#Pointed Peaks

[savage-kult-of-gorthaur]

FILE UNDER: NORTH SHORE MOUNTAINS, PELICAN NEBULA, ASTROPHOTOGRAPHY, ETC...

PIC INFO: Spotlight on the North America and Pelican Nebulae in the Cygnus region of the night sky, shining above the "Two Sisters" pointed peaks along the North Shore Mountains, British Columbia, Canada. 📸: Liron Gertsman.

Source: www.picuki.com/media/2498102755360342906.

[fairsweetlonging]

something i wanna say on shen yuan taking over shen jiu's body is that i often see mentions that while everyone knew, nobody did anything because they liked shen yuan better, and i think it's important to say that they did do something about it, but just couldn't find the cause.

shen qingqiu went to wei qingwei's sword trials terrace three times to try to pull hong jing, yue qingyuan himself tested him on demonic qi and mu qingfang did ample research to try and find the reason behind the sudden change, but none of them could find anything. only after all that did they consider the option that it could be amnesia, and then they decided that it might be better not to actively reinstate his memories because they thought the new shen qingqiu was more pleasant. but, again, that was only after they couldn't find any evidence that this wasn't shen qingqiu. it's still pretty tragic that they decided they liked someone else better, but in their defense, they didn't know this was actually someone else.

i think it's not so much a case of "we like this version of shen qingqiu better so let's not look into it too deeply", it's more like "we tried every test we have and nothing came of it, so the only explanation left is that this is the real shen qingqiu, but with amnesia"

it reminds me of this meme:

[ID: An edit of a post by @/tockthewatchdog which says, "i mean they did also test sqq, that was a pretty significant thing that happened. like i understand where you're coming from here but they very much did test shen qingqiu". End ID]

ID made by @nebulations thank you so much!!

[marzipanandminutiae]

hello, internet user. before you is a selection of pictures you tagged "dark academia." you have 30 minutes to explain what each of them has to do with academia, defined by the Oxford dictionary as "the environment or community concerned with the pursuit of research, education, and scholarship"

if you cannot complete this task a literature professor will enter the room and beat you into unconsciousness with a baseball bat that has the word "GOTHIC" printed on it in large letters

good luck

[chloesimaginationthings]

PLEASE!

DRAW BIG TOP, AND MY LIFE, IS YOOOUURRRSSSS /ref

I’ve technically have drawn him before!! Before SOTM dropped,,

(Original comic here)

[podcastwizard]

if someone sees me with clean hair, wearing a sundress, in golden hour lighting and they DON'T fall in love with me??? then there's no hope i just have to move on it's never going to get better than that

[dana-sculy]

[male--wife]

my girlfriend and my coworker are both slick and sleek and full of secrets

or

harry truman and the procrastinated sexuality crisis

[kingsillysmilez]

Its called Starview Peak because its PEAK

[ohno-the-sun]

Sometimes it’s odd to me hearing people say the dca fandom is dead cause I’m over here like

Huh? What do you mean??

I’m still doodling around with my little guys and there are people still willing to listen

And I still see new aus and stories popping up, lots of people still update their fics

I guess it’s not peak levels like back in 2022 but idk I’m pretty happy with its current state

Having been in truly DEAD fandoms, we are so far away from that point right now I think we are fine

[leqclerc]

Charles Leclerc in Formula 1: Drive to Survive, Season 7 (2025)

[nikonuee]

Shang Qinghua should make the Xianxia version of Redbull.

Maybe he can't get Coffee in this world (Why Oh Why did he not write in coffee-) But He'll eat his own paperwork (And maybe go down for attempted murder-) if he doesn't start getting more caffeine in his system to deal with tax season!

So, some herbs and ill-advised monster parts (The feathers of the 3-headed celestial bull being a key ingredient had him ugly laughing when he figured *that* out-) mixed in with his tea later and viola! DIY energy supplements! Yippee!

He is defs going to use this responsibly!

(Spoiler: he doesn't and when he eventually crashes and gets brought to Mu Qingfan. He gets the reaming of his life about untested medicines and then bullied into allowing MQF into helping refine it because like HELL the doctor is giving up those stimulants!)

