qi infused water, even as the talisman he sewed on for defense and purity glowed the more he traveled through.

He finally stopped at a blood splattered rock, digging carefully around it as he did, before he managed to pull out four broken pieces of what had once been a beautiful blade, but was now nothing but shambles and rags.

Having what he needed, Airplane made his way back to the spirit and their lands.

------=------

(This deadly spirit of a truly terrible Cultivator, who had been feared and revered for being a monster on the battlefield... cried as they saw the items laid out before them.

“Ah, no my Han-Er, my beloved figher... why you stupid, loveable fool...” The Spirit sobbed, easily using his energy to clean and reformed the blade, manipulating the energies of the other two items to aid it, ensuring the sword would still be pure, hugging it close even as it seemed to damage them.

“... He tried, to come back to you; his fellow soldiers betrayed him... He loved you so much... still does.” Shang spoke, watching as the spirit that laid resting in the blade finally came out with this truth, purifying the other as they did, along with most of the land around them.

The brunet had to look away from their reunion, their emotions a bit too much for him... This had been one of his first tragedies he had written, a solider and their beloved separated because of jealousy and hate, doomed to wait for each other forever, the solution to be so easy to have, if someone had given them a bit of kindness, to discover the truth of their separation, though never given the chance in the end... He never mention just what the Beloved’s gender was, made it ambiguous, but had in his mind of minds always thought of them as a man...

Maybe he shouldn’t have put too much of himself into his work, but a habit is so hard to break.

“... We truly thank you; as promised, the land is now yours to do with as you see fit; all you need to do is put your name on the deed and your blood into the ward stone. All the treasures inside are now rightfully in your ownership, so mote it be.” was announced, making Shang Huan turn to see two beautiful and handsome men smiling at him, before they bowed seeing they had his attention.

Airplane could only bow back, biting on the words of how he owed to them to do this at least.

And with that, they were gone, to enter finally into the cycle of reincarnation, together at last...)

------=------

Having his own place was wonderful; a lot of work, but wonderful all the same.

The wards around his land ensured no one with malice could actually enter it, along with protections against thieves and robbers like most noble Sects had. Shang Huan even went as far as to make sure he owned the plot of land in the official records, having everything stamped and recognized, even as he made sure no one actually looked too closely at what land it actually was.

He even made sure to pay his yearly taxes to the Emperor on time, making sure everything was nicely recorded and logged. (And seeing as he didn’t live in any town or such, he didn’t have to bother paying anything to any Lords for protection! How nice was that?)

But having a base of operations, one with land rich in Qi and perfect for Cultivating on, it not only gave Airplane security, but many other advantages as well.

He now had a place to securely put all the treasures he had gathered, which was a lot considering it was a variety of weapons, valuables, and even priceless seeds to plant. He could be completely self-sufficient as he cultivated, the spirits on the land easily convinced to do chores in exchange for sweets and treats (And being able to live in such a energy rich place). Not to mention how his Cultivation not only went up, but combined with other manuals that were treasures of the home, Shang was set on his way to being a powerful Cultivator in his own right.

And if he was feeling a bit cooped up, he could always go on journeys around his world, exploring and treasure hunting for odds and ends as he saw fit.

Soon enough, Shang Huan had managed to reach 34 years old, entering the Peak of Nascent Soul stage in his cultivation when, in a bit of boredom and interest, he bought out a debt ridden gambling house on the border of his territory, that rested in a ghost-like town on the border of the Human World and the Demon Realm.

It was, quiet frankly, just something to do to pass the time. It wasn’t too hard to fix the place up, and warding it had been a fun challenge of his skills, but he honestly hadn’t expected anything much of it, just putting a few of his lessor needed or easily replenished treasure up to be won. And making it to where anything bet could only be what one had to bet, alongside making sure others would have to honor it had been a fun spell to create, as he really didn’t want to be bothered by liars and braggarts and then having to chase them down. He even just made up some Golems and bargained with a few willing natural spirits to help run the place.

This was just suppose to be a fun little venture; he never expected it to blow up like it did.

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It started slow; a trickle, with a whisper, a simple rumor.

There is a place where priceless treasure could be won; if you’re willing to bet for it that is. But be careful to not bite off more then you can chew, for it might be more then a bit of blood and coins you lose.

Some poor sods have even lost their very souls to the place, even now working where screams and laughter flow so freely to the terrible click the dice, the gentle flap of the cards.

It is a place no Mortal is safe, where no Demon has promise, where a Cultivator is honor bound to accept what is due; after all, no one has to enter the place, no one needs to keep coming back, no one has to bet their all, not all all. 

But oh, how they come; even those who dare not darken the doorway of that gambling hall come, filling what was once an empty town into one practically bustling with life. Funny, how it came about because of such a deadly place.

And oh, do not even bother messing with the Gilded Plane Gambling Hall’s Owner, a man who at first seems so weak and stumbling, so gentle and busy with their hard work, who at first couldn’t hurt a fly even as he smiles so prettily.

He’ll smile that same smile even as you sell your very soul at his tables, those gorgeous hazel eyes amused even as the crowds pant at his feet, screams all around from both terror and ecstasy.

(Shang Huan can’t help but sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose as he is once more offered someone’s entire being; if he’s said it once, he’s said it again, betting is at the tables, not at his feet.

Just another day it seems; hopefully there will be no explosions in the kitchen again.)  

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0.0 huh, I did not expect this when I started writing; I just wanted to have Airplane have some fun in the world he created, maybe opening up a few businesses to make money on the side. I did not mean to make him into an oblivious Hua Cheng of the PIDW verse (Yes, in this verse, he will be as terrifying and pretty, I will not take criticism for it.)

Also, I was greatly inspired by Nighthaunting, though instead of ballet I have SQH as a theatre kid whose dreams got cut short due to bad luck and assholes. I love how they have built their world, and how they say that writing was probably a side thing for Airplane, which just makes so much sense. Also, I am all for Airplane being scary and fully taking advantage of his author knowledge, so haha! Hope you all enjoyed this story~