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[tossawary]

I was thinking about Xie Lian being able to snap the Xin Mo sword in half with his bare hands again, and then I thought to myself... "Wait, Xie Lian and Luo Binghe interaction could be really cute, though?"

Like, let's say that Xie Lian, during his time as a wandering trash god, accidentally falls into an interdimensional rift and ends up in the SVSSS world. His luck is bad like that. But while this is weird, sure, it's not that bad! The worlds are pretty similar and he can still make his living! So, Xie Lian wanders along as usual, curiously learning about this new world, picking through trash, occasionally punching demonic beasts to death to rescue awed civilians.

And at some point, Xie Lian runs into a young Luo Binghe while he's living on the streets. Let's say that Xie Lian rolls into town shortly before the death of Binghe's adoptive mother, has a few sweet encounters with this cute and kind child who doesn't have much to spare for a trash collector, and is there to comfort his new young friend when Binghe's adoptive mother passes away. Xie Lian is still there when Binghe gets thrown out onto the streets and he agrees to help the boy travel to Cang Qiong Mountain Sect.

So, Binghe gets to spend a month or two as a trash-collecting god's apprentice! He doesn't know that Xie Lian is a god. He suspects that Xie Lian is just a very powerful rogue cultivator who is living very humbly for some reason. The time isn't entirely pleasant, because life is hard and Binghe is grieving, but Xie Lian understands pain very well and is an excellent companion. He sees Binghe safely to Cang Qiong.

At which point, clingy Binghe does not want to separate from this extremely nice person, but Xie Lian insists on it. He wants Binghe to have a better life. He's worried that his bad luck will somehow spread to this poor boy who reminds him of so many other people he's loved and lost. Xie Lian supervises the confusing entrance exam, while the adult Cang Qiong cultivators desperately try to figure out who this strange person is (Airplane Bro is going "???!!!"), and then leaves wistfully. Binghe will later look back on this particular period of his life very fondly.

Xie Lian can then go in and out of the SVSSS plot as a person pleases! I think it would be very funny if Liu Qingge ended up with an unwilling crush on Xie Lian as well, when they have a spar for some reason and Xie Lian handily SLAMS him into the ground. Xie Lian would probably end up running into Tianlang-Jun and Zhuzhi-Lang somehow, both of whom I think would end up being a little obsessed with him.

I think that the best place to bring Xie Lian and Binghe back together is maybe after Binghe escapes the Endless Abyss. So that Binghe can have a nice cry session on Xie Lian's shoulder. Xie Lian can possibly then introduce Binghe to Tianlang-Jun and Zhuzhi-Lang. Or else generally fumble his way through facilitating Bingqiu actually communicating and being less of a painful mess. Shen Qingqiu (Shen Yuan) is very confused by this character?! Where did he come from??? Who is he??? He's very nice, though, and Shen Qingqiu is feeling maybe a liiiiittle jealous over Binghe.

(I don't know how to handle the System in this AU, but I do like the idea of the System just... not being able to handle Xie Lian. Xie Lian is a god from a different worldbuild. He kind of just breaks everything.)

(If you want to get a little angsty and ghostly, you could have a plotline in which Xie Lian helps the ghost of Shen Jiu somehow. Qijiu resolution?)

Binghe would probably be open to the idea of getting together with Xie Lian as well as Shen Qingqiu. He has a type! He is full of love! But Xie Lian is definitely not interested and is very good at wiggling away from come-ons, so Binghe respectfully doesn't pursue that passing thought / childhood crush, no matter what Tianlang-Jun is saying about threesomes again.

Binghe ends up using the (tamed? broken?) Xin Mo sword to send Xie Lian (his "gege") back to Xie Lian's own world. (Or Mobei-Jun could maybe do it?) Xie Lian has been gone for years and wants to see how his world is doing. Binghe tearfully promises to visit him regularly and to come get him WHENEVER HE WANTS. Xie Lian pats his head and agrees to stay in touch.

So, then Xie Lian tumbles out back into his own world and into the start of the plot of TGCF. And at any point in the plot of TGCF, he's now able to summon a heavenly demon from another dimension (with a super powerful sword that can move mountains?) who would absolutely be willing to fight all of heaven for him.

Xie Lian generally isn't going to do this, because he doesn't want to involve Binghe in his problems, even though Binghe is CHEWING THE WALLS with the desire to help him in return. However, Xie Lian does really like to go out with Binghe and Shen Qingqiu (and sometimes people like Airplane Bro and Mobei-Jun and Liu Qingge as well) to nice restaurants every other week or so. "So, what's new?" "Oh, I've ascended to heaven again and it's a little troublesome, ha ha. How are you?"

