#binghe is a character that i treasure

[popqorn]

a gift for @shizunitis

[fireflysugarpie]

need to get this idea out about Shang Qinghua being an actual god/deity lmao

okay, so we all know that Shen Qingqiu's system has Luo Binghe as its power source and shut down when he was in another dimension right?

and that Shang Qinghua transmigrated before Luo Binghe's parents even met each other, but his system was still active, albeit less so because it was before the plot and he was a side character.

what if Shang Qinghua's system used him as a power source to run not just itself, but the entire world of SVSSS/PIDW?

I mean, the guy was transmigrated as a baby, and he's had a lot of time to butterfly effect things in ways he probably didn't even try. and since the System's main goal seems to be fixing/improving the core story for the audience's entertainment, it potbelly had to nudge a lot of stuff back into place to ensure the core plot was still recognizable.

it would make sense as to why Shang Qinghua's system was a lot more emotionless, infrequent, and stingy with points than Shen Qingqiu's system and why it was more restrictive in certain ways with Shang Qinghua.

it could be a cool concept that as the happy ending was reached and the System stepped back, Shang Qinghua slowly got more control over his world and storyline. he proudly wouldn't even notice at first, with all of the work and information he has to deal with in both realms. it would start off small with him just knowing certain things about the quality of goods a merchant was trying to sell his King, thinking he read it somewhere in his mountain of paperwork. then it could escalate into 'remembering' specific details about the lives and dynamics of side characters' families and relationships that he doesn't actually remember writing down, but obviously he must have of he knows that the 3rd sister of the Hé family hates tanghulu because she chocked on one as a child. And then that would snowball into him actually having prophetic abilities and the power to alter fate.

it would also be pretty interesting if the world itself obviously favored him, like flowers moving to face him if he meditated in the same spot for a few hours, birds and other wildlife generally being friendly or non hostile, the wind carrying his humming to the ears of those who are down in their luck, ancient and extremely rare treasures and artifacts really wanting him as their wielder, other divine or mythical beings that are able to tell something is off about Shang Qinghua but can't tell what because of the System, and other people not noticing him because he really really doesn't want them to.

just, Deity Shang Qinghua that doesn't know that he's a deity lol

[everytimewetouch-dot-mp3]

this is the serial killer direction i WANTED that actors au nonsense to go. all that shit is happening too, but this was the part that sparked that whole idea.

this post is loooong

warning binghe is an obsessive yandere freak 🥰 bingyuan are freak4freak tho so like…. it's fine

dead dove do not eat; he is a serial killer and he's kinda horny about it lmao

luo binghe is maybe shen yuan’s biggest fan. when he was fourteen, he saw sy as the male lead in a classical romantic opera and it inspired him to act. he’s seen all of shen yuan’s opening nights and most of his closings, and he was coached by shen yuan’s older brother (until shen jiu dropped him as a client…there was something Not Right about that boy and sj didn��t want him close). he’s got a bit of a shrine to shen yuan in his basement, filled with photos and newspaper clippings a few dried flowers—whenever he was given flowers on stage, shen yuan always tossed one back to the audience. binghe has three. he has every part of shen yuan he can get his hands on, but it's not enough.

when he and sy start working on sqh's game, it's like heaven and hell all at once. sy is even more beautiful up close, even kinder and funnier and smarter than he shows himself to be in the few interviews he's deigned to give. every moment lbh spends with him is ecstasy. every moment he spends apart from him is suffering unlike any he's ever experienced. every day he yearns to touch, to taste, to take shen yuan. to have him and keep him and treasure him the way no one else ever could. no one loves him like luo binghe loves him.

this video game they're working on—it's got a lot of endings. most of the game is the player on their own, but there's one path that gets the shitty teacher character as a companion. and further down that path…well, there are a lot of romance options in a game as big as this.

things start out fine; lbh and sy have great chemistry, it turns out. even when sy has to play the cruel teacher, it's got this undercurrent of something that could easily open the door for the romance arc later on. lbh knew they'd have great chemistry. he and sy are destined to be together; of course they'd work well on screen. they hang out between takes, eat their meals together, carpool when they can. it's amazing.

it's not enough. binghe burns with the need to possess his beloved, and every day he's denied what he rightfully deserves, that fire burns hotter. one night, he goes out to try to find a hookup, just to let off some steam. it's supposed to be a hookup, it really is. he finds someone who looks similar enough to sy from the back that he can almost pretend it's him. but his voice is all wrong, and his attitude is too brazen, and it pisses binghe off so bad that he chokes the guy just so he'll shut up.

it's just—he doesn't stop choking him until he finishes a few minutes later, and by that point, the guy is…well. mbj helps lbh scrub the body and cover his tracks, and the corpse is found a few days later with no real leads.

it happens again a few weeks later. lbh can't have shen yuan, but so many pale imitations throw themselves at him. and every time, he takes them to bed and he swears he won't get angry this time. it's not sy; he knows it isn't sy. there's no need to be angry with them for pretending to be sy when they're not.

he gets angry anyway. he can't help it. he accepts these men's advances, he takes him to bed, he kills them and kills them and kills them. eventually, news comes to light. the date-night killer, a deeply uninspired name born only from the fact that their last known locations were all night clubs. they're all around the same height, all have short brown hair and glasses, all similar builds.

one night binghe asks shen yuan if he wants to go get drinks. he knows a nice quiet lounge, not too crowded since it's so exclusive. shen yuan declines. jokes that he'd better not—the date night killer likes guys with short brown hair; maybe they'd go after him next.

the next body that turns up is…different. still strangled to death, but it seems like the killer (a copycat most likely, the cops say) felt regret afterward. on the victim's back, over and over again, is carved "i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry…"

his a-yuan is afraid of him. luo binghe hates himself, and he hates all these people who put themselves in his path, who get themselves killed by daring to try to replace a-yuan in his heart. it's their fault a-yuan is afraid. binghe is the only one who can keep him safe. he knows he is.

binghe keeps it together until they're approaching the end of shen yuan's time in the studio. the arc is almost finished, and shen yuan mentions that in a month he'll be leaving for his next show's rehearsals. some opera, binghe's pretty sure; his hearing sort of cut out when his beloved said he was leaving. the news is a knife to the heart. his a-yuan can't leave. a-yuan belongs with him, no one can take him away. binghe needs a-yuan, and a-yuan needs binghe.

that night, luo binghe and shen yuan vanish without a trace. binghe has a house. it's under a false identity, and it's way out in the mountains. there, he can keep his a-yuan safe and comfortable. there, he can work to earn his a-yuan's affection. there, no one can take his a-yuan away.

he explains to a-yuan that they're home now, that they are together as they belong, that luo binghe will be the best husband to his precious a-yuan. and sy is so beautiful, so clever, of course he figures out that luo binghe is the date night killer. it's alright though, binghe promises, because he only killed those people for daring to imitate his beloved. now that he and his husband are finally together, binghe's got no reason to kill anyone else. they'll be happy together now that there's no one else in the way.

when shen yuan smiles, it's like the sun breaking through the clouds. he shifts, asks binghe to untie his arms. of course, binghe obeys. anything for his husband. he's not a fool; he knows shen yuan might try to fight and escape as a test of binghe's ability to protect him, and binghe's ready. but instead, shen yuan reaches out and stokes binghe's hair, his cheek. 'binghe went so far for me,' he murmurs, a hypnotic gleam in his eye that luo binghe has never seen. 'i hoped that night… i thought for sure you'd take me when i turned you down for drinks, but you tried so hard to be respectful, didn't you? well. maybe someday binghe will let me see him work? i quite liked the one you carved for me, but i really didn't need an apology. you can try again, can't you? will you make something pretty for me?'

the next corpse is rather beautifully arranged. the wounds carved into the body are artistic, elegant flowing lines and flowers carved into the skin. in the middle of its back, the double happiness character is drawn. shen yuan thinks it’s a lovely wedding present.

[zykamiliah]

shen yuan likes yue qingyuan, the post

i've documented 19 moments featuring sy!shen qingqiu's feelings for yue qingyuan with the express purpose of showing those who think that sy!sqq doesn't like yqy that they are factually WRONG

this is a long one so buckle up, grab a snack, get a drink, etc etc

number one

as it's the usual with shen qingqiu, the first thing he notices in a man is whether he's handsome or not. and here you go: the first thing he sees upon waking up from getting isekai-ed is a handsome, elegant young man looking at him with concern. we do know how shen qingqiu likes that look on pretty men (he likes it a lot)

i also want to point out that yue qingyuan is the first pidw character shen yuan meets. he's already linked to him, not only because he's shen qingqiu's martial sibling, but he's also intrinsically tied to shen yuan's rebirth, to the moment he opens his eyes to the pidw world for the first time. keep this in mind.

number two

upon getting up to date on wtf happened to him and learning his new identity, the second thing shen qingqiu does is worry about yue qingyuan's fate. he doesn't even know him yet and is already giving him the blorbo treatment. why is that? oh, maybe because he likes him???

do you know how many characters shen yuan was "rather fond of"??? not that many i tell you. he's only derailed from worrying about whether he'll cause yue qingyuan's death because the system gives him a little sneak peek of the human stick scene.

so up to this point sy!shen qingqiu has characterized yue qingyuan as a brother type, an amicable, elegant and handsome man, a bleeding heart, too good for this world.

number three

now we add 'considerate' to the many praises shen qingqiu extols on yue qingyuan. the man has to be really busy with all the sect leader work he has to do and yet he makes time to visit shen qingqiu regularly. we know why yue qingyuan does that, but shen qingqiu won't learn about qijiu's backstory until much later, and right now it doesn't matter. the fact remains: shen qingqiu is grateful to the point of tears to have yue qingyuan. even if he doesn't talk about it, we can theorize that he feels a bit lonely: he's a stranger in a new world, like a newborn baby. he may be obsessed with luo binghe but at this point of the story he still hasn't got time to bond with him. so the person shen qingqiu first latches on immediately after his transmigration is yue qingyuan.

number four

"how dare that scumbag shen jiu not treat his shixiong like the god he is, with the kindness and respect he deserves? well i'm not the same, so i WILL treat yue qingyuan better!"

