#Shen Yuan's family

[pr0cyon-lotor]

I feel like starting yet another unfinished fic :D

What AU should I write? Here's the selection:

Shen Jiu is forced to seduce his soulmate (SY) via dating sim aspects courtesy of the system

JiuYuan are rival peak lords and use BingFan as a sort of proxy fighters because it's unsightly to hit your martial sibling with a metal chair

Shen Yuan's obsession lies with Shen Qingqiu instead of Luo Binghe

Shen Yuan and Shen Jiu are courting and it's truly Ming Fan's problem (Luo Binghe is trying to court Ming Fan with varying success)

One of the angst prompts. Suggest which one because I will just put them in a wheel and spin otherwise

SY is a dragon with a scholar's wet dream of a library. He's also a pathetic sopping wet dog about Shen Jiu

JiuYuan in a horror mystery that focuses on internal conflict and has a twist I'm proud of (currently plotting it)

My favorite acid trip of an AU that focuses on the Shen siblings trying to reunite and their systems being massive haters yet they somehow get bitches

Shen Yuan is transmigrated in a beast taming peak disciple and his soul rejects it

Shen Yuan is reborn multiple times and loves Shen Jiu each time. And Shen Jiu is kept sane barely about it

Fluffy Scumcumplane hhrrrggnnng (I'm not normal about them)

Or I finish one of my WIPs

Edit: yeah I noticed that I wrote scumplane instead of scumcumplane. Whoops I was tired when I made the poll

[verycharismaticdragon]

Y'know I'm not going to go and argue with people but I'm. kinda weirded out by the "Shen Yuan's family was actually neglectful/awful/abusive" takes? Because we have a story where:

a point is made about cycles of violence and how abuse creates more abuse (with Qiu Jianluo - Shen Jiu - Bing-ge sequence).

a point is made about how the person can turn out very differently depending on their environment growing up (with differences between Bing-ge and Bing-mei).

And like... how does one look at those two points, then at Shen Yuan saying he had a loving family, and forgoes the obvious conclusion - that growing up in a stable home is what sets him apart in the world of PIDW (including from literal author of the world who is a lonely and embittered child of the divorce!) and allows him to change it with the power of love & kindness & bonding with people - in favor of deciding that his family was ~actually~ horrible?..

In that case, what makes him capable of breaking the cycle? Some kind of innate goodness or kindness? That, for some reason, no other character happened to possess? Right. Nice going completely devaluing Shen Jiu's tragedy.

To explain the last point: we get a lot of backstory for Shen Jiu, and the obvious takeaway from it is that he was not born a scum villain. That he did have a desire to do (and be) good, but it just couldn't flourish - because of a combination of terrible circumstances of his youth, his personal flaws, and the demands of the meta-narrative.

Thing is... two of those problems, he shares with Shen Yuan. Shen Yuan has his own personal flaws aplenty, even if they differ from Shen Jiu's, and a literal manifestation of the meta-narrative haunting him. But, unlike Shen Jiu, he happened to have a good family. That is their fundamental difference.

If one argues that Shen Yuan's family situation actually wasn't good, then what allows him to be so different from Shen Jiu? Isn't that saying that Shen Yuan was just a good person from the start... and Shen Jiu was just a bad person from the start? you know, the exact sentiment that made Shen Jiu give up on himself? And isn't it flattening Shen Jiu's story from a tragedy of a person who was broken out of his desire to do good by his terrible circumstances, into just 'a bad guy doing bad things because he's bad'? like, exactly what Airplane did to him in PIDW...

---

But, some of you may ask, don't we have evidence that Shen Yuan wasn't actually very happy in his past life?

Thing is, I don't disagree with that! I just think it didn't necessarily have anything to do with the quality of his home life.

For starters, having a loving family is not everything. Like, even if you just look at Maslow's pyramid, "love and belonging" is actually in the middle of the thing. Shen Yuan could have a perfectly fine, caring family and still be unfulfilled on "esteem" (recognition and respect from other ppl + personal feelings of accomplishment) and "self-actualization" (becoming the best possible version of himself) levels.

And that's before we factor in that he's a(n obviously if you read between the lines) queer dude who grew up in a country that criminalizes queerness which is something I don't see brought up a lot in discussions of the strength of his internalized homophobia, and the possibility that he is an undiagnosed neurodivergent person (i personally hc him as having adhd-I, i know there are also ppl with autistic headcanons, could be both, etc etc), and the influence of his social circle outside his family (cishet dudes on the forums, from what he know, so not the most positive and uplifting bunch)...