[fairsweetlonging]

svsss horror game au where shen yuan is first in line to buy the pidw-inspired rpg where you play as a wandering cultivator with amnesia, and are taken in by the cang qiong sect during the head disciple days of the last peak lord generation.

because pidw knows its audience, a large part of the marketing was focused on the romance and action aspect of the game, with additional lore from deleted novel scenes—how could shen yuan not buy this game? maybe the peak lords will finally be more than props in the background! the romance aspect seems to be at least somewhat tastefully done, if he can trust the leaks, with more emotional depth than fetish fulfillment (shen yuan swears that if there is even one unskippable cutscene of some peak lord's feet he's going to chuck his computer out the window).

shen yuan customizes his character, going all out on the clichés because why not, giving him white hair and peerless beauty and all the characteristics of an A+ wife (beauty is power in pidw), actually excited to play the game. the first part is standard, you wake up in a barn with amnesia, only a sword and some items to your name, and have to do some tutorial quests to get used to the game mechanics. it's simple enough. eventually, you end up in a village that shen yuan is certain is possessed, because all the NPC's act very unnatural and strange, and it's pretty unsettling. here, the player is supposed to meet the cang qiong head disciples on their own quest, who naturally think the player is the most interesting person they've ever seen, a super special cultivator, and will take him in because the player is the most coveted character in the universe (apart from luo binghe, that is).

of course, before shen yuan can get very far, he ends up being transmigrated into the game as his own character. it could be way worse: he's a cultivator, peerlessly beautiful, destined to be picked up by the most prestigious sect, and has his own protagonist halo of sorts. he's honestly pretty excited about this

until he finds out that the marketing heavily downplayed the horror elements of the game.

shen yuan is calmly eating a meal in an inn of the village, waiting for the next quest point to start, when suddenly,

[ system notification ]

"you are being observed"

observation level: ???

entity classification: unknown

engagement protocol: do not acknowledge

right after, the windows go dark, not closed or shuttered, dark, as if something large has just leaned against the side of the building. no one else acknowledges this.

shen yuan shakes it off. it's just a game, it's... ambiance, that's all. build up.

he walks through the streets of the town, using his low-level talismans to try and find traces of the entity he's supposed to defeat or uncover to complete the quest. he pauses beside a broken cart, one of its wheels is half-sunk in the mud. the system pings again.

[ system notification ]

"it's behind you."

note: do not turn around.

(option to suppress message: [ ] not recommended)

the street is utterly silent. a prickle begins at the base of his skull. something is there. some deep animalistic part of him is already screaming not to look.

it disappears. he earns 5 survival points. he hopes he won't have to earn any more.

later that night, shen yuan looks for shelter, finding an old shrine visible from the road, just at the side of town. he steps inside and sees old incense sticks, some forgotten offerings. it's simple, but dry. it will do.

he crosses the threshold—

[ mission triggered ]

mission objective: hide

time limit: unknown

condition to complete: remain unnoticed

footsteps crunch in the leaves outside. every nerve in him goes rigid—not human.

too heavy. uneven. it's coming.

shen yuan ducks behind the offering table, body pressed flat against the ground. he slows his breathing, barely daring to blink. a screen in his peripheral vision blinks to life.

[ environmental mechanic activated ]

microphone mode: ON

sound detection level: HIGH

a semi-transparent sound meter appears. with every shaky breath, the bar pulses red. shen yuan clamps his hands over his mouth.

something passes, just beyond the shrine's opening. large. the system does not count down. there is no timer. the floor boards moan faintly beneath a ponderous weight, something drags across the ground.

shen yuan forces his body still, trembling so hard it hurts his teeth.

it leaves. the system congratulates him for surviving. it doesn't tell him what he just survived.

it's a relief when the head disciples of cang qiong show up, and the story delves into romantic cliches and relationship prompts. he gets to see liu qingge shirtless. shen qingqiu is typical tsundere. yue qingyuan is the soft gentle type. shang qinghua acts... off. he isn't what shen yuan thought he would be, less cunningly charming, more, well. nervous. of all the head disciples, he's the only one who actually seems like he doesn't want shen yuan to be here, always looking around.

like he knows shen yuan didn't come alone.

more instances like this occur. one moment, he's farming reputation points and relationship points with the other characters, doing quests and gathering memory fragments that will help unlock the player's backstory, the next, the system seems determined to make the game hell.

it always comes out of nowhere

[ system update ]

"warning: your heartbeat has been logged by another entity."

would you like to mute heartbeat tracking?