(it's the intention what counts, okay? we know he kind of fuck ups a few times and gives yqy much stress)

also love how shen qingqiu says "brotherly covenant", he really values familial bonds, and he'll come to treasure his bonds with all his martial siblings really quickly.

also, may i point out that shen qingqiu decides to be a good shidi for yue qingyuan and treat him well without any "ulterior motives"? it's not even tied to his survival. he's a kind person by nature, yes, but he doesn't even try to convince the reader that he's going to be a good martial sibling for selfish reasons, which was the case with liu qingge. he just up and decides that yue qingyuan deserves his respect and consideration. he officially adopts yue qingyuan as his big brother.

number five

"at home in the atmosphere of brotherly love", do i need to say more? yue qingyuan makes him feel at home in this new world, he's comfortable around him. his presence soothes shen qingqiu.

number six

furthermore, yue qingyuan reminds him of the brothers of his first life, but the sorrow he feels for losing them is overpowered by a "comforting sense of warmth" so great it makes him feel cheerful. this is the scene where yue qingyuan welcomes him back upon his arrival from the skinner demon incident. in that scene, the first thing they do is smile at each other. shen qingqiu is happy to see him.

he's surprised when yue qingyuan takes his wrist to examine his spiritual circulation, but when he notices what yue qingyuan is doing he instantly relaxes. yue qingyuan's touch doesn't bother him at all.

see how yue qingyuan's presence is often linked to feelings of comfort, warmth, home, brotherly love, joyfulness? keep this in mind too. don't you dare to forget it.

number seven

this is post-demon invasion, while they are discussing the effects of without a cure. shen qingqiu is making good on his word of treating yue qingyuan better than his predecessor, by tamping down yqy's tendency to blame himself for everything.

"i understand that yue qingyuan is genuinely worried about me, unlike SOME PEOPLE, so i have to reassure him in case he decides to be more stressed than normal"

bonus: 7.5

("the three of them" refers to shen qingqiu, mu qingfang and yue qingyuan)

i want to quote this part too, because i can, and because this scene in the donghua was 100% faithful to the novel. just another reminder that shen qingqiu likes martial siblings.

number eight

now we're coming to the siblings-coded moments

exhibit one: "oh oh i figured it out so i'll say it before you do"

i want to point out that shen qingqiu says "obviously", because from his POV yue qingyuan only does things for a good reason. shen qingqiu idolizes him.

number nine

siblings-coded moments exhibit two: "i know how to make you let me do what i want"

we've jumped 3 years, this is the prelude to jinlan arc, and this is how their relationship has evolved. shen qingqiu knows what he has to say for yue qingyuan to allow him to go to jinlan. this is a method he's used the past, of course, because this isn't the first mission he went on after getting poisoned or after the IAC.

+bonus: 9.5 yqy being a mother hen

(this is the day after lbh chased him around jinlan)

number ten

shen qingqiu has just been accused of abusing his disciple, consorting with demons, murder, and being demonic cultivator wu yanzi's disciple. yue qingyuan almost starts a fight right there and there because they want to take his shidi away, but shen qingqiu stops him and his other martial siblings before it can escalate.

he gives yue qingyuan a deep bow. we've already established he respects yue qingyuan a great deal. he's ashamed that he's caused yue qingyuan so much trouble and grief, because he really cares about him, and his opinion of him, and he genuinely didn't want to be like the original who made yue qingyuan suffer a lot. shen qingqiu cares about his sect, about his martial siblings, and about yue qingyuan to the point that he GIVES HIMSELF UP to be imprisoned.

this is plot relevant! remember it, because shen qingqiu only feels ashamed and guilty when he thinks he has wronged the people he loves!

on that note:

number eleven

(this is when luo binghe is laying siege to qiong ding to recover sqq's stolen body and sqq, in the mushroom body, sees his sect siblings for the first time after five years)

number twelve, AKA THE ULTIMATE QUOTE

"the one who placed first" YOU HEAR THAT? YUE QINGYUAN IS THE PERSON HE ADMIRES AND REVERES THE MOST. AND NOT BECAUSE HE LOVED SHEN QINGQIU, IT'S NOT AN ADMIRATION BORN OF A SELFISH FEELING. it's because yue qingyuan is The Protector. THE BLEEDING HEART. he admires his kindness, his self-sacrificing nature, and even if shen qingqiu doesn't know, this are traits they have in common.

number thirteen

siblings-coded exhibit 3: when your other little brother tattles on you to your older brother and you're planning revenge

Remaining seated, Yue Qingyuan looked at him. “A lot of nonsense you’ve stirred up these days,” he said mildly. “Are you done?” Yue Qingyuan had never assumed such a severe attitude when speaking to him before, even going so far as to use a word like “nonsense.” This was already the equivalent of a flogging. It seemed that Liu Qingge had badmouthed him quite thoroughly. Shen Qingqiu swore that one day he’d steal Cheng Luan and use it to chop all the pork hock in all the kitchens of the Twelve Peaks. He’d chop until the oily sheen smothered all its sword glares!

so yue qingyuan being mad at you feels like the equivalent of a flogging. i get you sqq. like when my mom or my brother are mad at me i really feel like crying. anyway. it's hilarious that sqq is planning on stealing chen luan because liu qingge allegedly tattled on him to yue qingyuan.

it's obvious that shen qingqiu recognizes yue qingyuan as a figure of authority in his life, he respects him and as i said before, he cares about what yue qingyuan thinks of him.

number fourteen

we know that shen qingqiu's unconscious actions say a lot about him as a person, and the fact that he unconsciously took a step towards yue qingyuan speaks volumes. he's practically wavering between following yue qingyuan or staying with luo binghe.

this will not be the first time he hesitates to go with luo binghe on the face of yue qingyuan's request/order to stay with him. and in this case, he does stay with cang qiong because the situation has gotten pretty bad.

He didn’t know how long he could hold the others off, and he absolutely couldn’t abandon this mess of a situation and escape with Luo Binghe. Yue Qingyuan and Liu Qingge had been brazen with their show of bias, and Wu Wang was already furious. Either Shen Qingqiu or Luo Binghe had to stay behind, or open conflict would erupt between Zhao Hua Monastery and Cang Qiong Mountain.

yue qingyuan and liu qingge just protected him in front of everyone, so he chooses to stay with them. shen qingqiu is incredibly loyal to them, and most importantly, he doesn't want cang qiong mountain to get into trouble because of him.

this is as good a moment to remind you all that in a lot of instances cqm = yqy in shen qingqiu's mind. obviously there is also the other peak lords and the disciples, but this is important. it isn't just because yqy is the sect leader. yue qingyuan was the first martial sibling he met, the one that welcomed him to the world of pidw and the one that kept him company those first days post-transmigration.

+ bonus: siblings coded exhibit 4:

yqy, out loud so others hear: you're grounded also yqy, whispering: let's have dinner and watch a movie once we get home, what do you want for dessert?

i can't stop laughing

+ bonus 2: parallelisms

(this moment is right after shen qingqiu has learned of shen jiu's past and woke up after being unconscious for 5 days)

When he next opened them, what filled his vision instead was a white bed curtain, its corners decorated with tassels. At the sudden change in scenery, Shen Qingqiu froze in place, surprised and unable to react—at least not before he heard Yue Qingyuan’s voice beside him. “Awake?” Shen Qingqiu mechanically blinked a couple times. His throat felt a bit dry, but he forced out his voice. “Zhangmen-shixiong.” (...) Shen Qingqiu awkwardly sat up. Suddenly, he thought this scene was a little familiar. The first time he’d woken in this world, Yue Qingyuan had also been at his bedside, watching over him.

number fifteen

so shen qingqiu knows he can get away with disobeying yue qingyuan and doing whatever he wants because yqy will forgive him anyway, and yet he chooses to respect yqy's decision and authority. of course he'll later convince yue qingyuan that he should allow him to go, like he's done many times before, but he won't deliberately disobey his zhangmen-shixiong.

so later, when they're on their way to maigu ridge, he tries to convince yqy that he must go with them. this is when yue qingyuan gets THIS CLOSE to locking him up in qiong ding hall.

now this is officially the only time yue qingyuan has done something remotely yandere-y adjacent. and not without reason! shen qingqiu died by self-detonation, then he returned after 5 years, then he was taken by a demon emperor, then he spent 5 days unconscious etc etc. he's admittedly very worried that shen qingqiu will die on him again, this time without a miraculous return. and the best thing? shen qingqiu doesn't know what to do. he didn't know whether to reach with his sword or not, whether to fight yue qingyuan on this or not. he wants to listen to yue qingyuan, but he also wants to go save the world.

and EVEN when he's finally allowed to go to Luo River, he hesitates again when he notices yue qingyuan may be struggling!

number sixteen

the reveal at maigu ridge's scene is really long, quoting it all would be a complete nightmare. so i'll just tell you to go read it because it reiterates some of the things i've already pointed out:

-shen qingqiu worrying about yue qingyuan

Thinking he was fine, Shen Qingqiu let go, but once he did, Yue Qingyuan didn’t remain standing for long before he unexpectedly collapsed again. Shen Qingqiu blanched with shock, then hurried to help him up again. “Zhangmen-shixiong? Zhangmen-shixiong?” After a brief examination, even with his superficial medical knowledge, he could tell that Yue Qingyuan’s current condition was horrible.

-shen qingqiu feeling guilty for causing yue qingyuan trouble

-shen qingqiu almost crying because of qijiu's tragic story and because it breaks his heart seeing yue qingyuan like this

number seventeen

i pointed out earlier that shen qingqiu idolizes yue qingyuan, and this is the first time he sees him so weak, which understandably makes him panic a lot. shen qingqiu thinks yue qingyuan is being talkative because he's dying, but shen qingqiu is having none of it

sobs shen qingqiu is so desperate to keep him alive.

+ bonus 3: yet again shen qingqiu's heart breaking for yue qingyuan

number eighteen

shen qingqiu, post-maigu ridge, wakes up, and upon remembering that he'd left zhangmen-shixiong in a pretty bad situation, he runs out of the lingxi caves in a panic.

you don't know how much this scene makes me feel

like, the moment luo binghe is out of the picture, yue qingyuan's safety becomes his main worry

then when he finally sees him, he's so happy that yqy is fine!

number nineteen: the goodbye scene

But even though he was the sect leader, Yue Qingyuan didn’t go with them. Instead, he stood in place, silently staring at Shen Qingqiu. For some reason, it became comparatively more awkward. As if testing the waters, Yue Qingyuan said, “Xiao-Jiu…” “Shixiong,” said Shen Qingqiu, “it’s Qingqiu.” Even though it would be too difficult to tell Yue Qingyuan the truth, Shen Qingqiu still hoped he could demonstrate the difference in other ways. Yue Qingyuan was stunned for a bit, then gave a small smile. “It’s Qingqiu. Qingqiu-shidi.”

i think this is the first time they've ever been awkward with each other. shen qingqiu says it would be difficult to tell him the truth, whether because the system won't allow him or because it'd be emotionally stressful for him to do so we don't know; but he still wants to mark the difference between the original and himself anyway, because he doesn't want to deceive yue qingyuan.