---

Lastly, while I think the thematic evidence from the first half of this meta is more telling, there are also a few small in-text details that prove Shen Yuan's words about how close-knit his family was.

First, the way he compares Yue Qingyuan to his older brothers in the very beginning, at the time he is still finding his footing and YQY is the one person looking out for him. (On the subject of SY!SQQ and YQY, just read this post, I won't be able to put it better.) Shen Yuan is explicitly "feeling at home in the atmosphere of brotherly love".

Second, the fact that we know he read his younger sister's danmei novels. On Shen Yuan's side, literally how committed he had to be to supporting his sister's interests, when we know from being in his head how determined he is about playing ostrich with anything and everything gay. No shit he spoiled her, I believe that one hundred percent. And on his sister's side, the level of trust she has towards her brother? Having full confidence that she could make him read gay bdsm and he wouldnt love her any less?..

---

So yeah, I think all signs point to Shen family being as close-knit and loving as Shen Yuan says.

[feeshu09]

Just woke up from my nap and thought of that one b99 scene, but mamajiu flavored.

[sunderwight]

Modern AU where Shen Yuan accidentally sugar-daddies everyone.

So for the purposes of this, Shen Yuan's family is basically $10 Bananas levels of cluelessly rich. Shen Yuan has almost never had to look at the prices of anything he wants. He and his siblings all get an allowance from the family's main account, which increases when they reach adulthood, and in the interest of fairness his parents made it all the same size. So Shen Yuan gets the same amount of money for his daily living expenses as his older brothers with their penthouse apartments and vacation homes and private jets, at least from the family account (since he doesn't work, he doesn't actually make as much as them in total because they earn more on top of their allowances).

And the thing is, Shen Yuan genuinely just lives a lot more humbly. He likes people but what would he do with a vacation house? Anything really nice would probably require him to fly to get out there, and he gets sick as hell on planes. Living in the central city is also not great for him, because the air pollution is so bad. Having a whole house to himself would also be ridiculous. So he has a reasonable apartment, in a reasonable area, and he splurges every so often on purchases that make him happy and take-out food that he likes, and of course he pays a cleaning service to come in twice a week. Most people assume he's comfortably middle class and has some tech job he does from home, but he's been getting a lot more than he's been spending in his monthly allowances for years now, and the figures are big.

Enter into this environment author Airplane and his trash novels. Novels, multiple, because in this AU there's no PIDW, and instead after some alternate PIDW prototype got popular in the harem genre, Airplane decided to churn out a series of copy-paste shorter stories rather than recycling the same subplots in one massively long epic.

Shen Yuan of course discovers Airplane's writing and becomes as obsessed with it as ever, except this time he notices that if there are delays between new stories, they seem to clear up faster whenever he throws some cash at the problem. And also that the drops in Airplane's writing quality coincide with times when Shen Yuan was having health issues and not keeping up with his VIP purchases. So, he works out that Airplane's probably doing the writing for the money, and that when Peerless Cucumber isn't paying the most for it, Airplane starts listening to the other buffoons in the comment section more to try and entice them to pay his bills instead.

Peerless Cucumber leaves a comment on one of Airplane's latest stories that kicks off the two of them actually chatting, and Shen Yuan eventually gets to the point of offering to fund all Airplane's writing, in exchange for Airplane not doing his crap sellout stuff to appeal to other readers anymore. Airplane thinks he's joking or maybe mocking him. Shen Yuan asks how much it would cost. Airplane fires off a ridiculous number. Shen Yuan doesn't even blink and wires him the first payment. Then he gets annoyed because Airplane leaves him on read for a while, but that's because Airplane is staring at his account balance in shock.

Of course, it's Airplane who starts referring to Peerless Cucumber as his sugar daddy. Shen Yuan is just like "based on your sex scenes I don't think anyone would pay you for that" and Airplane's all "but you WOULD pay for my sex scenes ^_~" and Shen Yuan's like "technically I am actually paying you not to write that shit" and so on. Usual banter. The quality of Airplane's writing improves dramatically, a lot of his readership drops off but he does get new readers and gradually builds up an even bigger fanbase than before, and so on, it all goes pretty well. He eventually writes a few things that take off to the point of getting physical publications and international translations. Technically Airplane no longer needs Shen Yuan to pay all of his bills by that point but he's not going to tell Shen Yuan that! The contract's still good as long as he keeps writing!

Then one of Airplane's online acquaintances runs into some financial trouble and asks for help.