Hua Cheng is... nonplussed. On one hand, he's a little jealous. On the other hand, FINALLY, people can recognize that Xie Lian is the best person in the world. Luo Binghe has GOOD TASTE and is just some well-meaning kid whom Xie Lian likes a lot and who rightly thinks heaven sucks. Hua Cheng is determinedly shaking Luo Binghe's hand and giving him advice from a Ghost King to a future Demon Emperor.

(Tianlang-Jun CANNOT be allowed into Ghost City. He will NOT leave. I think that Hua Cheng is strong enough to throw him out if necessary, but Tianlang-Jun and Zhuzhi-Lang would just keep slipping back in somehow. Permanently banned from the gambling tables no matter what he offers, but Tianlang-Jun is still allowed to hang out at the Ghost City playhouse because he quickly becomes the favorite audience member of all of the ghost actors. He has AWFUL taste. Yin Yu hates them.)

(Also, I do think that Xie Lian would not really like the Xin Mo sword at all. E'ming is a beautiful baby boy made from and by Hua Cheng, who is Xie Lian's favorite person in the world who has never done anything wrong ever. Xin Mo is some random blade that destroys Luo Binghe's mental health and turns him into the worst version of himself! Xie Lian could and possibly should snap that possession sword like a twig.)

[tossawary]

Thinking about Wei Wuxian's first meeting with Jin Ling again and how fucking funny and delightful it is. Like, let's put the "WWX, you probably could have EASILY guessed this was your nephew if you had spent just thirty seconds thinking about this person's identity" aside completely for a moment. Let's just pretend here that Jin Ling isn't even his nephew. Not a factor.

Wei Wuxian is still in the body of MO XUANYU, who was kicked out of the Jin Sect in disgrace and resorted to sacrificial rituals to commit murder. He KNOWS this. He KNOWS that Mo Xuanyu and the Jin Sect have a bad history and that the Jin Sect considers him an utter embarrassment that they want nowhere near them, and that powerful people will enforce these things with violence. He WILL be recognized (Jin Ling recognizes his crazy uncle Mo Xuanyu immediately) and any actions he takes here will probably be noticed and reported on. Publicly starting shit as Mo Xuanyu especially may cause the Jin Sect to angrily hunt him down later.

So, like, it makes sense to be cautious! The Jin Sect were his enemies in his last life, too, and even if Mo Xuanyu had ZERO relation to the Jin Sect whatsoever and was a complete stranger to them, Wei Wuxian should want to stay out of their way lest they somehow learn that the Yiling Patriarch is back. It's very reasonable to assume that the Jin Sect would raise a new killing mob against him immediately. Wei Wuxian doesn't really know the current political landscape at all, and so it would be smart to stand back, observe the hunt for a little bit, and avoid interacting with the Jin Sect at least for a little while.

All it would take is Wei Wuxian standing back while this fuss with the hundreds of spiritual nets accidentally catching other cultivators happens. He could just hide behind a tree, let Jin Ling and his entourage go by him, and try to find some other way to get the poor people down. All it would take is Wei Wuxian NOT calling out a Jin Sect cultivator for being a "spoiled rich brat".

And he fails that "test". Immediately.

[tossawary]

I think about "Scum Villain" AUs occasionally, as in "Fan Transmigrates Into The Villain Role" AUs for fandoms that are not SVSSS. I think they're fun because you get a lot of the same joys as "self-insert / OC" fanfiction, plus the other characters being baffled as a villain struggles to turn the entire plot around or escape it.

And I just realized that one of the funniest characters for an AU like this might be Starscream from "Transformers". Any "Transformers" continuity, really.

Some random fan who is genuinely a nice person transmigrates into a TF universe and into the robot body of fucking Starscream. STARSCREAM. Alternatively, if you don't actually want to do transmigration, you could just have a Cybertronian original character (or a canon Cybertronian character) somehow accidentally uploaded / installed into Starscream's body.

Either way, some hapless rando is stuck as one of THE scum villains of all time: Starscream.

And all of the other Decepticons are wondering what the FUCK is going on, because it seems like Starscream is kind of... nice now? Did he take damage from getting punched too hard? People aren't really motivated to do anything about this "good clone" situation because they all kind of like this Starstream more. Megatron can't decide whether or not this friendliness is some new kind of assassination plot, because it's not, but also it looks like it's WAY MORE successful than usual.

Bonus points if whoever is stuck in Starscream also has their own Protagonist Favorite (Luo Binghe) character, so now it looks like Starscream is weirdly into some random Autobot. Optimus Prime would be super funny, but I'm also leaning towards Hot Rod (not yet Rodimus Prime), because that would also be incredibly funny.

