#sy: what's the plot

[pretend-i-don-t-exist]

sy trying to create a pidw au would be so funny

i feel like he'd actually commit to it to spite airplane. at first, it garnered attention bc it was from the peerless cucumber, notorious critic and biggest pidw hater, so ofc they're all curious how pidw would look like in his eyes. it was surprisingly (well not really, considering the tens of paragraphs peerless cucumber wrote during his rants, all of which have immaculate grammar and spelling— bc ofc he can't let anyone find something to nitpick on his review so they're forced to see the point!) well-written and definitely more plot-focused.

majority of the readers disappeared after the first few chapters, mainly because of the lack of smutty scenes, but those that do remain are very engaged. one of them is airplane's burner account, when he needs to separate himself from his airplane persona. he's really, really curious as to what his hater is doing to his work.

he... he actually likes it. it's not really the novel he envisioned when he was first working on pidw, nor does it contain all the elements of his original draft, but it was good. he likes it a lot better than what pidw turned out to be.

airplane spent so much time contemplating and considering before finally saying fuck it, and dms peerless cucumber to see if he can work as a co-author with him and they can rewrite pidw together. he even sends parts of the original draft (what was left of it, anyway) as incentive!

it takes a long week before even peerless cucumber replies, and by then he has written a novella detailing how much better the original draft was and him screaming very informally at why airplane had to cast it aside.

lol i need money bro im broke af and porn sells, airplane answers.

it takes another week before peerless cucumber finally answers. then live with me, his message reads. no rent. i'll pay for whatever food you want. and whatever bills you have. just write a good fucking novel, i swear to god.

airplane thinks it's a joke, until he receives the address. an actual penthouse. in the richest streets of guangzhou. there is also a request to meet up (seeing as they don't actually know each other, and sy's brothers are very intent on not getting him murdered in his sleep) and airplane, after much, much thinking, accepts.

airplane does not really know what to feel when he finally meets and talks to shen yuan— pampered third son of a very wealthy family, with two protective older brothers and an even more protective little sister— and sy is just. well. he's exactly airplane's type. the beautiful, ice prince who apparently has only shown this much emotion around airplane. sy's meimei had told him cheerfully and then threatened to gut him if he so much as steps a foot out of line. airplane is starting to feel like he's just met a mafia family.

shen yuan's family aside, airplane is actually living his best life. he no longer has to worry about money. he lives in a luxurious (gods he has never seen such a large bedroom before wtf) penthouse without needing to pay rent (!!!) and utilities (!!!) and even food (!!!). he can write as much as he wants. this must be what artists felt like when they're taken care of noble families in exchange for their art.

he does... well. he and peerless cucumber are friends now. they work on the rewrite together. airplane keeps finding out many things, like how shen yuan likes his tea with a lot of honey, dislikes milk chocolate, and prefers drawing over writing. he also runs hot during the night, when he sleeps.

how does airplane know that? well. bros gotta do what bros gotta do. it's a good thing they both like to cuddle.

[reipx]

This is basically what happened after Jin lan city right

[transmigrationisunderrated]

Luo Binghe is busy trying to build up his reputation when he hears a terrible rumor: Peak Lord Shen Qingqiu is dying and soon.

Luo Binghe panics because excuse you, Shizun can't die, certainly not yet and certainly not without Binghe! So he does some digging.

Poor Shizun has been poisoned yet again and is acting way too chill about it also yet again. The thing is, unlike Without-A-Cure, there is a clear timetable to save his life and he, for some unknown reason, is actively refusing it.

Well, Luo Binghe decides that saving Shizun's life might prove his righteousness and redeem his filthy blood in Shizun's eyes so he makes an excuse and flees Huan Hua Palace for Qing Jing Peak.

He is joyously accepted upon his return, to his own surprise, and practically thrown up the peak where he finds...

Two Shen Qingqius.

One, dressed sloppily, not even wearing a guan, too caught up in his own grief to leave the sword mound he constructed for Luo Binghe.

The other, as sharp as ever, perhaps even sharper, without flaw and without mercy.

Both accept him, with reluctance from one and pure relief from the other, and both refuse his aid.

This might be harder than Binghe thought.

[orange-sora]

Earlier, to me, Shen Yuan being hell bent on believing Binghe to be manipulative and deceptive when they met in Jinlan City, was a result of his preconceived notions thanks to his PIDW knowledge. But, I do wonder, if a part of it was because, he himself has been lying all this time.

Ever since he transmigrated, he's been deceiving everyone. Partly because of the System and partly because he had decided even before dying that that'd be his plan of action if he ever transmigrated. To him, it had felt like the only sensible option. The only way to survive, to be accepted. But he can't fathom, that maybe, in some sense, that is also true for Luo Binghe.