Liu Mingyan used to beta read for Airplane back when he wrote fanfiction (she was like thirteen, Airplane was unaware because internet and hey free beta), and it seems her family has hit a rough patch. She wants tips on how to go pro, but Airplane explains that it was extremely difficult and he mostly lucked out by finding a single wealthy backer. Mingyan wonders if the same guy would be interested in her writing, Airplane sadly thinks not because Mingyan exclusively writes kinky danmei erotica and Peerless Cucumber seems pretty firmly in the closet still and also generally prefers plotty and world-building heavy stuff.

But like, Airplane has definitely gotten a vibe off of Cucumber-bro, and Mingyan's gorgeous older brother does video streams of himself doing cool martial arts and swordsmanship stuff. So he asks her permission and when she gives it, he recommends Liu Qingge's videos to Shen Yuan, being sure to mention that the guy in question can't really afford to keep up with his hobbies and oh what a shame it would be if he had to stop making art like that.

Haha, Airplane, you're not subtle.

Even so, Shen Yuan watches the videos and immediately agrees that Liu Qingge is beauty in motion, and that it would be criminal to deprive the world of more videos of his sword. Swordsmanship! That is the, the art of, martial arts! Definitely. He clicks the donate button, reasoning out that he'll just send a donation about the size of his usual monthly payments to Airplane and call it his good deed for the day.

Liu Qingge is very confused by this new follower from nowhere who suddenly dumped a little over a month's rent into his account. One thing leads to another, with Mingyan and Airplane conspiring to try and get Shen Yuan as a permanent patron, and then Liu Qingge being let in on it. Except that Airplane keeps referring to Shen Yuan as his sugar daddy, and well... it's not like Liu Qingge doesn't ever get 'those' kinds of comments on his videos. At first he's embarrassed, then offended, then mortified that his own younger sister is apparently setting him up to make premium private videos for what he assumes is some old pervert who is going to want him to do untoward things.

However, their options are pretty bleak at the moment, and Liu Qingge worries that if he doesn't do this then Mingyan might. She even mentions something to the effect of having planned to offer herself, and only didn't because she wasn't this "sugar daddy" guy's type!

Teeth clenched, Liu Qingge asks Airplane stiltedly for advice on how to... appeal, to this wealthy benefactor.

In the end though it's not nearly as bad as Liu Qingge feared. He winds up doing more videos in costumes and cosplay, which ought to have been an untenable expense, but Peerless Cucumber always ends up covering the cost of whatever he invests in plus extra. Sometimes he sends Liu Qingge stuff with a request to wear it, but so far it's just been like, badass warrior-themed or historical costumes. Nothing overtly pervy. He does some LARPing, he makes enough to start doing horseback archery again, convinces some of his good-looking peers from various clubs to spar with him, and ultimately the most risque videos he ends up doing are the ones where he demonstrates how to put on certain kinds of gear. He still locks those ones behind paid subscribers only, mostly because he feels like he's doing something illicit now, even if he used to show more skin on his older videos any time he took his shirt off.

Peerless Cucumber doesn't leave creepy comments, either. In fact he seems genuinely nice and supportive, it's hard not to like him, and so even once his situation levels out Liu Qingge decides there's not really much need to stop making videos for him. (He maybe even gets a little giddy thrill over... well, sometimes he finds it all a bit... just when he thinks about Peerless Cucumber watching him demonstrate his physical prowess and finding that alone worth... ANYWAY--)

So that goes on for a while, before Yue Qi enters the scene.

Yue Qi is the childhood friend of one of Shen Yuan's older brothers (Shen bros!) and Shen Jiu owes him a big favor for something that he won't talk about. At least he won't talk to Shen Yuan about it. But Yue Qi is also not the type to ask for help, and Shen Jiu is very bad at offering it, so when Shen Jiu gets word that Yue Qi is having some difficulties making ends meet, he tells Shen Yuan to act as the middle man. Go offer Qi-ge money, he knows you're nice he'll just accept it, and then Shen Jiu will pay the actual bill.

Well it turns out that Yue Qi doesn't just accept it, of course he sees right through it, and gently but firmly tells Shen Yuan that he's not interested in burdening Shen Jiu further than he already has. Etc, etc, stoic stiff upper lips and no proper communication all around. Shen Yuan panics because it's not working and he's also genuinely worried about Yue Qi by now, so he tries to figure out how to make it compelling and basically blurts that, well, see, the thing is that sometimes he pays men to entertain him. You know. To like. Do things, for him. So. He could also pay Yue Qi? To do something for him?

