#does he acquire xin mo to do it?

[sunderwight]

Shen Yuan who glitches in his transmigration, but the original Shen Qingqiu still dies of a qi deviation.

So the System still needs someone with narrative relevance to throw Luo Binghe into the Abyss. In a fit of desperation, it contrives circumstances after Shen Qingqiu's death to move Luo Binghe to An Ding Peak (not that difficult), and then the System makes Shang Qinghua be Luo Binghe's new scum master who casts him down.

Airplane's thrilled, really. Cultivators aren't supposed to get ulcers but damned if he doesn't come close to one anyway. Between Shen Qingqiu and then just a while later Liu Qingge both dying from qi deviations, and Shang Qinghua looking like a stiff breeze could take him out any day now, poor Mu Qingfang is also just about at his wits' end.

But it's not all bad news! On An Ding Peak, Luo Binghe actually finds himself surrounded by the kinds of people who are accustomed to being bullied by the rest of the sect. So they're pretty sympathetic to him, and it's easier for someone with basic laboring skills to advance on that peak too. His chores don't decrease too much, but he actually gets rewarded for doing them well, and no one tries to kick him out of the dorms or anything. Shang Qinghua doesn't either go out of his way to bully or praise Luo Binghe, correctly reasoning that his best shot at not getting a gruesome death is to just be a more forgettable bad guy than an abusive dirtbag or a heart-wrenching betrayal. He doesn't sabotage Luo Binghe's cultivation (no point, and it would just farm resentment later) but he also doesn't go out of his way to help him improve (not gonna arm his inevitable maybe-probably-murderer with better weapons!), so Luo Binghe's situation sees an overall improvement but not the zero-to-hero treatment he'd have got with Shen Yuan either.

When Shang Qinghua shoves Luo Binghe into the Abyss (he just full on picks him up and tosses him like a sack of beans, better to rip it off quick like a bandage), LBH is upset, but he's not especially surprised or dismayed about Shang Qinghua's part in it. Later on he'll be kind of confused, because he just assumed that of course the righteous sect cultivator would abhor the demon, but it turns out Shang Qinghua has been working for a demon since before Luo Binghe even came to the sect? But then it still kind of makes sense because a Heavenly Demon would definitely pose a risk to Mobei Jun and to Mobei Jun's rule. Shang Qinghua, he supposes, is just really loyal to his specific demon.

Luo Binghe's subsequent revenge quest is also somewhat mitigated by the Abyss actually not being that bad.

The Abyss is not actually that bad thanks to the glitched out Shen Yuan having been camping there for several years now.

So when Shen Yuan's transmigration failed it failed because he "woke up" during the process, realized where the System intended to put him, was like no way in goddamn hell am I being that guy about it, and actually kind of won the ensuing tug-of-war. The System couldn't put him in Shen Qingqiu but Shen Yuan didn't want to go back to his dead body either, so he ended up stuck in the nearest available space for lost interdimensional beings. Which was the Endless Abyss.

Luckily Shen Yuan's quasi-transmigrated imparted an equivalent cultivation level as Shen Jiu's to him, and the glitch made him able to sense and manipulate certain extra-dimensional energies, so he manifested as this weird godlike being able to manipulate and control aspects of the Abyss. So he set about transforming Airplane's Torment Nexus into a viable ecosystem (the current version would not be anything approaching sustainable were it not for divine/narrative intervention, and is constantly on the verge of destabilizing into unlivable ruin that would only be fit for some particularly hardy microorganisms).

It's still like, a monster land full of demonic creatures and terrifying phenomenon, but with Shen Yuan's assistance it becomes something more like a demonic wildlife reserve than a dimensional horror plane. Though it is still a dimensional horror plane, and Shen Yuan is its chief dimensional horror. He treats it sort of like those dungeon building or wildlife park sims, figuring out how to keep everything in balance while still preserving all the interesting parts. A lot of the extreme survival issues of the Abyss are more of a result of it being environmentally unstable than a result of its actual denizens, and once he smooths out a lot of the messy dimensional edges and creates stable vents for the fluctuating energy run-off, the demonic inhabits start behaving less like horror movie monsters and more like animals. They're still wild and dangerous and prone to killing one another, but also more cautious, and able to access enough stable resources that they can even start to be picky about what they pursue.

Turns out that a lot of creatures in the Abyss actually don't like fighting and dying and being brutally injured on a regular basis, even if they can heal from it!