When Luo Binghe met his shizun after the abyss, Shen Yuan read every emotion on his face as a calculated move. He believed Binghe's acting skills were so good, that he appeared genuine. Like Shen Yuan chose to lie and trick to survive, Binghe does the same for power and revenge. Shen Yuan may have consciously chosen this path but it was under duress. Luo Binghe, however, must be a mastermind for the exact same choices. That's how he was written, after all. How could the OP Protagonist ever be forced to act in a way he never wanted??? Impossible!

I wonder if, like Shen Jiu self-projected a beast onto Binghe, Shen Yuan self-projected a deceiver.

EDIT: part 2

[theladysunami]

I had a very odd dream where a train (or bus?) I was on got yanked into another world. While my dream had nothing to do with SVSSS, it did have my waking self thinking about how hilarious and/or horrifying such a thing could be as an AU.

Imagine Shen Yuan riding the subway, train or bus one day, when something happens and his whole car gets yanked into the world of PIDW. Nobody else in the car knows anything about PIDW, so Shen Yuan finds himself with the self imposed task of keeping this eccentric group of strangers alive in a weird world full of demons, monsters, and aphrodisiac plants.

The group’s first assumption would probably be that they’re still on modern earth, and just got teleported somewhere. Their second assumption, if they come across common folk, might be they somehow ended up in the past.

Then they run into some monster, or people riding on swords with specific uniforms, or a commoner mentions a name or event only Shen Yuan recognizes. The rest of the party debates what sort of Xianxia or Wuxia world they’ve ended up in, while poor Shen Yuan sweats bullets. He knows exactly what world they are in, and they are so screwed.

I have this image of poor beleaguered nerd Shen Yuan successfully protecting and leading this group of primary school kids, their cute teacher, and a handful of grannies and grandpas, while all the other adults and older teens keep wandering off and getting themselves in trouble.

[starry-bi-sky]

what if i wrote a “shen yuan transmigrates into a wife” oneshot but the whole premise is based on the song “gone, i’m gone” from hadestown and its overall theme is wanderlust and freedom and it starts out as Shen Yuan settling into life in the palace and trying to avoid harem drama and thinking he can just live with his head down for the rest of his new life, only to be hit with a sudden intense yearning to explore his new world the likes he’s never felt before. What if he was sickly in his last life. What if he spent his entire last life indoors. Trapped between four walls. What if love is not a gilded cage. What if he begins clawing at the walls of his enclosure, desperate to escape because he wants to live, god please let him live. He can’t do this again. What if he spent months preparing for his escape and in that same breath getting the attention of some of the other wives around him because he has changed and it makes them wary. what if he got binghe’s attention as he is wont to do. What if he left. What if Shen Yuan was born with a bottomless pit in his stomach and a gaping maw in his chest. What if he was starving. What if he was starving for the world around him. What if i wrote that. What then

[10000year-old-child]

Do you ever think about how Shen Yuan was completely valid for his reaction to PIDW?

If you've ever wondered how Shen Yuan and Shang Qinghua might've experienced PIDW (whether writing, reading, living it.. etc) just watch Supernatural.

I was watching some Supernatural episodes and I just realized this is our real life PIDW, we have like 15 seasons?? (Literally nobody else I know have even watched or finished the series except for me. My family & friends thinks I'm delusional for watching this very long trainwreck)

Plot? Is so long and rich that I genuinely discover new things every time I decide to rewatch ANY of the seasons... Everytime I discover I forgot some pretty major events. but sometimes it's also lowkey bad writing and we have BIG plot holes that nobody addresses even after the show ends.

World building? Magnificent. If not for the new cool creatures (new wives) added left and right never to be mentioned again.

The main wives_ ahem, creatures..(Castiel, ALL the angels, Lucifer, Gabriel, "the prophet"... you see what I mean..?) were really cool and powerful at first until they got lost somewhere in the plot.

As for Characters? Don't get me wrong I love my boys, but you have to admit Sam and Dean were ridiculously overpowered. They killed every single being under the sun (HOW did the universe in Supernatural not collapse??? You cannot convince me all that messing around did NOT cause some catastrophic power imbalance in creation Itself!!) including themselves like an unreasonable amount of times and just came back to life completely fine after and kept walking.

Honestly OG Luo Binghe could only dream of reaching that level of plot armor. No wonder my guy Shen Yuan was pissed.