Yue Qi gets the wrong idea entirely, and at first is like, oh, no, A'Yuan, you shouldn't be paying people for that! These things should just happen organically! But Shen Yuan is very adamant that he believes in compensating people for what they do for him, it's not like he can't afford to, and it gets awkward but Yue Qi is like well he does have health problems. It's perhaps difficult for him to meet people. So then he starts worrying about Shen Yuan and all these strange men he's apparently paying for "entertainment". Does his brother know about this?

No of course Shen Jiu doesn't know! He'd hate it, and Shen Yuan doesn't want to hear about how he's doing everything wrong with his life again!

Then Shen Yuan mentions that his prior house cleaning service up and quit on him (they didn't), and if Yue Qi would like to earn fair compensation he could just come over sometimes to help instead, and Shen Yuan would pay him just to tidy up and hang out for a few hours! Which Yue Qi thinks is a fantastic idea, actually, even if Shen Yuan is only doing this because of his brother, this will give Yue Qi a chance to keep an eye on him and his so-called entertainers. Even if he sort of... ends up also being one?

Shen Yuan keeps everything above board, though his apartment always seems perfectly clean and he overpays way too much (Shen Jiu is still footing this bill after all), and Yue Qi starts to think maybe he actually is being paid for intimacy. Of a sort that they're maybe still working up to? Shen Yuan usually has a very thin face after all. He's kind of got two minds about this prospect. On the one hand, he's got his situationship with Shen Jiu, so dating his brother would be absurd. But on the other hand, it's not actually dating, and he does like Shen Yuan, and maybe if they can be good company for each other then Yue Qi won't feel so depressed and Shen Yuan won't need to hire strange men so often.

Meanwhile it's come to Shen Yuan's attention, perhaps through an offhand comment he read online somewhere, that people who are struggling financially often also struggle to "treat themselves". Because even when they have enough money to be comfortable there's often the looming specter of deprivation, and etc, so he figures he should start buying some of his dependents more treats and things. Since they might not buy them for themselves? And also he's enjoying doing this but shhh no he isn't, it's a huge hassle, he's only doing it out of basic moral decency, etc.

So like, Airplane starts getting little things that he'd put on some public wish lists, clearly sent by Peerless Cucumber. And he tells Mingyan to make a list for Liu Qingge too, and sure enough, Liu Qingge (bewildered, slightly flustered) tries to figure out what he's supposed to do with an album from a band he likes and some high-end leather polish. Ultimately settles on playing the music and wearing his nicest leather in his next video. Yue Qi starts arriving at Shen Yuan's place to be plied with his favorite coffees and to have scented candles awkwardly foisted onto him (Shen Yuan does not know what Yue Qi likes in gifts) (he buys these presents himself they're not out of Shen Jiu's pocket).

So finally Shen Yuan's parents start to notice that he's been spending a lot more than usual, and start to worry that he's either been taken in by a scam artist or is secretly dating a gold digger or has developed a drug addiction or something. But asking things directly like normal people is basically illegal in the Shen family, so they decide to hire a private investigator.

Enter Luo Binghe, a young man of humble background who is struggling to make ends meet after the untimely death of his adoptive mother, and is using his P.I. job and his online cooking videos to help pay his way through school (scholarship student). Usually his cases are more like, cyberstalking someone to find out if they're cheating on their spouse, or helping someone planning a lawsuit accumulate evidence on their corrupt employer, or other things like that. When he gets the Shen Yuan case, the idea that the Shen family's son is paying for "company" is well within his list of probable answers.

Though this one is a little... peculiar?

Mostly because Binghe can't find evidence of Shen Yuan actually getting what he would, presumably, be paying for. At first Luo Binghe just goes through the online paper trails, using the info that the Shen parents give him to figure out that Shen Yuan is paying Airplane and Swordmaster Liu (*cough*) what seem to be exorbitant prices just for trashy fiction and cosplay videos. He assumes this is a cover, that someone's actually delivering drugs or going over for "private meetings" or at least actually sending dirty videos as well, but even when he pays for Liu Qingge's VIP access it's just tutorials and such. Neither of these guys are even on any of the sites that are more lenient towards hosting explicit content. Luo Binghe's aware that kinks aren't always obviously sexual, but people don't usually pay through the nose for the kind of content they can easily find for free all over the place, either.

He digs a little more but keeps coming up empty on evidence to clarify which of the many vices the Shen family's son is actually indulging in. Which is a problem because that's the information they're paying him to find out. Plus his curiosity kind of piques as he reads Shen Yuan's seemingly quite invested comments on Airplane's writing and Liu Qingge's videos, looking to see if there's any kind of clandestine code or pattern. But near as he can tell, whatever else Shen Yuan might be getting out of these arrangements, he does genuinely like the stories and videos too? Well. Sometimes. Sometimes he's actually scathingly vitriolic towards Airplane's writing.