Also, Starscream has that ghost thing going on, so the transmigrator here (and everyone else) could end up being haunted by an angry Ghost Starscream.

[tossawary]

Sewing adventures continue with delightful surprises. I was paging through a pattern book in the fabric store, looking for ideas on what garments I might be able to make and modify, and looked through the costume section for fun. Lots of Jane Austen historical dresses and "we legally cannot specifically say this is intended for 'Game of Thrones' cosplay" "medieval" outfits in there, which was to be expected, and then I turned the page and barked out a surprise laugh because there was a photograph of a woman who was VERY CLEARLY cosplaying as Lan Wangji from "The Untamed".

It's not a surprise that cosplayers go to fabric stores and buy patterns. In my ten years of experience or so with this stuff, the stereotypical middle-aged and old ladies who work there will often very happily tell you about their previous encounters with the cosplayers helping to keep them in business. I simply haven't been to a convention since before COVID and had not known that "The Untamed" had become THAT level of popular.

Delightful.

EDIT: Here's the link to the pattern I originally encountered and a link to the cosplayer's own website.

[tossawary]

Sewing adventures continue with delightful surprises. I was paging through a pattern book in the fabric store, looking for ideas on what garments I might be able to make and modify, and looked through the costume section for fun. Lots of Jane Austen historical dresses and "we legally cannot specifically say this is intended for 'Game of Thrones' cosplay" "medieval" outfits in there, which was to be expected, and then I turned the page and barked out a surprise laugh because there was a photograph of a woman who was VERY CLEARLY cosplaying as Lan Wangji from "The Untamed".

It's not a surprise that cosplayers go to fabric stores and buy patterns. In my ten years of experience or so with this stuff, the stereotypical middle-aged and old ladies who work there will often very happily tell you about their previous encounters with the cosplayers helping to keep them in business. I simply haven't been to a convention since before COVID and had not known that "The Untamed" had become THAT level of popular.

Delightful.

EDIT: Here's the link to the pattern I originally encountered and a link to the cosplayer's own website.

[tossawary]

MXTX Remix authors are revealed, which means I can finally share the work I did - About time I feed my selfish soul !

I was so stoked when I got Tossawary in the author assignment. Their body of work is iconic and they have so many good fics to choose from. I ended up remixing their Scum Villain daemon AU, Sit With Your Soul, which has some of the craziest, coolest world building I've ever read in a fic. To be honest, I didn't sign up for the remix challenge thinking I was going to end up writing a Shen Jiu-forward fic, but it was just such a fun process and I had a blast the whole way through. So go check it out, and go read Sit With Your Soul if you haven't!!

[tossawary]

I'm curious to hear about people's rarepairs, especially the rarer ones, again. Doesn't have to be from a particular fandom. Can be backed only by vibes. Vibes are valid.

My rarer rarepairs for SVSSS are probably Luo Binghe/Gongyi Xiao and PIDW Mobei-Jun/PIDW Ning Yingying.

The former is because I think it would be funny for Binghe to actually get bogged down in the day-to-day running of Huan Hua Palace and he'd need help with that. The Palace Master making Gongyi Xiao effectively Binghe's secretary sounds awkwardly hilarious to me. Also, I think Gongyi "breaking the rules is fine if it's for moral reasons and you don't get caught" + "maybe we should slow down and try to figure this situation out calmly because that doesn't sound right for Master Shen" Xiao would be good for Binghe.

The latter is because, again, I think it's fun to think about who is actually running Bing-Ge's empire. I'm imagining a workplace comedy featuring other key harem members such as Sha Hualing and Liu Mingyan and the Little Palace Mistress more as annoying coworkers. Mobei-Jun is stuck in the incredibly awkward and angsty position of having feelings for another man's wife, and Linguang-Jun is being sooooo petty and mean about it. Also, I think PIDW Ning Yingying deserves a nice divorce or widowing.

[tossawary]

Thinking about the actual living arrangements between Wu Yanzi and Shen Jiu is interesting, because I would think that Wu Yanzi should be more than a little concerned that his new apprentice might decide to turn that bloody sword on him sooner or later.

Putting this below a cut because I'm talking about child abuse here.

You can come up with all sorts of angsty, abusive behavior for Wu Yanzi on the premise that he's afraid of what Shen Jiu might do, simpler examples being things like "he might have made Shen Jiu sleep outside if he was ever taking a room at an inn" and "he might have regularly taken all of Shen Jiu's belongings away because he couldn't 'trust' his disciple with them". More extreme, antagonizing examples being things like "he might have tied Shen Jiu up at night like a dog" or "he might have planted some kind of talismans that prevented Shen Jiu from coming near him or from leaving a small space". He might have even been "matter of fact" about it. Not obviously taking pleasure in a "necessary measure".