[ ] yes

[ ] no

[ ] it's too late.

he can never figure out what's following him, what that creature from the village is, but it's always there. no one else seems to notice, not a single talisman or ward can stop or detect it.

it comes even when he's in bed, still faintly blushing from a wife-plot equivalent where he fell from a ladder and was caught in wei qingwei's arms. he got to pet the pangolins too!

he's just about to fall asleep when the system pings:

[ mission objective: survive until dawn ]

hint: do not scream

somewhere beneath the floorboards under his bed, something begins scraping. like claws trying to memorize the layout of the house from below. shen yuan doesn't dare move. sleep never comes that night.

*

he can farm intelligence points by attending classes, and being the monster and plant nerd he is, qian cao peak is his first choice (it's either that, being beat up by bai zhan disciples that aren't even liu qingge, or running into shen qingqiu).

in the middle of a lesson on demonic poisons, the system pings quietly

[ system message ]

"one of the bodies in the infirmary is not a body"

objective: don't lose sight of it

shen yuan turns his head, slowly, to the curtained recovery beds along the wall. the curtain on the last one is slightly open.

it wasn't before.

mu qingfang continues speaking. shen yuan doesn't dare to look away.

*

one day, the thing starts to catch up

[ mission failure ]

"the sound you made has been registered"

estimated proximity: 00:00:17

do you want to run?

[ ] yes (not recommended)

[ ] no (not recommended)

*

[ emergency notice ]

"you were seen"

objective: hide

time limit: expired

success rate: 2%.

do you want to proceed?

[ ] yes

[ ] yes

*

[ achievement unlocked: it found you anyway ]

*

anyway, can you tell i had fun with the horror prompts? ^_^

i just have sooooo many ideas for the player's backstory, where it seems the character is just a blank slate for the player to project themselves onto, but there is so much more to them than you think. im also having loads of fun with the creature that follows the player around, i love making it as disturbing as possible.

mild spoiler: the creature is real and connected to the player. other characters can't detect or interact with it, but it's slowly growing stronger. shang qinghua is, of course, airplane, and as he was directly involved with the production of this game, he knew that as soon as an OC showed up, that thing wouldn't be far behind.

also, i love the idea of shang qinghua being stuck in a dating simulator as one of the options to romance. now shang qinghua has to play along with his own cringy cliche meetcutes, like showing the player around, flirting with the player, and generally playing the role of suave administrator with a dark secret (he's terrible at it). he had to do the "there's an eyelash on your cheek allow me" move on the player (shen yuan), and almost cringed out of his own skin. though, shang qinghua is the only one who can properly emphasize with the player, because he actually knows what horrid creature is stuck to him and what kind of horror scenarios the player has to go through (accidental cumplane? it's more likely than you think).

it's a bit of a mindfuck too, because shang qinghua can't tell whether the player is also a transmigrator, a puppet controlled by someone from another dimension, or a fleshed out OC of the system. he's also not allowed to ask, so it remains ambiguous. until, of course, they find out they're transmigrators and shen yuan has to deal with the fact he almost romanced airplane.

shen yuan makes a joke about defeating the creature with the power of love. shang qinghua says he wished it was that easy.

[mobius-m-mobius]

@lokiusweek 2025 - Day 1: jealousy + missing scene

[magpiedraws]

So I started watching Once Upon A Witchlight-

[spacenintendogs]

hiccup: my dad after he said "keep the damn dragon off the bed"

[dukecarrion]

bunch of akiren expression doodles ft. an akechi