Luo Binghe decides that surveilling Shen Yuan himself is probably the way to go. That gets more complicated in court cases, but since the Shen parents just wants to know what's going on and aren't planning on prosecuting their son for anything, it doesn't matter as much if Luo Binghe gets information in sneaky or underhanded ways.

So, Binghe uses the account he created to access Liu Qingge's videos to chat with Shen Yuan a few times, and then recommends his own cooking channel. Shen Yuan doesn't seem too interested in cooking, so Luo Binghe makes sure to include a video that has an image of himself in his recommendation, and then films a few new videos of himself cooking with his shirtsleeves rolled up to three quarters and a few more buttons than usual unbuttoned, adopting a more flirty persona than he typically does for his shows. He takes his cues from some of Liu Qingge's more popular videos for how to be enticing bait.

It takes a few videos, but eventually Shen Yuan comments. Luo Binghe latches onto the chance to start talking to him, playing up a persona of a vulnerable young man with little means who is trying hard to make it through school, etc, and sure enough Shen Yuan seems interested. Well, most predatory people like vulnerable targets, don't they?

However... Shen Yuan just sends him a chunk of money.

Luo Binghe is confused.

Isn't he supposed to ask for something or create some kind of expectation of repayment first? But, maybe this is his approach to handling new targets. Maybe he's just trying to lull Binghe into a false sense of complacency, before he starts indicating what he wants from all of this. Luo Binghe makes sure to move the money Shen Yuan sends him into a separate account, so that if the Shen parents get angry about it then he can return it as a gesture of good faith.

But Shen Yuan just keeps sending supportive comments and donations. Eventually he leaves a comment that alludes to how badly he'd like to taste Binghe's cooking, and Binghe is like finally, but when he implies that they could perhaps meet in person and Luo Binghe could thank him for his support by making him something, Shen Yuan backs off.

Things eventually progress to the point where Luo Binghe, who is a totally normal person treating this like a totally normal job still thank you very much, is basically camping out in the bushes in front of Shen Yuan's apartment building. At some point he conscripts the aid of his weird cousin (finding his birth family was how he got into this business initially), and then almost immediately regrets it because Shen Yuan helps get Zhuzhi Lang a job doing landscaping for his building.

Why would he want Zhuzhi Lang close but not Binghe? Binghe is much handsomer! He'd make an excellent target for seduction! >:(

Anyway eventually Yue Qi catches Luo Binghe lurking around like a creeper and is like, finally, I have caught one of these suspicious men, whilst Binghe is like oh so he does have a lover, well this guy sucks and is clearly not good enough for him, and they both try and chase one another off and Shen Yuan comes home to a heated passive-aggressive-politeness war being waged in front of his apartment. Eventually he realizes the misunderstanding and calls everyone together (zoom conference? in-person meet-up?) to clarify that he is not paying any of them for "special favors", that was just Airplane being deranged about his sense of humor, and then he has no idea what to do when the prevailing response seems to be disappointment.

[allpiesforourown]

Normalize shen yuan being a pretty boy noble who ignores matchmaking and courting.. normalize binghe being his cute little servant who is actually the emperor's long lost son.. normalize Liu qingge being shen yuans knight and fighting Luo binghe when he returns as a prince and demands shen yuan's hand in marriage..!!

[bloodyfries]

Desperately in need a fic where Shen Yuan wakes up back in his old body/world to find that PIDW has changed. Like, everything that happened to him and that he changed, altered the web novel. Even better if it's a family member that tells him about it.

SY's sister: I finally read that web novel that you were ranting about

Fresh out of the hospital SY: Huh?

SY's sister: Yeah, Proud Immortal Demon Way

SY: Oh... what did you think? It's terrible right?

SY's sister: I actually liked it, not too found of the teacher student dynamic but it works. Though I'm surprised you would read a BL...

SY realizing that his life got turned into a public book: what?