[whatwhywhowherewhen]

SVSSS au in which in denial trans woman Shen Yuan transmigrates into a not medically but very much always has been socially transitioned trans man Shen Qingqiu. Shen Yuan internalized transphobia double reach-arounds him(...her?)self into coming out to all the Peak Lords and the sect and the cultivation world because "he" (she?) can't just not reveal the Scum Villain was a woman all along?! What a plot twist that is definitely the most important and relevant thing.... she... is meant to discover. System: *side eyes*

They do not have transphobia in PIDW, but the only person who knows Shen Qingqiu isn't cis is Yue Qingyuan. The Peak Lords all think Shen Qingqiu has just come out as a trans woman, and are mostly just surprised Shen Qingqiu has a gender that isn't Rage and Spite. Yue Qingyuan is surprised Xiao Jiu has switched genders??? Somehow?? Qi divinations can do that now???? Mu Qingfang is surprised when Shen Qingqiu refuses the Ever Blossoming Transformation Peony on the basis of "of course not! Haven't I already said I have one of... those things..." and now neither Mu Qingfang or Shen Yuan have any idea what conversation they're having

Shen Yuan expects this to massively change the plot, and is actually prepared when Binghe goes goo-goo eyed. However, she fully believes she will be a plot-relevant but mostly ignored redeemed villain wife, and is still shocked when Binghe is heartbroken and pleading rather than just betrayed and seductive. "Binghe why do you care more about this old crone than all the pretty little sisters vying for your attention huh?!?! And if you want me so bad why am I still in the dungeon!?" The treatment (which she doesn't know is how Binghe acts when actually hurt and caring about a person rather than just wanting to win) leads her to fear she might have imagined Binghe's feelings and have an angst session about it, leading to the escape attempt and the self-sacrifice

She also has to contend with sexism and heteronormativity in the trial. Every motivation is attributed to romance and irrationality. Shen Qingqiu is being accused of being in love with Qiu Jianluo and murdering him out of jealousy when she was engaged to Qiu Haitang instead. Shen Yuan: "that doesn't sound right but I don't know enough about Shen Jiu to argue"

During the years when Binghe's in the abyss, Yue Qingyuan tries to talk to her about what she's comfortable with now compared to before the "qi divination", during which she gets the big hint that Shen Jiu was not, in fact, secretly a woman. Confirmation comes from a chaotic and mutually politically incorrect conversation with Shang Qinghua (tentatively, he would be a trans man in his first life who was happy with his gender presentation, but cis in the second. He feels weird about it and is on his own journey to realize gender identity and presentation do not have to match up to societal expectations. He/him gender-exploring queen.)

Shen Yuan, rather than having to accept being gay with and for the protagonist, has to accept that she is a woman even though the Scum Villain wasn't. She still grows a mushroom body with Shang Qinghua, meant to look like "Shen Yuan The Boy", in order to get back to her "real" gender (and escape all the awkwardness of Being Perceived, both as Shen Jiu (oof) and as a woman (which she really is? Isn't? Can't be??? (...always was?))). As "peerles cucumber", she then has to accept it doesn't feel right anymore, and with some deeper reflection maybe never did (but that's just because [excuse excuse excuse]!!!). Anyway she willingly returns to the Shen Qingqiu body to live as a woman, peak lord, and the only wife of Luo Binghe. The end is just her beginning.

All this chaos and Shen Jiu is just in the modern world staring at the "Peerless Cucumber" like "...nice"

[autistic-yuri]

I’ve always thought that every Dimension 20 season has a “main character” (basically a character that has the most connection to the plot and follows an archetypal arc for the main character) and Riz has always been that for me for FHFY so him being the main perspective so far for the Webtoon seems completely natural for me

[cumplanecrash]

So not to pathologize the blorbos, but Shen Jiu totally has OCD, yeah?

(I so wanna reblog and come back for style reasons but I also want the whole thought in one place.)

Okay so qijiu reconciliation is on my mind, right? And the thing is, Yue Qingyuan thinks that he made one specific mistake (did not come back for Shen Jiu at the Qiu Estate) that, if he can just make up for it somehow, he can be forgiven and he and Shen Qingqiu can become close again.

But honestly, we know he had a good excuse for not coming back: he was locked in a cave by some of the most powerful cultivators he could be held hostage by at the time, with no hope of overpowering his Shizun, especially with his life being drained by Xuan Su. And you'd have to be a completely petty, heartless bastard not to forgive him knowing that.

The kind of petty, heartless bastard that would take advantage of the Sect Leader's guilty conscience for his own benefit.

And Shen Jiu does not ask for this.

If anything, he's irritated by Yue Qingyuan's favoritism. He also never speaks in his own defense when his crimes, true or false, are brought up. Because Shen Jiu has decided that he's an irredeemable monster, unworthy of defence and too tainted to be allowed to touch the flawless sect leader, and the sooner everyone else sees that, the better off they'll be. (This is a type of OCD.)