Shen Yuan has even discovered that some like chin scritches (he's not terribly worried about habituating them to people, given how rarely any people actually access the Abyss, but also because he's not really all that people-ish himself these days).

This means that one of Luo Binghe's first encounters with the horrible creatures of the Abyss, is in fact a pack of wolf-like monsters thoroughly avoiding an actual fight with him. In fact most of the denizens of the Abyss just avoid him. They can smell the Heavenly Demon energy rolling off of him, and given the current abundance of alternatives to dealing with that, virtually none of the monsters actually choose to challenge him. There are still a few that will go after anything that's bleeding, but that problem stops once Luo Binghe's physiology heals his wounds, which takes like... a couple hours, max.

Despite the stories he's heard, Luo Binghe is relieved to find that the Abyss is not quite so terrible as all that. Normal survival skills suffice for seeing him through much of it. He's able to hunt for food, scavenge for tools, and even finds potable water fairly easily. After a few weeks, he also comes across a ruin which seems to be inhabited.

The being inhabiting it is plainly a god, although he demurs and refutes such assertions whenever Binghe is too frank. He's a strange being, at turns looking like some queer approximation of a human, at other times blinking and winking in and out of existence, in patterns of strange lights and oddly geometrical fire. But he's surprisingly not hostile, letting Binghe rest in his residence, and even directing him towards points of interest. Accompanying him, too, though he seems to think that Binghe doesn't notice the odd almost spiderweb-like patterns that appear on things which he's influencing. The god calls himself The Peerless One, or at least that's what Luo Binghe infers from some writings on the ruin. The Peerless One offers instruction, seemingly without thinking about it, and gets flustered at being addressed by title, so Binghe also begins to refer to him as Shizun after a while.

[warpweighted]

I have so many feelings about luo bingge hes supposed to be the ultimate power fantasy clearly to the extent that even he does not recognize how fundamentally empty his life has become. he was very open-hearted until Shen Qingqiu pushed him into the Abyss, at which point he reforged his fundamental worldview into the same one Shen Qingqiu ascribes to, which is: there are two types of people in the world, those who get hurt and those who do the hurting (optional type 3: women and children who are mostly innocent of either, by virtue of having someone do and/or receive the hurt on their behalf), and the only way to move from the first category is to place yourself firmly in the second. he does, I think, try to make himself better than SQQ, by maintaining his position only by hurting people who have already done harm (for whatever his threshold of "harm" is), but he definitely does not reject the worldview. because that would require him to be vulnerable! and look where that fucking got him the last time he tried it! it got him in the Abyss is where it got him!

which does not leave room for things like "love" or "care", but does ensure that he is extremely secure in his position (power fantasy) and that he will always have people to do whatever he wants (power fantasy) and that he will have every single one of his physical needs taken care of (power fantasy) and that because he is the most powerful person in the entire world, he will never be hurt again (power fantasyyyyyyy). which, given the entirety of his childhood and young adulthood, is understandable! I dont think he's ever been able to dream something more for himself than "I'm warm and I have enough to eat and no one hurts me." I doubt he thinks there is anything more than that. from all possible angles he has more than achieved his wildest dreams. what could there possibly be to be unhappy about? If he's discontent, that's just because he's gone too long without a conquest (a conquest of what type? take your pick).

But he is never satisfied with what he has, and he has no one who will treat him as a person to be loved rather than a lord to be appeased. which is by design! someone who treats him like a person is someone who is close enough to hurt him, and as long as there is some new power to be grabbed there is some avenue by which he is not yet all powerful, and therefore some way in which he can still be hurt.

which means that meeting SY!SQQ shakes the very foundations of his worldview, because here is a Shizun who cared for him. Hurt him, yes - in most of the ways that his own SQQ hurt him - but cared for him nonetheless, and is currently trying his best to care for him entirely and hurt him not at all, and who expects the same of Luo Bingge Binghe. This world's SQQ rejected the premise that avoiding harm necessitates harming others, and this world's (weak! vulnerable!) LBH also rejected this premise and somehow managed to live by it? symbolized very blatantly by having somehow managed to hold on to his mother's guanyin pendant. and this LBH is satisfied, he's happy despite having almost nothing at all, only one spouse and not even a quarter of the treasures LBG has and he fucking shattered Xin Mo, he hasnt taken out hardly any powerful enemies and there are still people in the world who can hurt him and somehow he's the one who got the genuine security and the loving relationship even though he's done nothing at all to deserve it -

And confronting all of that is going to require he internalizes that he did not deserve what SQQ did to him, and that the relations of power he thinks of as an immutable foundation to the world are not only not inherent but are actually wrong, and that all the security and safety he has acquired over his lifetime will not be what actually makes him happy, and actually being happy requires taking on the risk that he will be hurt again. which has got to be terrifying to him, but theres no way he can un-pop that bubble and go back to not remembering how it feels to receive a loving touch.

