#i love getting svsss dreams

[jade-len]

there was a weird ass part in my dream where shen yuan was like the chinese version of mr beast and i was his media manager or whatever and luo binghe was a reoccurring contestant but every time he participated he'd always win and get the money so, like, of course people started suspecting favoritism and cheating and it didn't help that when questioned shen yuan would just go "well it's not my fault you guys suck compared to my good boy white lotus sheep" which, mind you, did not look very good considering that binghe was still bunhe age which then also led to a whole other controversy where the internet suspected that rich man shen yuan was grooming binghe and i was genuinely so stressed out because shen yuan would say shit without fucking going to me first and it got to the point where shang qinghua saw my miserable ass and felt bad and took me out to eat at this noodle place (thank you airplane bro) but as i was enjoying this much needed break a notification from twitter popped up and it was a picture of binghe sitting on shen yuan's lap and i just quit my job right there.

[sunderwight]

Thinking about a bingqiu Dreamling AU where Shen Yuan and Shang Qinghua are both bored deities, just sort of taking a brief sojourn through the mortal world to shoot the shit and see some interesting monster or other that Shen Yuan has heard about, when they come across a tea house and decide to take a break and do some people-watching instead.

Shen Yuan is well into something of a shut-in phase, which Shang Qinghua doesn't like, mostly because when Shen Yuan is in those phases he doesn't do particularly well either. Shen Yuan's a social butterfly, for however little he cares to actually acknowledge it about himself, and his critique of Shang Qinghua's literary masterpieces gets so much harsher when he's not getting enough enrichment.

So when they overhear one of the kitchen boys solemnly insisting that he is going to do everything in his power to never die, and Shen Yuan laments that the boy would probably regret such a wish if it came true, Shang Qinghua decides to bestow a rare bit of godly power onto this mortal and grant his wish.

He doesn't make him a god, of course, that wouldn't even be in his ability. At least, not without using up more time and effort than he's prepared to expend on this one random kid. But immortality on its own is not that difficult. The boy will still finish growing up, and will still be able to be harmed, to know hunger and pain and illness. It just won't ever kill him.

Shen Yuan sighs that it's a cruel thing to do to a mortal, especially one with such low odds of ever cultivating other skills to mitigate the potential torment of it all. But Shang Qinghua just shrugs and they place bets, that this boy will ask for the immortality to be revoked in a hundred years, or two hundred, or so on, or else he won't. Shen Qingqiu approaches the kitchen boy and flusters and bewilders him by telling him to meet him back here again in a hundred years time.

A hundred years later, the tea house is larger. The boy has grown to be a striking young man, who looks at Shen Yuan with wariness and something else, something almost like awe, as he asks what manner of creature he's made this bargain with. Shen Yuan assures him that he has no nefarious intentions, and instead asks Luo Binghe how the past century of his life has gone.

Horribly, at least at first. Binghe's mother had already died by the time they met, but afterwards he managed to earn enough money to travel to a nearby sect. Working in the tea house's kitchen was just a minor stopover along the way. Shen Yuan was wrong, it seems, about his odds of becoming a cultivator -- Luo Binghe earned entry as a disciple.

Yet, he had no success. The master who took him on was unaccountably cruel and mercurial, and Luo Binghe's attempts to cultivate failed. Looking back he sees now that there were many times when he should have died but didn't, but when it was all happening he just thought himself lucky. At least until an enemy sect attacked a cultivation conference, and he suffered mortal wounds that absolutely should have killed him (or anyone) but still didn't die. (No demon race or abyss in this AU, but there are still demonic and fantastical creatures.)

His cruel master, upon witnessing this, accused him of heretical practices and tried to kill him as well by flinging him off the edge of a gorge. The fall was terrible. Binghe lay at the bottom in a horrifying state, injured beyond reason and yet, still, he didn't die. Eventually his body recovered enough for him to drag himself out, and once he did the only thing on his mind was getting revenge. For the next several decades he managed to ingratiate himself to all manner of potential allies, forging alliances, accumulating blackmail, and convincing people that he had to be some powerful cultivator through his supernatural resilience, lack of visible aging, and a lot of bluffing. He got revenge on his old teacher, drove his first sect into ruin, and rose to prominence as a feared and respected leader of the cultivation world.