“What are your plans for the future?” asked Yue Qingyuan. “I have no plans for the time being,” said Shen Qingqiu. “First I’ll wait for Luo Binghe to return and see how he’s doing.” Yue Qingyuan smiled. “You truly adore that disciple.” Shen Qingqiu was searching for a way to answer when Yue Qingyuan said, “Shidi, Cang Qiong Mountain will forever be a place to which you can return whenever you tire of wandering the outside world.” These words were said with utmost sincerity and solemnity. Yue Qingyuan had always been this way. Whatever he promised, he would definitely deliver. And what he couldn’t deliver, he would endeavor to make up for, no matter the cost.

after learning of his past, after all that's happened, shen qingqiu's admiration remains unwavering. their relationship has become more complicated on account of the ghost that haunts it, but if anything, shen qingqiu's feelings for yue qingyuan have only deepened with this new understanding.

After assuming the role of this novel character, Shen Qingqiu had always refused to become the scum villain from the original work. He’d drawn a clear boundary between them and taken great pride in walking the opposite path. So never before had he felt such a powerful and impulsive thought: If only he really were Shen Jiu. If only that person could really hear these words.

but his heart still breaks for yue qingyuan and shen jiu and what they have lost.

[Luo Binghe] stood utterly alone, without a single person beside him. When the people walking past saw his face, their own faces filled with all sorts of expressions. Shen Qingqiu involuntarily ran forward a couple of steps, then turned his head to look at the person behind him. “Go on,” said Yue Qingyuan. He stood behind Shen Qingqiu, silent and with good grace. It was as if one was the past and the other the future.

this is the last interaction between shen qingqiu and yue qingyuan in the main novel. before leaving with luo binghe, he turns back and silently asks for yue qingyuan's permission, his approval.

it's like getting your family's blessing before running off with your paramour.

this is yue qingyuan to shen qingqiu: the person that stood by his side from the moment he was reborn into the world of proud immortal demon way, the steadfast, strong and reliable older brother that gave him a family and a place to call his, that has fought for and defended him against all his enemies to the detriment of his own reputation. shen qingqiu respects, admires and will try to do what yue qingyuan says, because he's the only authority figure shen qingqiu recognizes in this life. even if yue qingyuan's care was born out of his feelings for shen jiu, shen qingqiu can't stop caring for him, being grateful for his presence and the comfort it gave him throughout all these years. even after learning the truth, his only regret is that he can't bring shen jiu back so yue qingyuan and him can get some closure.

that's love, my dudes.

[theladysunami]

I had the hilarious thought of an Bingqiu Aladdin AU, where Luo Binghe is the ‘Aladdin’ equivalent, while Shen Qingqiu is ‘Jafar.’

The idea of Binghe going through all the trouble to set himself up as a prince, not to impress whomever is stuck in the princess role, but to find and seduce Shen Qingqiu (who has been replaced by Shen Yuan), is just too funny!

For the background, I’m thinking that rather than writing a cultivation novel, Airplane wrote one heavily inspired by the ‘One Thousand and One Nights’ and other Middle Eastern folk tales.

In the “original” story, Luo Binghe starts out more or less like Aladdin in the classic non-Disneyfied tale. Binghe and his adoptive mother live in poverty until the sorcerer Shen Qingqiu arrives, lies about having some relation to Binghe’s birth family, and takes him on as an apprentice.

Rather than teaching him sincerely, Shen Qingqiu takes advantage of the boy’s innocence (and latent abilities) in order to steal and excavate powerful potions, artifacts, and so forth. For some added angst, perhaps he also lies to Binghe and says the things they acquire are necessary to aid his ailing mother’s health. Naturally the final artifact they seek is a lamp in a magic cave.

As one might expect, there is a great betrayal and Binghe is stuck with a labyrinthine magical cave system with only a lesser ring genie, Meng Mo, at his disposal. Unfortunately while Meng Mo is old and wise, his powers cannot free them from the caves. Binghe must undergo many trials, and unlock his unexpected half genie ancestry, in order to escape!

He then discovers the lamp he retrieved also has a genie (Mobei-Jun perhaps?), falls for the local princess, surpasses some minor difficulties to marry her, and ultimately becomes the next sultan.

With his new position he is able to lure out his old master and seek revenge! Or like in the Disney movie, the sorcerer character is fused with the sultan’s vizier, and Binghe gains revenge while seducing said princess.

Luo Binghe then moves on to ‘save’ still more beauties to add to his harem, all of whom have various ‘One Thousand and One Nights’ themed backstories and troubles.

Of course with Shen Yuan transmigrating into Shen Qingqiu, he promptly alters the course of the story by actually being an amazing mentor.

He only ever gets Luo Binghe’s help stealing artifacts that are in the hands of actual assholes, gives Binghe much better advice and magical support for all their treasure hunting missions, uses his vast knowledge of the novel’s rare plants, beasts, and artifacts to concoct real cures for both Binghe’s mother and others in need, and even manages to thwart quite a few of the harem member’s tragic backstories (Whoops)!

Having such a wonderful mentor (even if Shen Qingqiu is still technically a thief, a bit of a shit-talker, and clearly lied to Binghe’s mother about being a relative of Binghe’s birth parents), Luo Binghe naturally falls hopelessly in love with him.

Even when Shen Qingqiu traps him in the lamp’s cave, and he must escape through the labyrinth below, Binghe remains convinced it was either a genuine mistake and/or some sort of trial, and his affections aren’t deterred in the slightest. That Shen Qingqiu technically left him with Meng Mo’s ring and the very lamp they were after only serves as ‘proof’ of Shen Qingqiu’s secretly good intentions.

(I’m undecided if Binghe feels particularly silly for not realizing the lamp also had a genie until after he leaves the caves, or the caves further suppressed Mobie-Jun preventing his exit from the lamp).

For the latter Princess wooing portion of the story, I have a few options in mind. As I mentioned before, Airplane’s original version could borrow more from the Disney route, where the sorcerer character is also the vizier, or it could be more based on the original tale, where the sorcerer doesn’t return to the story until later. A third option that combines them both could also work.

For the more Disney-based version, with sorcerer vizier Shen Qingqiu, Yue Qingyuan would have to be the Sultan.

He and the original Shen Qingqiu have a dramatic past where prince Yue Qingyuan pulled a Jasmine and decided to run around town playing commoner and got himself kidnapped by slavers. He was only saved thanks to street rat Shen Jiu.

Alas, while he promised to reward Shen Jiu, Yue Qingyuan never managed to find the boy afterwards. Maybe for some added drama, Shen Jiu tried to contact Yue Qingyuan but his father (the previous Sultan) had the boy arrested and shipped off for his efforts!

When ‘Shen Qingqiu’ shows up later, of course Yue Qingyuan gives him a title and lets him do whatever he wants, out of guilt. Shen Qingqiu’s whole Jafar thing with the brainwashing staff still happens, but is probably unnecessary.

The Princess in this scenario would be Ning Yingying. Shen Qingqiu is rumored to be lusting after her, but in reality he only dotes on her as a father figure, and was actually trying to matchmake her with his apprentice and ward, Ming Fan.

For the version based more on the original tale, I think the role of Sultan would be more suited to the Old Palace Master.

It’s far easier to imagine the Old Palace Master being generally wealth obsessed, not to mention taking gifts from Binghe’s adoptive mother only to then ignore all the promises he made in receiving them.

The Princess would be the Little Palace Mistress. Her having the whole town shut down so she personally could use the public baths is also quite easy to see. Her would-be-fiancé, who is shamed but not killed by Binghe, would be Gongyi Xiao.

As in PIDW, this version of the Sultan has a past with Luo Binghe’s mother. Su Xiyan was a noble lady known to be the greatest beauty in all the land. The Palace Master sought to court and marry her, but she adamantly refused, running off with a powerful genie instead. (The Palace Master has perhaps grown a bit obsessed with capturing and enslaving genies as a result).

Both versions are fun in different ways, as the former allows for far more Shen Qingqiu villain shenanigans, while the latter would have a lot more of the Princess comically throwing herself at Binghe only to be ignored (something I struggle to see Ning Yingying doing). Of course, since Binghe is meant to have a harem anyway, there is no reason Airplane can’t have gone for both versions (to Peerless Cucumber’s great disdain).

For the combined version, Cang Qiong and Huan Hua are rival kingdoms that were actually one kingdom in the distant past.

(For some added gravitas, Yue Qingyuan, the Old Palace Master, and Su Xiyan can all be direct decedents of the final Sultan to rule before the kingdom was split in two. The original Luo Binghe marrying both sultans’ daughters, and uniting the kingdoms once again, could then be a matter of destiny).

In the original story Binghe would have won over the Little Palace Mistress and her father first, only for Shen Qingqiu to hear of his good fortune and steal away the magic lamp. Shen Qingqiu still uses a wish to snatch away Luo Binghe’s wife and palace, but rather than dying when Binghe recovers it, he manages to escape back to Cang Qiong.

As the Palace Master is still furious about the kidnapping incident, Binghe finds himself temporarily exiled until he can recover the escaped villain. Luo Binghe heads to Cang Qiong chasing after Shen Qingqiu and the roughly Disney based plot proceeds from there.

Now regardless of which way the original story went, Shen Yuan’s transmigration screws it up royally.

Thanks to Shen Qingqiu having accidentally seduced our dear protagonist, Luo Binghe doesn’t care to marry any princesses. The complete lack of princess seduction screws up the various lamp stealing plans found in the original book.

It’s not like Shen Qingqiu can trick Binghe’s wife, the Little Palace Mistress, into handing over the lamp if Binghe never actually marries her, nor can he have guards toss Binghe into the sea on the pretense of him “bothering” princess Yingying, when Binghe ignores her the whole time.

Shen Qingqiu does his best to create his own, improvised lamp stealing plans, but they seem to annoy Binghe more than anything. Luo Binghe very much prefer if Shen Qingqiu would direct all wishes to him personally. If he really must have the lamp, Binghe could be convinced to hand it over… as a wedding gift!