[thispatternismine]

Feedback Fest 2024: 10 Fic Recs

It's been a while since I've done any kind of recs list post, so I thought I'd have a go at this. Instead of trying to pick just 10 fics as my favourites (Difficulty level: Impossible!), I decided to base it on which fics seem most overlooked, so I chose fics from my bookmarks that had under 500 kudos

Fandoms included: ATLA, SVSSS, MDZS, Watership Down, Star Wars, Good Omens, Untitled Goose Game All are complete, with a variety of ratings & themes (ranging from chill G to E with archive warnings)

Title: Gabriel & the Great Goose of Terror Fandoms: Good Omens, Untitled Goose Game Pairings: None Rating: G Wordcount: 4,363 Description: A strange package arrives in Heaven. An unnamed angel opens it and finds it empty. Not having the imagination to see what this implies the angel miracles the box away and continues with their daily duties, blissfully unaware that the horror that had originally been hiding in the box has already been unleashed.

Title: The Story of El-ahrairah & the Rabbits of Cloud Recesses Fandoms: Watership Down, MDZS Pairing: Tagged as Wangxian but it's background Rating: G Wordcount: 1,702 Description: The Black Rabbit of Inle and El-ahrairah are both very disappointed in the warren of Cloud Recesses, though for very different reasons.

Title: This Bed of Love Fandom: MDZS Pairing: Wangxian Rating: E Wordcount: 4,513 Description: Wei Wuxian sucks a string of hickies around the base of his throat, a perverse necklace that matches the one Wei Wuxian wears. Lan Wangji can’t help the way the corner of his lips curl at the giggle his husband gives when he draws back to look, happy that they are both enjoying themselves. Day 1 – Coming Untouched

Title: The Element of Change Fandoms: ATLA Pairings: Urzai, Ozai & his family Rating: T (the MCD is for canon character death) Wordcount: 6,862 Description: A think piece on if Ozai had been born a waterbender and how that would change his relationships with his family and, ultimately, his life.

Title: Gratuitous Fandoms: ATLA Pairing: Ozai/prison guards Rating: E (the pairing + rating should tell you all you need to know regarding warnings) Wordcount: 7,757 Description: In another version of events, perhaps, someone comes to his aid. Someone saves him, and he does not have to face degradation again, and again, and again. This is not that story.

Title: About the Acquired Blindness Fandoms: SVSSS Pairing: Moshang Rating: T Wordcount: 891 Description: Shang Qinghua isn't sure if he wants to know if his eye sockets are empty or not. If yes, then it is irreversible. How will he do his job then?

Title: I've Connected the Two Dots Fandoms: SVSSS Pairing: None Rating: T (CNTW) Wordcount: 1,242 Description: Airplane has a problem. However, as the Peak Lord of An Ding, he has a lot of practice dealing with problems.

Title: Twilight Sleep, Waking Nightmares Fandoms: SVSSS Pairing: Moshang Rating: M Wordcount: 6,111 Description: An alliance of young cultivators are looking for Xin Mo, and want Mobei-jun to tell them where and how to get it. It goes pretty badly for them, starting with the fact that their demon bindings and truth potions work. How do you torture a demon enough to make them shut up?

Title: Amongst the Crystals Fandoms: SVSSS Pairing: Moshang Rating: G Wordcount: 5,482 Description: Early one morning, Shang Qinghua is awoken by Mobei-Jun and taken somewhere. He doesn't know why, but he figures his King has a good reason. Never could Shang Qinghua predict what lay in wait for him.

Title: The Warm Embrace of Long, Sharp Teeth Fandoms: Star Wars Pairing: Reylo Rating: E Wordcount: 18,847 Description: There are stories on Jakku that every child knows. Younglings who wander off into the cold, barren night and never come back. Ever-shifting monsters, too terrible for the mind to hold. Stay close to the fire, my darling, stay close. Rey knew these stories, too. She just didn't realize she was in one.