SY's sister: I did think that the whole "papapa to save the world" trope at the end was ridiculous though

SY realizing that his first time was written down and open for public viewing:

Edit: I was going to write a fiction about this but ao3 took way too long to approve my account. Anyway, I don't have motivation anymore :/

[abilai]

Shizun…. Kiss me shizun

[theimpurelily]

“isn’t Cui Wenyan meant to do your chores? Are you going to give it to him? Can I come with you? I want to throw snowballs at him, my aim has become so good.” “Oh. Wait. Have you spent these days throwing snowballs at him?” “And Ming Fan,” Ning Yingying cheerfully admits, “and if Zhao De was here, him too! But I would add a rock in those.” Holy shit.  (from chapter 8)

I fucking love how unhinged NYY can be in @grubus Shen Yuan of No Relation

[friedwizardwhispers]

[lomlompurim]

I saw a video on tiktok about a woman telling how she met and started a committed relationship with another woman while the were in prison, calling eachother wife and then got married once they were out, and I can only think about lesbingqiu in that scenario.

Binghe would totally thrive calling Shen Yuan her wife, wifey, and live in a weird marital bliss with her cell partner. Then make sure to have that marriage written down on paper once they are out.

Shen Yuan probably finds a way to do mental gymnastics about letting Binghe call her wife. Prison codes? Protecting eachother? Just a completly platonic way to call a very close best friend/cell partner? Like those girls who use "girlfriend" in a non romantic way? She doesn't really mind being called wife, everyone does it here, and if she really needs a wife in prison Binghe is the best one. In a besties way. Like very affectionate roomies.

I don't know why or how Shen Yuan would end up being arrested and stay in prison long enough to got herself a "platonic" wife, unless it was just bad luck.

Binghe probably killed someone or smt like that but she is gonna be free one way or another.

[pr0cyon-lotor]

Do you guys ever have an au that you can't put into a summary because it makes no sense if you don't read it completely?

Like how am I supposed to explain the acid trip of an au I have swirling in my mind rn? It has so many parts to it.

Like the Shen siblings are transmigrated into the story but like the system messed up and they were thrown into different parts of the history. And they're trying to find each other within the confines of the system's rules.

Obviously jiuyuan is there, but like Shen Yuan is a cryptid because he's dealing with a penalty from the system but also he was just a creature beforehand but like sealed away. Bro's a changeling like that explanation makes no sense. And like Shen Yuan fakes his death by accident but also he did kill Wu Yanzi, which is always good.

LiuShang is there because I always want liushang to be there.

Mobei Jun gets with Shen Yuan's da-ge. Am I explaining that? ... No that whole storyline is too complicated. But hey, two silent, intimidating men that are gay for each other.

Also Shen Yuan's er-ge gets with Yue Qingyuan? I don't know how to explain that one either. Like what's more romantic than a battlefield? 😗 Probably anything else.

BingFan is also there because I also always want BingFan there. But they do fall into the abyss together. Forced proximity via being stuck in hell. Semi rivals to power couple

I mean Shen Yuan's meimei has a romance with Ning Yingying, and it's literally the most normal ship. They're childhood friend to lovers.

And that's not even to mention that the system is somewhat malicious in this AU.

Family dinners would be strange. Yeah we have here a fire demon that is married to the ice monarch, a disgraced cultivator that is married to this generation's greatest warrior, just deadass a cryptid who is married to the greatest battle strategist and scholar in this generation, and just a normal cultivator with a normal girlfriend.

The Shens would look you dead in the eye and say "Yeah this is my brother" and point to a literal creature of legend.

This AU is so batshit crazy but makes perfect sense in my brain like it's crazy

[verycharismaticdragon]

17, for the ask game? 👀

*for svsss

[ there should be more of this type of fic/art ]

(funny as hell that this came right when i started to compose the previous answer btw)

Oh I have a LIST:

Binghe POV. There's simply. not. enough.

Sopping wet cat Bing-ge as previously mentioned

Whoever actually explores assault survivor Bing-ge in fic will have my entire soul fr fr

Literally anything that would capitalize on the conflict (lit analysis meaning) built into SQQ and LQG's relationship - that one of them treats it as a regular friendship and the other as an epic xianxia bromance (at the very least). I think it would be cool if LQG was given more role than just "a loyal guy with unrequited feelings" from time to time. And I would be especially interested in the iteration where LQG's feelings are entirely platonic and still this intense.

Less pressing than previous because I've actually seen a fic referencing it, but a similar situation in cucumber/plane friendship, where SQQ unquestioningly takes SQH as an ally based on their shared background, but SQH is actually. not at all more loyal to him than to anyone else? Like he'll help, but he'll also sell him out without suffering much guilty conscience too. I think it's a fun discrepancy!

Explore SY!SQQ projecting his older siblings feelings onto YQY. (In more detail than canon does, because this is literally. canon. I've been rereading and there are at least two lines referencing this in early chapters.)