These are all my thoughts so far. If anyone else has their own ideas, or is inspired to make a proper fanfic along these lines, I’d be delighted to read it!

[idlebeks]

Masterlist of SVSSS Fic Recs

Updated Sept 2024. Mix of all ratings and themes. All Lou Binghe/Shen Yuan. A couple WIP but mostly completed works. This fandom truly is a treasure trove of great fic.

right from the start, I gave you my heart by nex_et_nox

"Bro, you know how many words I wrote per day, and how many plants I created!” Shang Qinghua whines. "I can't remember them all, it's impossible."

Shen Qingqiu narrows his eyes. "It was used with Wife #418.”

"That doesn't narrow it down any further. I'm not going to be able to guess it, so stop punishing me and just tell me how the flower nerfed you."

Shen Qingqiu grits his teeth. Obviously he wants to draw this out to punish Shang Qinghua, but it kinda looks more like he's punishing himself. There's a muscle flexing in his jaw, and if he puts any more pressure on his fan's guard, it's going to snap. Uh, actually, Shen Qingqiu kind of looks like he's in pain—

“A false dragonhead is also called an obedient plant. It’s in the name—the flower forces you to do whatever you're told," Shen Qingqiu spits out.

or: Shen Qingqiu runs afoul of one of Airplane's stupid wife-plot devices...just before a mission to Jinlan City.

stuffed with fluff (and blood and bones and rage) by nyoomerr

Ever since he was pushed into the Abyss, Luo Binghe has been dreaming of a strange world. In it, Luo Binghe's own face is everywhere, and his story is written out in humiliating detail for some stupid twink to read about. Luo Binghe hates the story, and he hates the dream realm, and he hates the godling within it - Shen Yuan - most of all.

Unfortunately, Luo Binghe can't do anything about it - within these dreams, Luo Binghe is stuck within the body of a doll.

second-hand alibis by nex_et_nox

“All right. I’m in Proud Immortal Demon Way," he says, once he's had a chance to compose himself again. He sits back up, tossing his stupidly long hair back over his shoulders where it belongs; he is totally calm and ready to grill the System for more information.  "Who am I supposed to be?"

Please please please don't let it be someone who Bingge violently murders.

Though given the fact that he's a man in PIDW, his chances are already skewed, and not in his favor. Ugh.

[Bound Role: Shen Yuan, Rogue Cultivator. Weapon: the sword Heng Li. Starting B-points: 100.]

or: Shen Yuan transmigrates as a rogue cultivator, one completely unconnected to any canon characters or events. Right, System? Right?

Type Casting by pallas_rose

Shang Qinghua’s fertilizer has unexpected effects on the mushroom body. In addition to... that, Shen Qingqiu doesn’t remember his death. Or anything at all after planting the Sun Moon Dew Mushroom seed in the dirt.

But he doesn’t need to, right? Shen Qingqiu knows PIDW and Luo Bing-ge like the back of his hand. He’ll be fine. He just has to avoid getting noticed��you know what happens to beautiful women in PIDW!

…though would life in the harem be so bad?

says the shadow by tciddaemina

Luo Binghe wakes up to the heavy, suffocating feeling that something is wrong.

His back aches, sleeping on the floor of the woodshed has left him stiff and sore, and yet all the pain and agony of his latest caning fades into inconsequentiality, washed away in the face of the sheer, suffocating, heavy dread pressing down on his shoulders. It steals the oxygen from the air, swelling to fill every inch of the room, the pressure crushing.

His eyes open too quickly, and he scrambles up, heart pounding in his throat, head snapping towards the door of the shed. There's a knot in his throat, thick, and he struggles to swallow around it, throat suddenly dry.

The woodshed looks as it always has. Nothing has changed.

Everything has changed.

-

Luo Binghe's shizun has a qi deviation and the thing left afterwards isn't Shen Qingqiu.

Shen Yuan's School for Unrepentant Assholes by TGP

Shen Yuan has been dealt a rough hand at the beginning of his life. Then he gets sort of adopted by Shen Qingqiu, who desperately needs someone to help smooth out his interpersonal relationships. Thankfully, Shen Yuan is awesome at understanding people and what they want!

Shen Qingqiu can't decide if he regrets claiming this chaos gremlin as his own or not, but now that Shen Yuan is here, he's never letting him go. He'll have to be pried out of Shen Qingqiu's cold, dead fingers first.

Meanwhile, Luo Binghe is just caught up in the wake of both of them and trying not to be dragged under.

(Or, a drama of errors with comedic moments, exploring the growing relationship between an unforgiving misanthrope with serious issues and a traumatized kid that just wants to teach him what family means (and maybe learn it, himself))

dreaming you the same sun in a different place by JRaylin441

[Activating: Bonus Chapter – In Another Life]

[We notice that you are searching for someone. Would you like to accept the bonus chapter mission In Another Life in order to reunite with User: Shen Yuan, Bound Role: Shen Qingqiu?]

Shen Qingqiu disappears. Luo Binghe isn't going to let that stand.

Written for a Gotcha for Gaza prompt "Luo Binghe sucking Shen Yuan's dick (any dynamic)" from an anonymous prompter

Lotus Seeds by Anonymous

Upon transmigrating into the body of a xianxia antagonist destined to die after being gruesomely tortured, Shen Yuan decides he won't give in to the demands of the System to meekly accept his fate. Instead, he runs away. (WIP)

High Mountain, How I Long by Minimalistless

Shen Qingqiu, after enduring his trial, is placed into Luo Binghe’s custody at Huan Hua Palace.

Tarnished Gold by Prim_the_Amazing

Becoming emperor of the cultivation world will start with a first step as small and basic as becoming Head Disciple of Huan Hua Palace. For that, he must steal the position away from the current Head Disciple. Luo Binghe will sabotage, upstage, and completely and utterly best him.

The road to destroying everything and everyone who has ever wronged him, to becoming the highest ruler so that no one will ever have the right to control him ever again - it will start as simply as ruining Gongyi Xiao’s life.

Compared to everything else he’s already done, this should be easy.

-

Luo Binghe brings all his skills of cunning and brutality to bear on Gongyi Xiao, Head Disciple of Huan Hua Palace Sect. It… doesn’t go too well for him.

prophets on hold by nex_et_nox

Luo Binghe led the charge in the trial against Shen Qingqiu in < Proud Immortal Demon Way >. By all rights, the concept of a trial shouldn’t even be a glimmer in anyone’s eye until Shen Qingqiu’s blackened lotus has crawled his way out of the hell Shen Qingqiu tossed him in.

So why is Shen Qingqiu wrapped in immortal binding cables and locked away in the Huan Hua Water Prison?! 

[or: Luo Binghe is precisely one (1) year late getting out of the Abyss. This does not put a halt on anyone else's plans.]

Starstruck by Camorra

His phone buzzes again and Shen Yuan scoops it up irritably. It’s another message from DemonHeart.

DemonHeart: you seem to be a Luo Binghe fan

DemonHeart: we can get you access to him

Shen Yuan scowls.

PeerlessCucumber: do I look like I was born yesterday?

The response is instantaneous. A picture pops up on screen. Shen Yuan vaguely recognizes the woman that plays the drums, still in full stage makeup. Next to her, arm slung around her waist, is a face Shen Yuan would know anywhere. Luo Binghe, giving a wry smile to the camera.

DemonHeart: he’s a fan, you know

PeerlessCucumber: where exactly would we be meeting

Immortal Lamb Crusader Way by Mikkeneko

Shen Yuan finds himself transmigrated into the last video game he played before his death -- the dungeon-delving, cult-building anthro hit game of the year, Immortal Lamb Crusader Way. Much to his dismay he finds himself in the role of the BBEG, the God of Death, He Who Waits -- Shen Qingqiu! Is there any way he can guide the protagonist, Luo Binghe, to level-up and victory without falling victim himself to the Lamb Crusader's blade?

And why does he want to pet the Lamb's fleecy head so badly? He's not a furry, okay! He's not!

The Scum Villain's Second Save File by the-night-gods-moon (HelloMyNameIsAlias)

Shen Qingqiu and Shang Qinghua's shroom scheme falls through in a big way, and Shen Yuan is forced to re-transmigrate into another world that revolves around half-demons and messy, convoluted romances. Good thing he's an expert!

anachronism of the moment by plutoisgay

daemon au that follows Shen Yuan through his transmigration and life in PIDW

Shen Yuan transmigrates to a world of demons, harem-politics, and the ineffable notion of being perceived. His daemon, at least, seems to share his concerns.

We Are Not Wise by Boomchick, Suzoomie

When Shen Qingqiu drew Shen Yuan’s soul sword, it felt like being burned from the inside out. The fire wasn’t cruel, but it was still fire—hot and destructive, searing the softest pieces of him.

When Binghe’s fingers touch the hilt, he is ready for pain.

Transmigrated into a version of Proud Immortal Demon Way where cultivators manifest their own souls into spiritual weapons, Shen Yuan finds himself sort of kind of…accidentally blackmailing Shen Qingqiu into taking him on as a disciple before Luo Binghe joins the sect.

That should give Shen Yuan plenty of opportunities to make sure nothing goes wrong for his favorite protagonist, right? RIGHT!?

A story of twists, turns, hope, despair, and soul swords. Written for the Bingqiu Reverse Minibang 2023, illustrated and conceptualized by the incredible Suzu!

Protagonist Rehabilitation Programme by cinnamonsnaps

(oh my god they were roommates)

"Thank you, valued user, for accepting the Protagonist Rehabilitation Programme. Your task: Ensure the protagonist's happiness."

Shen Yuan is convinced that his favouri... least favourite novel's main protagonist isn't really happy. He has babes, money and power, but does he have any friends?

Cue the system handily dropping Demon King Luo Binghe into his bedroom. Can Shen Yuan make him happy before the timer runs out?

(90% light-hearted comedy, 10% existential horror and fear because this is the OG PIDW Binghe we're talking about)

Can't we just skip to the end? by chaoticgoodlawyer

When it was all said and done, Shen Qingqiu comforted himself that the end of the plot meant that, surely, all major events were out of the way. They were firmly in HEA territory and he could relax a little. Right? Right.

A year and a half into his marriage to the protagonist, he cursed himself for a fool when he woke next to a Luo Binghe from ten years in the past.

Meanwhile, a recently transmigrated Shen Yuan struggled to retain what little face he had when confronted with an overgrown, disturbingly gorgeous demon lord claiming to be his husband. Which is impossible, because he’s straight, the most hetero heterosexual to exist. System? A little help here??