I don't think Wu Yanzi treated Shen Jiu like complete shit all the time, I think it probably would have depended on his moods, as it does with many abusers. I just think it's interesting to think about why exactly young Shen Jiu was "terrified to death" of this person. There has to have been a line of "worth putting up with this to learn some cultivation techniques" keeping Shen Jiu from deciding to just risk it and try to kill Wu Yanzi (the line ends up being Yue Qi at the Conference).

It's possible that Wu Yanzi treated Shen Jiu kind of okay most of the time, actually, trusting in his young apprentice's fear without relying on any kind of physical abuse. At the beginning, Wu Yanzi is something of a cultivator and Shen Jiu is not. By forcing Shen Jiu to participate in his foul crimes, he makes it harder for Shen Jiu to leave him, because now Wu Yanzi can threaten to TELL PEOPLE what Shen Jiu has done. And seeing Wu Yanzi kill people in horrific ways such as the Cursed Black Light talismans functions as a very effective threat by itself. "Behave or I'll kill you," is probably all the rope that Wu Yanzi would need to tie Shen Jiu up at night, honestly, stopping his apprentice from killing him in his sleep. Verbal threats and abuse are more than enough, especially when said by an actual murderer.

I think it's interesting to think about the different ways that abuse manifests, and how the different styles of abuse from Qiu Jianluo and Wu Yanzi might have affected Shen Jiu. We don't see a lot of Shen Jiu's life with Wu Yanzi, so we don't know whether or not his behavior was playfully cruel or tersely paranoid or coldly detached. It's easier to draw links between Shen Jiu's abusive treatment of Luo Binghe and Qiu Jianluo's abuse of Shen Jiu.

Anyway, I was thinking about this because I was thinking about more Canon Divergence AUs for Qijiu. Like, what if, after killing Qiu Jianluo, Shen Jiu gets a taste of what his life will be like under Wu Yanzi and throws caution to the wind to murder this guy? He desperately wants to learn cultivation, yes, but he doesn't want another master. Maybe there's some bounty on Wu Yanzi's head and Shen Jiu decides to take it, and hopefully leverage the kill as his legitimate entrance into the cultivation world?

I'm wondering how easy it would be to somehow get Shen Jiu to Cang Qiong Mountain Sect when Yue Qi has been trapped in the Ling Xi caves. I don't think that Shen Jiu would be happy about Yue Qi's imprisonment at all. That could end up being a very dramatic rescue.

[tossawary]

Love the number of characters in SVSSS who can be described as "definitely single but also not actually available".

[tossawary]

Chapter 4: Understanding

Notes:

This chapter is around 5,500 words long and remixes parts of the Qijiu extras again. Warning yet again for some more discussions of canon-typical violence, behavior, and also a brief allusion to suicidal thoughts.

[tossawary]

Oh, terrible fun thought: what if the previous Qiong Ding Peak actually approved of Shen Jiu? Like, oh, this kid is driven and ruthless, why can't Yue Qingyuan be more like that and less soft-hearted?

Because I think Shen Jiu would hold this kind of approval over Yue Qi's head, not knowing what the Qiong Ding Peak Lord did to his head disciple. "Ha, you abandoned me for this cushy life and your own teacher likes ME more than you." If Shen Jiu had heard what Yue Qingyuan confessed to Shen Yuan at Mai Gu Ridge, I think he would have torn the previous Qiong Ding Peak Lord's throat out with his teeth.

MAYBE Yue Qi's imprisonment in the Ling Xi Caves actually saved his life and the previous Qiong Ding Peak Lord was a really nice person who tried his best in a terrible situation. That's totally possible. We just don't know. It's possible that Yue Qi's cultivation system was so messed up that destroying it and rebuilding was the only known option to save this kid's life. But a year of solitary confinement seems... incredibly cruel to me. Was that really necessary? It does sound as though he was at least visited, but it's unclear by who or how often.

But in any interpretation / AU where the Qiong Ding Peak Lord just sucks as a person, him actually LIKING Shen Jiu would be particularly painful. Ouch.

~

Relevant quote from Volume 3 of SVSSS (I cannot remember the chapter or the page numbers):

But Yue Qingyuan’s next words would shake Shen Qingqiu to the core. “I’m truly…sorry.” Even his voice trembled. “Even though I wanted to return as soon as possible, even though I wanted to come get you immediately…I made a mess of things instead. You were right. In the end, I’m an impulsive person…

“After that, Shizun destroyed all the tendons, bones, and meridians in my body, then shut me inside the Ling Xi Caves for more than a year. My entirety was broken down, to be rebuilt anew.