You see, once upon a time, he had written off his dear Qi-ge as dead (or dying, or in need of rescue) and mourned him in his heart, because he believed that only death or dismemberment would keep Qi-ge from at least trying to keep such an important promise. But then, when his best-of-a-lot-of-bad-options shifu took him to the Immortal Alliance Conference to raid the inevitable dead bodies and, not so secretly, make some of their own, he saw that same Qi-ge there, and there was no sign of permanent injury visible. He didn't even make any excuses, just apologized for not coming. And Shen Jiu — accepts that "No matter how [Shen Jiu] changed, he was a rat", that "Some people were rotten from birth. Shen Jiu thought of himself in exactly this way — someone vile and poisonous from the start. Because, at that instant, he came to a crystal-clear realization:

That he'd rather have met a Yue Qi who died in some unknown corner, his remains unsightly and forgotten, then a Yue Qingyuan who was elegant and powerful, his prospects and future boundless."

It's a hell of a thing on a young person to wish someone dead, truly and with your whole heart. To do it to a loved one can be especially hard. But the thing is: brains aren't literal. Especially when they're trying to understand emotional pain.

To go all Pop Psychologist on the character who definitely does not have access to therapy for a brief moment, he doesn't want Qi-ge dead anymore than I want to commit a random shootout on the way home from work after a long day. It's dram;, it's poetry, in a sense. I think what that quote literally means is that having Qi-ge betray him to the point of not even attempting to come back for him when he actually did well for himself, hurts just as bad as if he had died. But that's where the OCD comes in, he takes the literal meaning of his thought and condemns himself as the worst kind of human being, or rather "rat", imaginable.

And if he's the worst, what's the difference if he does whatever it takes to fulfill his every whim, as long as he doesn't get caught?

Shen Jiu performs the role of Scum Villain because he's convinced himself that he must be one, for having a dramatic thought in a moment of weakness, and that he can never earn forgiveness for that thought, that it's a thorough and unforgivable betrayal of the young man who dreamed of it being his turn to save Qi-ge, and that's exactly what makes us want to see him grow and change.

Where it often falls flat, is that we think that Shen Jiu needs to forgive Yue Qingyuan, when who he really needs to forgive is Shen Jiu.

[benevadeca]

LBH / SJ as parallels makes me crazy bc on one hand there's the themes of personal responsibility and the hard work necessary for taking agency for your choices and them being what shapes the kind of life that is reachable but on the other SJ was literally replaceable by the narrative and even when he did sporadically try to be Good it always blew up on him / never knew anything else and so was unable to be anything else.

VS LBH was not / protagonist halo / literal bloodline superiority / did at least know love which is what made him able to transcend the world by knowing the abuse he faced was something wrong and not something natural. Anyway

[stupidpersonhere]

You know, I've been reading parts of the nogel practicing my Chinese even though every second character is unreadable to me and anyway. I forgot Shen Yuan , like canonically, chuged the damn 6666 chapters in 20 days. That's almost 300 chapters per day! Even if he had spent the 24 hours of the day reading nonstop that requires to read more than 10 chapters per hour.

Like, if he had abandoned the novel and got obsessed again or if he had just found, that's no normal behavior. Insane

[i-dare-say]

One day, Luo Binghe would raze the whole sect to the ground. The twelve peaks of Cang Qiong Mountain would be drowned in red, the blood of the cultivators dripping down the heaven-ascending stairs. And with the merger of the realms, the sky would never change, endlessly awash in parched yellow. That was the future that would come to pass if Shen Yuan didn’t manage to alter the course of the events.

Shen Yuan is straight up not having a good time rn

[dataframe]

ryj might have a bigger role than i initially planned. hrm. i really did not intend for an oc to be so present... so scary . . .

[aberooski]

I both love and hate how they listen to Jim about the bioband stuff being suspicious and not Syrus

I love it because it's funny but I also hate it because Sy has literally been telling you guys this this entire time and he was dismissed but Jim says something about it and now everyone's concerned after people have started being harmed. Good job witht he listening ears guys 👍

[starry-bi-sky]

pouring one out for luo binghe in my disciple SQQ fic, poor guy has taken a backseat here. we're nearly 30k words deep and he hasn't even shown his face once. it'll be much longer before he even actually talks to Shen Qingqiu.

(i say im pouring one out but in reality im sitting in my director's chair chewing on a cigar and wearing a beret as he tearily and unsuccessfully pleads with me for more scenes with Shen Qingqiu)