Series

Sit With Your Soul by Tossawary

The original Shen Qingqiu suffers a severe deviation that unsettles his daemon, transforming them into a childish and inconstant creature, too curious and without any memories of the life that has made him so bitter. His soul is now unrecognizable to him and everyone can see his humiliation.

Shen Yuan isn't exactly happy to have transmigrated into Proud Immortal Demon Way at all, much less as this doomed scum villain's daemon.

A His Dark Materials Fusion AU. Knowledge of HDM not required.

Series

Celestial Afterglow by elanor_pam

Shang Qinghua, also known as Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky, stared flatly at what had once been a field boasting near sect-level Feng Shui alignment, and the drowned, bloated remains of the Sun and Moon Dew Flower cuttings that had sprouted within it. Their plan was now quite literally a wash.

If only he could consult Cucumber Bro on how to save Cucumber Bro! But in the absence of Cucumber Bro, he could but rely on the one plot coupon the infamous Peerless Cucumber had ever applauded.

Tongfang by The Feels Whale (miscellea)

Shen Yuan is reincarnated as a cannon fodder character and eventual murder victim in one of the whodunnit arcs in Proud Immortal Demon Way. Things escalate quickly.

Or: that one where young Luo Binghe’s career goal is ‘Bride’.

---

Shen Yuan shut his eyes as a young man waiting to die in a hospital and opened them again as a wrinkly infant covered in substances best left unimagined.

[Welcome to the System! The System is based on the concept ‘YOU CAN YOU UP. NO CAN NO BB.’ We hope to provide you with a rewarding experience. It is our sincere hope that during the course of your adventure, you can achieve your desire to transform a ‘Stupid Novel’ into a high-end and impressive classic. We pray for your happiness,] a mechanical and inflectionless voice announced over the general hubbub of the group of women handling him. Then it added, somewhat more worryingly, [Error.]

In Service by x_los

Emperor Luo Binghe goes looking for a Shen Yuan of his own. The one he finds has yet to fully ripen, but Luo Binghe is used to turning adversity into advantage.

Every Binghe/ge deserves a Happy Ending [buy one SY, get one free] by Shireyaki

You can have a Shen Yuan

YOU can have a Shen Yuan

WE ALL CAN HAVE A SHEN YUAN

Scum Villain AUs by Feynite

Various random alternate universe fics.

Includes:

Supervillain AU

Genderswap AU

Hades & Persephone AU

Dragon Monster AU

Mermay AU

Free Guy AU

& Many More!

Into the Abyss by esama

In which Shen Yuan pisses the System off and it sends him straight into the Endless Abyss.

Four years later, Shen Qingqiu does the same to Luo Binghe.

Fruiting Body by Calamity Butterfly (Calamity_Butterfly)

“A new body? What has my Shizun done?” Luo Binghe asks mildly.

“Oh, I died again, didn’t I? This time, I died saving you from a qi deviation brought on by that sword,” Shen Qingqiu answers, stroking the caps of the trembling mushrooms still pressed up against his sides. “I suspected I was going to die so I prepared a new body, just in case. But it’s taking a long time to remember myself, and I’m not sure I want to go back once I do.”

Shen Qingqiu awakens in the Sun and Moon Dew Flower body, more fungal than human, and networked into a vast, sentient mycelial network. His new body is more complicated than he anticipated. Luo Binghe finds him, and that is also more complicated than he anticipated.

The Many Trials and Tribulations of Ming Fan by The Feels Whale (miscellea)

Ming Fan just wants to get through ONE supervised night hunt without this happening.

Or: the one where Shen Qingqiu continues to be attractive to people who aren’t Luo Binghe and Liu Qingge. It's a problem.

---

“Da-shixiong.” Ning-shimei’s groan was barely audible to anyone who didn’t have a cultivator’s enhanced senses. To him and the rest of their assembled siblings, though, it rang out like a bell. The only one who didn’t notice was Shizun. He was up ahead and deep in conversation with the Lord who’d summoned them to investigate a series of local disappearances.

“I saw,” Ming Fan sighed. “Eyes front. Everyone knows their roles.”

Frankly, he’d been braced for this moment since he’d asked around about the family hosting them for the duration of this investigation. He’d discovered that they had two marriage-aged daughters in the household, neither of whom were engaged.

Loaded God Complex, Cock It And Pull It by Camorra

There were three things of which Shen Yuan was absolutely certain.

The first, that Luo Binghe was an irredeemable jackass.

The second, there was a part of Luo Binghe, and Shen Yuan didn't know how large, that wanted Shen Yuan dead for trussing him like a pig and dumping him on his own front porch.

And the third, that Shen Yuan was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with Luo Binghe.

P S Y C H !

omg they were roommates by smellslikecitrus

Shen Yuan was a normal chemistry major. What did he do to deserve getting booted into his least-favorite novel?!

Silver lining: Binghe makes really, really good food.

Plastromancy by x_los

"One night, Luo Binghe notices something odd about the way his blood is pooling on the floor of the woodshed."

A twelve year old Luo Binghe meets his Other Shizun.

AQ by x_los

Before he rose to captaincy, Shen Yuan attended a briefing given to all command level officers in Star Fleet that outlined the scope of the Q threat. According to Admiral Picard's report, the omnipotent Q are devious, amoral, unreliable, irresponsible and definitely not to be trusted.

Orphaned stowaway Luo Binghe doesn't even know he is one.

Living With a Tiger by x_los

Shen Yuan has been engaged to Emperor Luo Binghe from almost the hour of his birth. He grows up knowing his place in the world exactly; he is far less certain of his place in his betrothed's guarded affections.

Scum Villain's Accidental Romance System by BurnerAccount

Shen Qingqiu has accepted that yes, this is a novel. And yes, it is going to have stupid plot points that he can (probably) do nothing about. His inevitable, horrible fate is his most probable future - but hey, it's at least a ways off yet, right?

A Stallion novel has stupid tropes, but he's 100% - no, 1000% sure, that these aren't in the standard package.

Anyways, Stan Shen Qingqiu by x_los

Millennial vs Gen Z? Shen Qingqiu wishes.

A young transmigrator has a new idol; Shen Qingqiu is very tired

How To Stop Being Strung Along By A Guy & Get What You Deserve: 5 Steps to a Serious Relationship! by x_los

'Madam Meiyin said: “Milord’s fated lover pays very little attention to others. But the moment they come to care about someone, they will care with their entire heart and soul.”'

Shen Yuan transmigrates into Proud Immortal Demon Way with a firmly-tied red string of fate. It takes Luo Binghe roughly two hours to notice this.

The Favourite by x_los

Demonic Emperor Luo Binghe's reputation precedes him. It's just not very accurate.

I Wish You Were My Husband by Feynite

AU based on The Dreamer in the Spring Boudoir (familiarity with that story's not required).

Wherein Shen Yuan transmigrates into a harem intrigues romance novel (gay edition), Yue Qingyuan really fucks up, Liu Qingge is not suitable for his job, and no one even remotely sees Luo Binghe coming.

Always the Light Falls by Letters2Elvinscend 

Growing up is hard. Living up to your mother's expectations is harder. Realizing your Shizun is actually kind of hot is damn near impossible.

System Temporarily Unavailable, Please Don't Abuse The Substitute! by Asymptotical

The System has to go bail another System's world out of a plot crisis.

It told them that its Host would notice, but did they listen? Of course not.

We Never Dreamed These Walls by straightforwardly

When Luo Binghe falls into the Endless Abyss, he accidentally pulls Shen Qingqiu down with him.

[grubus]

i've been following syonr for quite some time now (read: caught up and religiously check updates on mondays) and i actually don't remember if i ever left a comment or just repeated the words in my head enough times i forgot to say them. which is a shame, because you deserve many many warm words for the world you created.

the way you pace the story is SOO good. every arc has delicious hurt/comfort, just enough tension to make you sit on the edge of your seat and the characters???? can we just talk about how your characterization is THE characterization in this fandom? every single character is fleshed out and has a role, they! are! written! with! LOVE! and i love them with all my heart.

i think you were the one who made mu qingfang my comfort character. i really liked him, but you just planted him straight into my soul. he's my pookie now. the best man. should be in every fic for real. you can guess how much i loved when sy lived with him and i adore every scene with him. just thinking about it fill me with warmth. also i generally headcanon mqf as aroace, but here??? yes, he and wqw are a perfect match. no one does it like them ❣️

i have this weird thing where i can't fully imagine what i'm reading and it's like i don't see stuff in my head but more like i sense it? feel it? sometimes i read a fic and it's beautifully written, but i feel uncomfortable just because it feels tight and grimy even if the story itself is light.

but syonr feels spacious, like i can breath fully and what i imagine matches with what is actually happening in the scene. i might be anxious out of my mind but i still enjoy every bit of it. the places you describe fit perfectly into the story. that is to say, my favourite/comfort scenes are bright and sunny :D

i'm not gonna lie i enjoy sy whump. this guy can be in so many Situations and i'm here for it.

and i ADORE bingyuan. they are so sweet and cute and SAFE for each other. it's really interesting how their opinion on sqq changed bc they have each other. sy needing security and validation and binghe's cold disdain.

there actually should be like 10 hours video essay on every syonr character ii i- cant they are wonderful.

nyy my beloved treasured girl. you asked "who's going to make her shine?" and didn't wait for an answer. and shine she does!!!!!!! 🌟

wqw is a charming man, if he was an anime character i imagine him having a huuuuuge fanbase. he's just silly and hot like that.

off the top of my head lady jia's arc was the first one that made me go OH MY FUCKINGGGG GODDDD I'M SCARED AND IT'S ALSO SO COOL AND EXPLAINS SO MUCH AND AND AUGGGHJJHGGHJHJH!!! i just remember this anxiety so well it was great

the demon invasion is one of the arcs i've reread a few times. it's just... perfect. one might even say... you COOKED! i love it.

anyway. thank you for sharing with us your amazing story. it doesn't matter how much time you take to write an update or if you decide you don't wan't to write it anymore, because it already exists in our hearts. ...sometimes i want fics to never ever end at all, even if they are simply left unfinished.

and thank you for brightening my days : ) every new chapter make me squeak and do a happy little dance.

i wish you well 🌼💓

anon. I am crying a lil bit, thank you.

I almost didn't reply to this simply because I wanted to keep it safe in my inbox. I've since taken a screenshot onto my phone and also onto my pc. I've. Saved this comment in a few different places.