Anything about the parallels between ZZL's loyalty to SQQ and SQQ's loyalty to LBH. I might write meta about this myself one day, but I wish someone else did, I'm lazy okay. The tldr is that in both relationships one person's loyalty hurts rather than helps the other, ultimately because they are trying to do what they think is right for the other without understanding them first.

Shen Yuan's family, esp in reverse transmigration or Bing-ge comes to modern world fics. This is clearly something that shaped SY's character a lot and I think you could get a lot of fun interaction out of it.

For fics that have both Shen Jiu and Shen Yuan without them being siblings: more SY being a bitch to the guy who was mean to his blorbo. Not necessarily for the entire fic, but I think shen vs. shen dynamic is vastly underrepresented, we gotta get onto that. (Also a bit of an aside, but I've seen the idea in fic that SJ is much more powerful than SY as a cultivator, and that... listen, while I agree that SJ would have the benefit of experience, I feel this kinda ignores the fact that SY fixed SQQ's damaged cultivation in several months - before being nerfed by Without a Cure for his efforts, ofc, but still, this implies some level of talent.)

Oh, and last but not least: fics that would explore Binghe's love for SQQ being complicated and not-unfaltering. I tried to imply that a bit in Transmigrator Time Traveler, but I would love a more direct look from someone with more love for angst than me, maybe.

[queens-of-spirits]

Sometimes I get really sad and think about Shen Yuan’s family and how they reacted to his death.

He lived alone, so I wonder how long it took for someone to find him. I don’t think it took very long. Here’s why.

From my understanding, he didn’t get to post his final review of the PIDW ending. He died before he could.

The internet is the internet so people notice that Peerless Cucumber is missing. People get concerned because no way this fucker is not commenting on this if he still has the ability to type and they track him down and get in contact with his family

At first they think the “hey maybe check on this guy, he’s been radio silent online and that’s a not like him” message is a joke, but they send his sister anyway.

Of course, she finds him dead.

And a few weeks later, Peerless Cucumber posts the review with the following note included:

So for those of you itching to know what Peerless Cucumber thought of the update, here you are. I want to thank everyone who reached out out of concern. You were right. My brother died before he could post this. We only found him so fast because of all of you.

I will say, being made aware of this account is the best gift I could be given. I get to read through all his old reviews and really get a sense of everything he hid from us. He was a sickly guy and reading novels like this one were his escape, you know? He used to rant to me about whatever trash he picked out when it was too hard to talk about everything else, so this was like getting to talk to my brother one last time. I could practically hear his voice again.

I’m posting this, his final review, because I know my brother and he would not want the last chapter to go unroasted, even if he had to do it from beyond the grave, so I believe I can help put him to rest with this.

So this is Peerless Cucumber, signing off for the last time

[dumbfucksystem]

imagine if the shen family was actually a part of the mafia. and shen yuan just never knew.

like his Family is rich and they are all super close. he’s even in contact with some of his distant relatives pretty often, which is kinda cool for him, he’s sure that this isn’t the case for most families so he considers himself lucky to know the extent of his family tree. sure, some of them seem to have lost a marble or two but what family doesn’t have a couple oddballs in their midst, you know?

and its not just sy’s comical obliviousness that contributes to this. his family is well aware that sy is not suited for this life style- especially his siblings. they grew up watching him get himself into all sorts of weird situations and putting himself at a disadvantage simply because he’s too nice. he can try and deny it all he wants (just like how he denies he’s gay- c’mon sy everyone can tell you are not straight) but his sense of justice would only burden him if he were to work for the Family. not to mention his sense of self preservation is absolute shit and they don’t want to have to babysit him his whole life- and he probably doesn’t want that either!

so they send him off to college, help him find an apartment, and basically do everything they can to help him start off on his own, away from the Family. his siblings had to do a whole lot of convincing to let this happen btw- this kind of thing usually isn’t allowed, but sy doesn’t know anything that could be used against the Family, so they make an exception in his case. better for them to not have a deadweight sticking around either is what they say but they all dote on him anyways and refuse to admit they care about him. sy definitely picked up this line of reasoning from them btw.

shen yuan is a little upset and confused that his Family seems eager to send him off (it’s not like they can’t afford for him to live with them after all- both of his older brothers still live in the Family’s massive house and even his aunts and uncles are living there??). he manages to recover quickly though. at least now he can read his web novels in piece without prompting any dick jokes (his cousins had a field day when they found his account with all of his pidw comments…). now he just needs to figure out how to live by himself.

it’s not that sy is incapable of taking care of himself- it’s just that he’s so used to having other people with him that he never understood how much they were doing for him until they were no longer around. but that’s fine, living on your own is just another learning curve and sy is willing to rise up to the challenge. which he did, by the way! he found a job and pays his taxes and even though that isn’t much he still gives himself a mental pat on the back for it. he is still in contact with his siblings, he never misses an update for pidw which he totally doesn’t get excited for and his life is going great.