“I screamed, I yelled, but it was no use. For an entire year, inside that pitch-black cave, no matter how crazed I became, how hysterical, no one listened closely to what I said, no one let me out…

“I pushed myself as hard as I could, but by the time I returned, Qiu Manor had already been destroyed for some time…”

[tossawary]

I don't know when I'll be posting the next chapter of "Some Unknown Corner" (Qijiu Canon Divergence AU), unfortunately. I'm trying to be a little loose and relaxed about this, and this end of week is kind of busy for me. Sometime this weekend at the latest, again, I think, which miiiiight mean that I won't update on the Monday.

(I'll take a break if I need to, I just like trying to keep something of a schedule and trying to keep everyone updated helps me settle my mental calendar. I know the feeling of hopefully refreshing a page all day.)

[tossawary]

Reblogging this again because I enjoyed this one! I love the dramatic irony of Shen Yuan not knowing what PIDW is or that Luo Binghe is the protagonist.

Also, here's a link to the fic that originally inspired it! "learning joy" is a prequel for "sweet as honey".

Summary:

Shen Qingqiu opened his arms, but Binghe didn’t run to him. Instead, he hesitantly took a single step forward. “Teacher, I have a question for you.”

“Of course, Binghe,” Shen Qingqiu said. “Anything.” Binghe was such a diligent student.

“I’m,” Binghe began. He seemed to lack his usual confidence lately. “Teacher, what if I wasn’t dead?”

~

Shen Qingqiu’s very normal, very dead disciple Luo Binghe has been visiting him in his dreams. And there’s been a surge in demonic activity. And all of his disciples think he’s losing it. He’s coping.

MXTX Remix 2024 fics have been revealed! I wrote about Shen Yuan and Luo Binghe getting to know each other and learning to live together in a No System AU, as a prequel to a cool ghostly Bingqiu fic called "sweet as honey" (linked in the Author's Notes). Enjoy! ❤️

Summary:

Shen Yuan wakes up as Shen Qingqiu without having read Proud Immortal Demon Way and without a Transmigration System to guide him. He has no goals, no tasks, and no quests. He and Luo Binghe manage to find each other anyway, as master and apprentice, and teach each other to find joy in this strange world.

[tossawary]

Chapter 3: Conference

This chapter is around 5,500 words long. Enjoy! ❤

[tossawary]

I personally have a relatively low tolerance for secret identity and other secrecy shenanigans in media. Like, sure, when it's good, it's good stuff, but otherwise it's more often than not just not my thing.

Which is why one of my favorite Canon Divergence AUs for any show reliant on this trope is to pull a "Fuck it, their secret identity gets revealed in Episode 2 now and the characters just have to deal with it". I think that's a great type of fanfiction.

It moves the secret from something causing strain in a personal relationship to something that a pair of characters now potentially have to cooperate to maintain, and I love seeing a couple's teamwork. Show me that these people are drift compatible! Or else working on completely different wavelengths and tripping over each other, but trying anyway!

On the other hand, a reveal can also cause a personal relationship to blow up immediately, which allows for interesting relationship repair later on, or perhaps the characters devolving into active enemies temporarily or even permanently. Which is deliciously fun.

An early reveal in a story dependent on secrets throws the entire plot into disarray, and there's great potential for the dominos to fall in interesting ways. Butterfly effect. For want of a nail. I love that stuff.

[tossawary]

I thought I was completing my cosplay for this year within a reasonable time frame despite some unrelated hand-stabbing setbacks; I was doing something light in order to focus on helping someone else with their cosplay and the complicated props involved. I was on track! And then a different loved one texted me that they actually want to do cosplay for the first time and now I'm trading baked goods for sewing machine lessons. This is a slippery slope and I have no choice but to fling myself down it headfirst.

[tossawary]

MXTX Remix 2024 fics have been revealed! I wrote about Shen Yuan and Luo Binghe getting to know each other and learning to live together in a No System AU, as a prequel to a cool ghostly Bingqiu fic called "sweet as honey" (linked in the Author's Notes). Enjoy! ❤️

Summary:

Shen Yuan wakes up as Shen Qingqiu without having read Proud Immortal Demon Way and without a Transmigration System to guide him. He has no goals, no tasks, and no quests. He and Luo Binghe manage to find each other anyway, as master and apprentice, and teach each other to find joy in this strange world.