I just

;A;

ok ok imma. imma pull myself together and give every word the attention it deserves. *sniffles* I'm not the best at replying to comments in general, because I don't know how to accurately relay how much they mean to me. but. let's do this.

I'm so, so happy to hear all this.

syonr is definitely a love project at this point, for myself and aimed at svsss and also just storytelling in general. As someone who used to only write oneshots or shortfics, it's so fun to really, truly linger and dwell in this story as I explore it. It's freeing in a way that writing hasn't been for me in many years. And I'm so, so happy you think so too. Describing it as "spacious" is a compliment I didn't know I needed, and I love it.

MQF has been fun to explore, because he's a soft but firm character. The one in charge of keeping his sect siblings in some kind of good health- which is of course very difficult because cultivators are insane and they become more nuts the more powerful they are- and then I have had a fun time having him just. Being around SY as SY struggled with basically everything. I've also been delighted to figure out how to write WQW, as he barely says anything in canon, and I'm so happy you also agree he's a hottie. RIP to SY, but I will highfive MQF for getting the hottest man in his generation as his boyfriend. It is very funny to me that they're probably the healthiest relationship in syonr of all time, even as they keep giving SY jumpscares of the gay kind.

I also enjoy SY whump. This, uh, this might be obvious, considering what he has gone through so far. *looks at him* I planned the demon invasion for so long. Fucking up his hands was The Plan all along. Fucking up his self-esteem and confidence was also it. WHUMP!!!

But of course, angst and whump can only truly hit if you line it with fluff. BingYuan is fun to explore in this setting. I like having them be same age and all that comes with it. So much can change in a story if you just swap some things around! They're soft and gooey and idiots <3

When I first decided to let NYY play a bigger part in the story, I was nervous. Canon barely gives her anything, fanon goes in two very different directions with her and neither felt right. She's spoiled and sheltered, but always well-meaning, and I wanted very much to explore writing her in all her oblivious glory while also letting her be Pure Distilled Teenage Girl trying to figure herself out. I'm always, always so happy when people tell me they love her in syonr. It's very rewarding. Not letting her be part of the story was just not possible, either! I'm just glad people appreciate her so much.

Lady Jia... hehehehe :D she always seems to strike a nerve, as intended. And it was so much fun reading the comments for that arc, everyone trying to figure out wtf was happening! Very proud of it to this day.

Part of the thing I love writing in syonr is, indeed, relationships. I mean the entire fic is kind of a love letter to it, both bad and good. It's part of why there's different povs. SQQ's pov and SY's pov are both extremely unreliable when it comes to others, as are anyone else's. I don't think there's a single character in svsss that I dislike, which is also why it's so fun to figure out how other characters think about each other. YQY and SQQ has completely different views of SY, and we all know Binghe's pov is 99% Loving On SY.

I just. You truly made my day today, thank you so much. syonr is one of those stories I'm having fun exploring, a story I look forward to finishing but I'm in no hurry to do so. And also, I suspect, a story I will struggle to not write oneshots for once it's over. (or even before that. I do have plans for a MQF/WQW fic set in it...)

Thank you again, anon. I adore you <3

[boundlss]

i love posting ooc things about my blog. here's my list of wanted canon connections for some of my canons

shiroe: NAOTSUGU. i can't stress this enough. my favorite dynamic especially in the novels, i'd sell all my organs and become lifeless for someone to write naotsugu. everyone else i could take or leave but naotsugu is forever. friend city.

kanami: KR, krusty, elias hackblade, coppelia, leonardo ... any of kanami's merry friends really.

hirari: literally anyone from rengoku ni warau. i don't like donten as much but i'd take those ones too.

seung-gil: jean-jacques leroy ... phichit chulanont would be fine too ...

roland: vanitas, astolfo, or olivier!!!

jim hawkins: long john silver :( but anyone from treasure planet, i'd take.

kazui: mikoto or shidou ideally, but also yuno and kotoko would not grant complaints!

kaito: meiko ... gakupo ...

longya: ANY of the vocaloids in The Band !!

gumi: luka, teto!

five pebbles: looks to the moon. can't stress that one enough.

the long quiet, the princess: eachother and the narrator. game only has three characters.

aalto: he's not an active muse until wuwa releases and i see him but any wuwa characters.

roche: VES!!!! and geralt!

cahir: angoulême! milva! dandelion! assire var anahid!

dandelion: cahir! milva! angoulême! essi daven! zoltan chivay!

milva: cahir! dandelion! angoulême! regis! iorveth!

isengrim: cahir! sigismund dijkstra!

tom sawyer, huck finn: eachother!

aradia: sollux, equius, vriska, dave

latula: mituna!!! kankri, porrim, aranea

feferi: eridan, sollux, nepeta, jade, karkat

jade: john, rose, jake, karkat

dirk: jake, jane, hal

shang qinghua: mobei-jun, shen qingqiu

shen qingqiu/sy: shang qinghua, liu qingge, yue qingyuan, luo binghe, zhuzhi-lang

luo binghe: shen qingqiu, mobei-jun

[janecrockeyre]

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

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

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

Part One: Introduction and the Tragic Hero

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Part One: The Tragic Hero

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

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

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

Shen Yuan

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

Shen Jiu

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

Luo Binghe

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

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

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

Shen Yuan is a second generation new money rich kid. 

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

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

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

This brings us to:

Part Two: Peripeteia

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

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

Shen Qingqiu

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

Shen Yuan (SQQ 2.0)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bingmei

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

KING LEAR

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

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

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

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

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

If that her breath will mist or stain the stone,

Why, then she lives.

[...]

 KING LEAR

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

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

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

Never, never, never, never, never!

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

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

Look there, look there!

Dies

Versus this scene in SVSSS: 

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

[...]

Luo Binghe involuntarily held Shen Qingqiu closer.

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

“I… I didn’t want to kill you…”

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

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

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

[phoenixtakaramono]

For the wip game, the untold tale ch6? I will not lie it is because im obsessed but also this chapter includes new characters probably so im also 👀👀👀

Ooh! Yes! Since you mentioned new characters….

Note, for The Untold Tale ch6, keep in mind this is from my notes so details are subject to change in the final draft, but here’s a snippet (and some context)! In this chapter I wish to avoid injecting OCs as much as possible unless strictly necessary and I think it’ll be fun learning some more cultural details via the storytelling medium Shen Yuan interacts with some actual gods and goddesses (placeholders) from Chinese mythology.

╰(*´︶`*)╯♡

(Spoiler alert down below!)

SNIPPET

Shen Miao was quiet.

Unlike themselves whose births were blessed by the Heavenly Dao, they as gods and celestial beings were far more selective with the moral quality of the mortals who they allowed into their homes. Only exceptional meritorious spirits were allowed to ascend to either the Silver Bridge—giving one access to a position in the Celestial Bureaucracy—or to the Golden Bridge—which allowed for rebirth in one of the upper realms of the Heavenly Realm.

“A man who’s arrogant from being pampered is destined to not last long,” she said. “Sān gē will toss him really quickly.”

(TUT, Ch6 Excerpt)

CONTEXT

*Sān gē - Third brother (referring to Shen Yuan)

In this chapter, Shen Yuan goes to meet the Heavenly Emperor. On the way, he will reunite with his “family members” in PIDW which the System has set for him a lá a direct side effect of his Protagonist’s Halo (if he hadn’t asked to become the deuteragonist, he wouldn’t have gotten this powerful background). One of them is his sister. I’d made a few posts about her here on tumblr and on twitter.

Shen Miao is the name I’m giving SY’s unnamed little sister, as an Easter Egg reference to the protagonist of The Rebirth of the Malicious Empress of Military Lineage. In this excerpt, after SY leaves, the family consults with one another about this demon lord Luo Binghe that their treasured family member (celestial fortuneteller/ warlord SY) is suddenly so protective over and supposedly having a fate that will change the Three Realms, and warlord Shen Miao makes this remark (about Bingge).

(Shen Yuan canonically has parents, 2 older brothers and 1 younger sister in SVSSS. Since we’re “bringing them” into this story they haven’t transmigrated; the celestial beings that are SY’s family in PIDW which he meets this chapter coincidentally share their same names and faces, I’m giving them the xianxia treatment in this AU and giving my own spin on them. To give you an idea of the two older brothers who were supposed to take over the family’s manufacturing business before SY transmigrated, here’s the vibe of one of them in the below GIF.)

Shen Yuan’s father, as we’ll come to find out, is the Heavenly Emperor. And his mother is the Heavenly Empress. Their entire family is a family of warlords. It’s the type of hidden family background we rag on protagonists for being too OP, haha, so I wanted to play into that since SY is LBH’s golden thigh in TUT and he also shares the same protagonist halo with LBH. This version of SY is supposed to be the perfect match for Bingge SO WE ARE GONNA HEAVILY LEAN INTO THAT and satirize a few tropes (esp. the Opposites Attract; it’s dramatic were a “forbidden romance” to spring up between a demon lord and celestial being, no? Hee hee.)

[namelessexistence]

It's not a fix-it If LBH doesn't have friends

Ok, so the tragedy of the Original Luo Binghe is how empty everything he have is. He is so unsatisfied he would jump at the first chance to marry his worst enemy, someone who abused him, If that man can truly love "Luo Binghe" (I Also have a theory that they're kinda soulmates, in a messed up way, because Airplane originally planned for them to get together, but that theory is a completly different matter).

The point is, Bingmei is happier and satisfied because he has something Bingge never had, a relationship he actually care about. And I don't mean that LBG never cared about any of his wives, specially NYY, but whathever affection he may feel for them was not enough to bring himself to build genuine relationships. No one really loves 600 people, that number is just ridiculus. But he's never satisfied, with all the wives, victories, glory and treasures.

I find It fascinating to compare both LBHs, he is really an interesting character. And, If I was to say everything I think about the tragedy of LBG, this post would be too long and stray too much from what I'm trying to say.

The point is that svsss is a fix-it for pidw, where LBH gets a meaningful relationship. Because of that, it was a wasted opportunity to not let him build meaningful relationships with other characters. It would show what LBG could have had, even in a world without SY, If he allowed himself to.

And there's potential everywhere to It. NYY was the first person after his mother to be nice to him.

He and LMY could bound over interest in romance and their habit of making things up in their minds. They're both dreamers (and they're both into weird s**, except that LMY doesnt want to participate)

QWY helped him when he got out of the Abyss. She projected a lot into him in SVSSS since he saved her right after her sister died, it's something to explore.