……until he accidentally eats some expired food and dies.

[sillygoofyqueer]

ANGST IDEA!! So I think someone else proposed that heavenly crow demons used to be like pure gold, but now they are only partially gold. What if, Shen yuan’s parents abandoned him after seeing how he wasn’t very gold. Maybe they were dissapointted that he wasn’t more gold? I’m not really sure if this works but I think it is an interesting idea

OOOOOOH, ANON!!! I'LL NEED TO REREAD EVERYTHING ON CROWYUAN BUT EVEN IF THIS DOESN'T WORK, I STILL LOVE THIS IDEA SO SO SO MUCH!!! The idea of vanity being heavenly crow demons' sin fits in perfectly with this suggestion, because it shows how cruel they can truly be if something isn't to their standards - how DARE their son not be as gold as they are! What sort of weak little creature could possibly meet their standards when it cannot even have a similar shine to them! Why should they go against their nature of carelessness! So, they ditch Shen Yuan upon the first chance they can get, leaving the little baby screeching for help and expecting it to die in the wilderness. Very good angst idea. Guess how it can be made into found family? Did you know that, due to crows being social creatures, they CAN actually adopt unrelated crows into their families? So, a well meaning crow demon (it would be funny if it was a child) finds this baby and just thinks "holy shit that is shiny I WANT IT" and just picks up the shiny crow baby, taking it back to their family's nest home. "Baba, I found a suuper cool shiny thing!" "Oh? Well, let's see-....is that a child." "IT'S SHINY!!" "THAT'S A BABY. HUUUUUN, OUR BELOVED CHILD BROUGHT BACK A SHINY CROW BABY-"

[shimaen]

Sy shizun au

Sy transmitting as a random rogue cultivator many years before the protagonist is even born.

He starts looking for the protagonist but in the way he finds a homeless child that just looks like him, they are not the exact same, but they could easily pass as family. He ends up helping out this child, he felt strangely attached to him, bringing him to his lil cabin near a forest, one of his many hidden safe zones.

The child, Sj, comes in a package with his older brother? Yqy. The 3 of them don't start as teacher and students, much less a parental figure, Sy is not a child, but he must be just 5 or 6 years older than them, but Sy becomes a safe space, he provides them with basic necessities and more.

They grow up respecting him, and he teaches them what he knows, and could be useful. Thing is, the system determines that his work in that era is done, and needs to send Sy to fix the next problem, so one day, 4 years later after meeting his 2 lil gremlins, he goes into the forest, just a normal fauna and flora exploration for Sy, he goes alone with almost nothing, after all he is not going far, they all know this.

But Sy doesn't come back.

They wait until midnight

They are still searching by sunrise

They are losing hope after a week

They think that he must have abandoned them, it was too good to be true, but it still doesn't makes sense, Sy left most of his stuff in their little cabin, all his money, his sword, his trinkets, his fan. If he abandoned them, why did he leave all his stuff too?

They don't want to think that he may have died. It isn't fair. They would prefer that Sy just abandoned them, but they know (they hope) that Sy isn't like that. Years pass, and the plot somehow reconnects, Sj becomes a peak lord, and Yqy the sect leader, they gave up searching a long time ago and just accepted the most probable "truth" Lbh enters the story, and in one of his night hunts, he separates from the group.

He ends up in a section of the forest that looks a bit wilder, somehow more mystical. He reaches a big tree, ancient looking, it almost looks alive, and in the middle of it, there is this crystal, ancient amber filled and pumping with energy, maybe the beating heart of the forest? And there is something in the middle, a figure seemingly sleeping, it looks like his shizun, but not quite, maybe a bit younger, even Lbh doesn't realize until he has his hand pressed against the crystal, blood from his earlier wounds accidentally smeared against the amber, and the figure opens its eyes.

Haha funny au Lbh helps a really confused and out of it Sy out of his amber cocoon and brings Sy to the were they were staying just to discover that his teammates went back to the sect without him So imagine the shock of an Sj that was going to look for his student when he Sees this child carrying a full adult that seems to be unconscious, he was going to scold lbh when he actually sees the face of the man, and it feels like time stopped