There's a lot of Enemies to Friends potential with MF, SHL and MBJ. I've seen him be friends with SHL and MBJ in some fics, but It never explores how they got there, since his first impression of SHL was her invading the Sect, causing destruction and then cheerfully pointing out that SQQ was poisoned and there was no cure. His first impression of MBJ was even worst.

And I only talked about svsss characters until now.l, but crossover brings even more possibilities.

The juniors of mdzs are precious. JL was the only one who didn't start already as an angel in the novel, but he gets better.

LJY likes romance stories, and OYZZ is a romantic as well.

JL is an orphan like LBH and LSZ, is not only an orphan, but raised by a loving parent with no blood ties without knowing anything about his biological family.

In short, we must give LBH some friends, he needs them. And the possibilities are very fun

[writing-frenzy]

Plz let Airplane be awesome- Fic Rec

So I have a hankering for our favorite disaster of an author plz and thx. I went searching, daydreaming, and sometimes down right spelunking for some of that good Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky character fics. Did I also find some good tasty Moshang on the journey? Yes and it was good.

So, here is a place for all the treasure I managed to collect. Hope You all enjoy!~

(And any recs for more goodness will be fully accepted, plz!)

A Well Wherein Serpents Are Coiled by Nighthaunting - I am poison / And you will drink me / And you should be so lucky

Shang Qinghua transmigrates into his own terrible novel as a baby. The fact that this seems to be a world based on his first draft, where things actually happened and the plot did matter, is less than comforting. Having a second chance is nice, but ending up as cannon fodder and dying offscreen are the last things he wants to do. The only way to avoid his 'canonical' fate is to do as the System demands and try to fix his mistakes from within the world he created. Somehow this ends up with a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed Luo Binghe as an An Ding Peak disciple, because writing about a kid being miserable and seeing a kid being miserable are apparently two entirely different skillsets.

The best, my heart will not move on, I am sinking with this story, it has consumed me and all I can say is ‘thank you, but can I go even deeper?’ like... it has the best world building I have ever seen for any SVSS fanfic, it is canon in my mind and I just end up loving An Ding Peak even more? like wow, I did not know that was possible. Read the fic and the only regret you will have is that you have reached the last updated chapter so soon.

-

pride is not the word I'm looking for by Tossawary - A Pre-Canon Canon Divergence fic. Shang Qinghua goes to take a self-indulgent peek at his baby protagonist son and gets a kick to the shrivelled heart for his troubles. Ahhh~! He gave up on changing canon or preventing character deaths years ago! What is he doing, helping his protagonist son's adoptive mother like this?

This story, this story, was one of the two to make me so damn hungry for all the Airplane!Shang Qinghua goodness. It leaves me wanting for more. (Also, give Airplane more family bonds and friendship, make our favorite little disaster feel things.)

-

it must follow, as the night the day by Tossawary - Airplane Bro transmigrates into his own web-novel only to find out that the System messed up his world! Shang Qinghua is a demon in this world! All the characters supposed to be humans are demons in this world! And all the characters supposed to be demons are...?Moshang's first meeting in a Role Reversal AU.

Look, if I mention their first one, of course I have to mention the amazing Role Reversal au; I can’t not miss this beautiful piece of Demon!Airplane awkwardness of being hot for the icy cultivator who could easily gut him in a second. it is so good, I love.

-

The An Ding Peak Lord's Holy Cheat Sheet by JerichoJaspersJeromeJr - There's a dozen basic things that Shang Qinghua should know but somehow doesn't. There's a hundred mysterious secrets that Shang Qinghua knows even when he shouldn't. There's a thousand profound mysteries that Shang Qinghua knows even when no mortal should. Mobei-jun has noted it all.

*Cackles* Kneel before our mighty god Airplane!  

-

Keep Your Friends Close by HeavenlyDusk -  The one where Shang Qinghua and Scum Villain Shen Qingqiu become friends, except neither of them really know what friendship actually is.

This series, by all good fiction is so damn great! I live for this disaster friendship of Shen Jiu and Airplane (and only shit, I shouldn’t laugh, but cockblocking Shen Jiu is not something I expected, but Gives me a mighty need, even if he made it his mission for Moshang to never happen.)

-

The Eye of the Emperor by fishpoets -  The attention of Great Lord Luo Binghe is not something to be coveted.

Now, this is Mobei-Jun’s POV in this one-shot, but just how soft he is with his hubby is so cute, and we get to see Shang Qinghua being a sneaky crafty and protective of his own hubby. for all of Luo Bingge’s threating aura, I can’t help but grin at how this couple, so determined to be there for each other, and ready to plot. 

-

A Political Match by tuesday - It was the day of Shang Qinghua’s wedding, and he was going to be sick.

So... BL author Shang Qinghua accidently seduced his fav character, Mobei-jun, the fic. my only regret is that there isn’t more.

-

unplanned by fencesit - Shang Qinghua doesn't mean to do it. Okay, okay, from the outside he totally gets how it looks purposeful. Definitely! It definitely looks like he planned it really carefully! Like, you can't just slip and whoops break someone out of Huan Hua Palace's Water Prison, you know?

:D Alternate first meeting and a tasty prison break? go get yo man my disaster fav.

-

Sea foam and grenades by Sunnystar - Long before the Peaks were known for their esteemed cultivation, An Ding had another title. [A world where Shang Qinghua goes off plot for his children disciples.]

Ow, oww, owwww owwwwwww ouch! be prepared to have your heart pickled before your eyes, before it is roasted over an open fire and then promptly eaten before you. and with the left over crumbs of it left over, still find no, you have not had enough, you need to make sure your tear ducts are still existing after all... Just, make sure you mind the tags with this story, because it gets dark, bits of fluff seen here and there to at least trick you into thinking there is still a light hanging around. it is a lot to take in, but oh man are the emotions delicious even as I have to take breaks from this story because of all the feeling I have to face.

---

So, there ya have it; might have more added in the future, but for now, I at least wanted these up. Part Duo Here~

And feel free to add more, I am always up for more of our boi!

[veliseraptor]

If you don't mind me asking, who are your favorite MXTX characters (top 5 from each novel)? I'm sorry if you've answered this question before.

so this got. long. to nobody’s surprise probably. 

Scum Villain Self-Saving System

I feel like this is the novel where I have the fewest characters I really have strong feelings about? Which is not to say that I don’t love the characters! I just haven’t latched onto as many of them in the same way that I have with the other two. So there’s really only two that I wanted to list here.

1. Shen Jiu. Like, okay, this is one of those “didn’t see this coming but hoo boy should I have seen this coming” things where I’m like. Oh, did you say “emotionally dysfunctional misanthropic character shaped by abuse, incapable of communication, full of self-loathing, unlikeable and ultimately destroyed by his own actions? well will you look at that I have adopted a new character.”

Didn’t see it coming but ultimately very predictable! thanks, extras, for doing this to me and making me constantly in my feelings being sad about Shen Jiu kind of never having had a chance. Like, he did, but also he didn’t.

And I just have a big Thing for characters who kind of ruin their own lives.

2. Luo Binghe. He is a Mess and a bundle of issues and I love him. I mean - abandonment issues! deep insecurity! temperamental and emotionally unstable! a love interest...okay not quite made for me but still definitely a delight because he’s such a disaster. And I am here for both canon Binghe who is less...awful, and PIDW!Binghe who is patently awful and you can still see...how he got there, and the disaster living underneath. I just really love a hot mess.

Also all credit to Liu Mingyan for living her erotica writing dream, though.

Heaven Official’s Blessing

1. Hua Cheng. The smooth, suave ghost king who is constantly screaming on the inside and has a concerningly low level of self-worth independent of what he can be to the object of his devotion? Sign me up. I love Hua Cheng because he’s like. Ruthless, competent, powerful, and also in certain very specific places deeply insecure and certain of his worthlessness and monstrosity. He’s got such a delightful flair for the dramatic, and he’s honestly hilarious, and at the same time a deeply traumatized wreck badly in need of self-actualization. Love him, want good things for him.

2. Xie Lian. It’s funny because Xie Lian is one of those characters who feels...against type, for me? In some ways? But I love him so much. He’s just...augh. His profound kindness, his deep guilt and self-hatred/doubt, the downward spiral of his history and then how he manages to come back from the edge, but just barely. He’s in some ways painfully self-aware but also in this very skewed way where he doesn’t - can’t - see himself clearly. He’s just...augh. He’s a sweetheart but in this very deliberate, thoughtful way where it’s a choice he’s made after being ground down and losing everything. Flower in one hand and sword in the other, balanced in between. A treasure.

3. He Xuan. You give me a ghost driven by single-minded determination and an elaborate revenge plot that takes centuries to set up, getting attached to one of the objects of that revenge that he’s determined to take down, and going through with the incredibly precise and cruel revenge plot anyway? Oh, yeah. What do you expect from me? Even if the skeleton fish and everything weren’t so Aesthetic I would love He Xuan, but the messiness of their relationship to Shi Qingxuan is really what sells me.

4. Shi Qingxuan. Again kind of a “against type” pick for me! But...augh. I love them. I love them and their ebullience that feels like a very thin mask over a lot of insecurity and a desperate need to be liked and a holdover from the childhood spent living in fear. I love them for how quickly and eagerly they adopt Xie Lian as a friend, and how they continue to defend him from basically day one forward. They’re good.

5. Mu Qing. What a mess!!! Love him. Mu Qing Has Rights and every reread I’ve done just underlines my feelings about this more. He’s so prickly, and so conscious of his status (or lack thereof); so determined to have independence, abrasive and temperamental and bad at expressing himself in ways intelligible to others. And he does the Thing that I love where when people think badly of him he’s like “OH SURE, WELL, I’LL LET YOU DO THAT AND NOT BOTHER TO CORRECT YOUR ASSUMPTIONS.” I don’t know why I like that, except that it’s the ‘oh you’re just going to tank your own life for the sake of your pride aren’t you’ thing. Anyway this isn’t making a lot of sense but. Mu Qing, y’all. He’s good and I want good things for him post-canon.

(with bonus mentions for: Feng Xin, Ling Wen, Banyue, Yin Yu, and Quan Yizhen, the last of whom I developed a sort of late-blooming dumb affection for.)

Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation

I feel like I have a much stronger feelings about the CQL versions of the characters - have still only read the novel itself once, so these are mostly CQL verse versions by virtue of that...being the lion’s share of my experience. Always just feel like I need to establish that.

In pretty much the converse of what I said about SVSSS, this is the canon where I have, like. Deep fondness for almost every character. So I went ahead and added some of the extra spots I had leftover from the Scum Villain not top five and put them here instead. I can do that if I want.

1. Xue Yang. I mean, anyone who has followed me recently for any amount of time may have noticed this. I walked into this fandom and took one look at this gremlin and went “oh, that one is mine now” and haven’t really looked back other than brief fits of guilt that change absolutely nothing about my feelings. I Just Love Him, Xue Yang Has Some Murder Rights Actually. I just...love a disaster of this magnitude who ruins his own life because he doesn’t know how to not do that. That’s the good shit, you guys.

2. Jiang Cheng. Boy do I gravitate toward insecure younger siblings with abandonment issues who don’t know how to communicate their feelings, don’t I. There’s so much crunch in Jiang Cheng’s character, so much messiness and confusion and difficulty. He doesn’t make anything easy, for himself or others. I just love how...he loves so much and so hard and yet he has all this dysfunction that makes it so impossible for him to express that, most of the time. I mean, I have written multiple several-thousand-word odes to my Jiang Cheng feelings, I don’t know how to really talk about them here except how much I think about the fact that I do not think Jin Ling has never doubted that Jiang Cheng cares about and loves him and how much that’s what Jiang Cheng would’ve liked to have in his life - that certainty of being loved.

3. Wei Wuxian. I feel like I don’t talk about Wei Wuxian enough and I think that is mostly because I feel like everyone else has already said what I would say and said it better, but like. What a character! What a character written to tap into so many of my very favorite archetypes of like. Trauma! The intersection of selflessness and selfishness! Deep loyalty to those he cares about and a willingness to destroy people who get in his way! Determination and ingenuity! And like. The fact that he dies dramatically and tragically and then gets to come back and have his...not even redemption arc but something like that, sort of? v v v good. I get to have my cake and eat it too.

4. Xiao Xingchen. Like, okay, yes, I recognize we don’t get a whole lot of him in canon so I am building a lot of headcanon edifice on a very small foundation but so sue me. I mean - someone described Xie Lian in my inbox a while back as “Xiao Xingchen if Xiao Xingchen were the protagonist” and honestly in some ways I can see it? His determined kindness, his desire to do good in the face of being repeatedly punched in the face by the fact that his world is not kind, the way that he is weird in his own society, the absolute tragedy of his life’s arc. Xiao Xingchen deserves the world. But also I love thinking about his...imperfections, and the ways in which the idealization of him by the world around him is incredibly isolating and lonely, and I will always be in my feelings about characters with a public image and the isolation that can create - when you are less a person than a symbol.

5. Lan Xichen. Again one of those characters where I didn’t see it coming and he kind of snuck up on me but now I’m like. Oh Lan Xichen I want you to have nice things only! Someone give him a break from trying to shoulder sole responsibility for everything and the burden of being the only person who is willing to give people a shred of the benefit of the doubt! Like, fuck but he’s carrying so much, and trying so hard to bear it well and gracefully, and someone needs to wrap him in a shock blanket or something and give him a minute to breathe. And also remind him that it is okay to have boundaries.

6. Jin Guangyao. Are we surprised? I hope we’re not surprised. I feel like I should just link to this post since this thing has already gotten ridic long and I don’t need it to get...even longer.

7. Jin Ling. I really didn’t see this one coming but here I am in loving Jin Ling hours all the time. He’s just...I feel like I keep saying this, but he’s such a mess but he has a good heart and he’s trying and he’s just so...determined! He has so much to live up to and a big chip on his shoulder but he is a sweetheart deep down, he’s a brat for sure but he’s also such a kid who wants to think he’s not a kid but boy, is he. I love him very very much and I think he’s going to be all right, more or less, eventually.

but like. this is a thing where I’m very fuck I love everyone in this bar about it!!! as you can see picking top five was not even a thing I could do except that Jiang Cheng and Xue Yang are pretty solidly my two Babies with Wei Wuxian only a hair behind by virtue of me feeling like he doesn’t need my support as much.

[fiercestcorpse]

Hello! I have been reading your webnovel for the past two years, and have come to the conclusion you do not deserve to have Luo Binghe as your protagonist. He is my comfort character and seeing him in an environment not meant for him brings me anxiety, so I will be expecting a reply to this DM when you have him in the wood shed and ready to relinquish him to someone who will treasure him like he deserves.

[jin-guang-ow]

(sv anon) some spicy opinions for the meme: sqq doesnt love lbh romantically

I love this gif v sorry guys but it’s my fave atm

Agree!

Personally, I think the entirety of Scum Villain was uhhhh a little rushed idk? The ending didn’t quite strike me as fulfilling??? I pretty much just agree because I feel like I never had that AH-HA moment of like omg they’re totally in love with each other. Idk if it’s just because there was a lot more effort put into making it funny, so MXTX skipped that romance shit???

I don’t doubt for a second that he has amiable feelings for BingHe since he does seem to really care for him, but I never really got that “I see why Shizun has fallen for Binghe” moment? Do you guys know what I mean? Because it’s my very favorite part of romance anything!!! I get why BingHe loves Shizun (one of the first people to be v kind to him uhhh after the transmigration of course). Shizun really treasured BingHe, but it didn’t feel romantic. I feel that. I feel like the extras were much cuter than the actual story line. Again, I think there was just more effort into the funny HAHA NOW THE MC IS GAY THANKS TO STUPID SHIZUN than uhhh justifying Shizun actually loving BingHe haha.

Idk I really like MDZS and TGCF because they’re slowburn and you get all these small moments that slowly build up until the characters (pretty much just the MCs in this case) are like wooooahhhh I love that person!!!

Somehow the 6 chapters of MoShang made me believe they were v cute and could end up loving each other better than the 80+ chapters of BingBing chasing Shizun over and over and over again haha

Feel free to send me your MXTX Hot Takes and I’ll tell you if I agree or not (I probably agree honestly hahaha)

[scumvillain]

The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System

(back to masterpost)

The pace picks up a little! Time to lose some points!

Chapter 4

It’s nice how Ning Yingying progresses as the story goes on, but in the beginning she is just a sort of annoying yet cute and oblivious girl. Poor Binghe, she means well but she just made his life harder because she can’t seem to read the atmosphere.

“If a damned stupid writer wrote stupid words for four years to create a novel that seemed to span two hundred years, who could remember what happened at the very beginning?”

I feel like this when I just look at the cnovels that span over 1000 chapters. How can you write a story that long. How. I love his voice in this paragraph though, very fun stream of thoughts as usual.

“It took him twenty days to finish reading, he’d entirely forgotten that scene of pure abuse!”

Um. This is a really long novel that took four years to write and he finished it in 20 days? It’s amazing he remembers anything with how much content he consumed, not to mention he knows a lot of the worldbuilding bits by heart or close to it. What a devoted reader, our Shen Qingqiu.

“Luo Binghe’s determination to appear to be not here completely disappeared...”

Honestly, same sometimes. Just let me fade into the background. Poor Binghe he was such a pure child.

“Only Luo Binghe stubbornly refused to give his. She only raised the issue because she was unhappy.”

Ning Yingyiiiing.

“This was the tiniest bit of warmth during Luo Binghe’s darkest time; even when he was entirely washed black later, he could still think back to this warmth and become a little more human.”

It’s kind of funny how indignant and ready Shen Qingqiu is about defending Luo Binghe wanting to keep his treasured Guanyin pendant to himself.

You can tell how engrossed he was in this novel, whether that was because of something he liked or the plot holes he rants about.

“If this goes on, you won’t even give a hand to your own fellow disciples when we’re facing against a strong enemy!”

Excuse me, what is with that jump of logic? These unreasonable statements are all over this genre. xD

“As a bystander, Shen Qingqiu truly wanted to make a move and beat up Ming Fan, returning the jade pendant to Luo Binghe.”

Is this not how a reader feels sometimes when characters do stupid things or another is about to get hurt?

Though it’s sort of hilarious in this context because Shen Qingqiu sympathizes with Ming Fan who is totally unaware of the terrible fate that awaited him in the original storyline. 

“It all came from the waves of anger in his heart.”

lol Luo Binghe please

“Shen Qingqiu:……Little sister, do you like Luo Binghe or do you want to kill him!”

there goes his wonderful thought process again!

“Serious OOC! Serious OOC! Serious OOC! Important things must be said three times!”

The System is too funny now that I understand how it works.

Important things must be said three times lol.

“Shen Qingqiu who had been filling himself with all kinds of cheats these days also knew about this little spell.”

haha this reference to what he’s been spending his time doing between events in the novel. Reading up on skills to help save his life! And also stocking up on points.

“No wonder they said that if a master made his move, even a flower could hurt people. He shouldn’t have killed Ming Fan with that shot, right……”

OOPS. xD Did it really hurt that much that Ming Fan let out a “tragic scream” though?

“Out of his hands and he immediately felt regret.

What am I doing? 

Luo Binghe is that excellent male protagonist, it’s not like he hasn’t been ganged up on before. Can he even be killed?!”

This is one of those interesting parts of the story. In the beginning, he obviously treats everyone as fictional characters. Yet his instinct is to treat them as people and to worry over their fates since he is a pretty good guy, only after does he think “wait these are just characters”. It’s increasingly cute how he keeps wanting to help Luo Binghe (who wouldn’t want to help the poor bun??) and realizes after the fact that it is possibly at the cost of his own wellbeing.

“A leaf’s feelings count as 10 points? Don’t make the math so crude!”

lol “A leaf’s feelings” Oh Shen Qingqiu, you’re hilarious.

“Shen Qingqiu really admired himself.”

see

also you weirdo watched two kids searching in the mud for a whole afternoon

this pissy system

hahaha

“It may be that later this jade pendant would have its use. For instance, in a critical moment it might be used to trade for his life?”

Quite pragmatic of you. If I was facing the same terrible fate that Shen Qingqiu has to look forward to, I’d do the same. xD

“For changing the scene, ‘Shen Qingqiu’ will receive +100 Points for Intelligence.”

haha to gain some, you have to lose some too

“In the middle of his palm lay some green leaves. The edges of the leaves were sharp and stained with blood.”

I wonder what Binghe thought about this? Some “mysterious” person was helping him out.

Next: Chapter 5 ← back • onward →