Shen Yuan listens with clear interest, asking plenty of questions and seemingly quite taken up with the story. At the conclusion, Luo Binghe admits that his actual cultivation is still mostly a matter of smoke and mirrors, and wonders if -- now that the hundred years have passed -- Shen Yuan means to strip his immortality from him.

Shen Yuan asks if Luo Binghe wants that. When Luo Binghe says no, he accepts the answer, and tells him to meet him back here again in another hundred years. Luo Binghe calls after him, but before he can ask anything more, Shen Yuan has disappeared again.

A hundred years later, Binghe arrives back at the tea house with an entourage befitting of an emperor. The tea house has also expanded. Luo Binghe orders a lavish feast from them, which everyone hastens to provide. He's spent the past several decades consolidating his power, forging alliances with key political players via several marriages, producing heirs, and crushing his enemies. As he brags about the state of his massive harem to Shen Yuan, the deity's eyes begin to glaze over. He doesn't seem impressed. He also doesn't seem to care much for the food, and eventually his attention is stolen away by a conversation at another table. The diners are discussing the exploits of a promising new poet and novelist. Try as he might, Luo Binghe fails to regain Shen Yuan's attention before the evening is done. Shen Yuan doesn't think it's a big deal -- after all, if Binghe is still riding on top of the world, he's probably not going to want his immortality gift revoked just yet!

Another hundred years go by. The tea house has returned to a more modest situation, the next time Shen Yuan sets foot in it. He waits an unusually long while for his guest to arrive, and when he does, he's almost stopped at the door by the tea house's servers. It's only when Shen Yuan bids them let him through that Luo Binghe is able to come to the table, almost collapsing against it and desperately falling onto the arrangement of snacks with obvious hunger.

Shen Yuan wonders if this, now, will be when the boy (no longer a boy) asks for the immortality to be revoked. Surprisingly, he finds himself resistant to the idea, even though it's also clear that the game has run too long. Maybe hundred year check-ins were too short? He doesn't like the implications of what's gone on, even if he's not really surprised about it either.

Between desperate mouthfuls of food, Luo Binghe explains that without mastering inedia, going hungry but never dying is a deeply unpleasant experience. Shen Yuan orders more food. Once Binghe has finally eaten his fill, he begins, haltingly, to explain his situation. His clothes are ragged, he is painfully thin, and his gaze is haunted.

Apparently, several of his wives conspired to assassinate him, despite his reputation as unkillable. Realizing that most poisons and such didn't kill him, but that he could still be incapacitated, they hatched a scheme to dose his food with a powerful sleeping agent, and then walled him up in a famous ancestral tomb. They went to great length to ensure that it was impossible to escape from. It took Binghe decades to do it anyway, digging away at the floors, and when he got out he found that his power base had collapsed. In-fighting and the incursion of his enemies had led to the deaths of all of his children, and what wives had survived had either fled or remarried. Not that he particularly wanted them back at that point, since the ones actually most loyal to him had also been killed early on after his own "death". His face marked him, to the eyes of his enemy, as a surviving descendant of himself. He was hunted down, chased across the continent and back again, until he managed to fall into enough obscurity that his pursuers abandoned the chase. Except that he has nothing, and any time he tries to regain something, he runs the risk of being hounded again. Those who might see some potential in him still remember the collapse of his recent "dynasty" and slam doors in his face, or else try and turn him over to those now in power in pursuit of a reward. Those who don't know that much see only a dirty beggar, and usually run him off on that basis instead.

Shen Yuan, almost hesitant, asks if Luo Binghe would like to have his immortality revoked.

Luo Binghe declines. How will he be able to take revenge on those who wronged him if he is dead? He has a hit list a mile long by now.

Which is definitely not the most noble of reasons to persist, but Shen Yuan finds himself reluctant to ask twice. Instead he orders more food, and then even reserves one of the traveler's rooms above the tea house for several days. By then the sky is turning grey, and Luo Binghe is losing his apparent battle with exhaustion. Shen Yuan presses the key into his hand, thinking it's probably not enough, but there are limits to how much gods are supposed to interfere and Shang Qinghua already stretched them to the breaking point with this entire scenario.

He leaves, not seeing the hand that reaches after him just before he is out of the door and gone.

Another hundred years pass. This time, Shen Yuan arrives to find Luo Binghe already waiting for him. He isn't surprised to see that Binghe's situation has visibly improved -- maybe he was keeping closer tabs on him, just a little bit, for this past while. If only to be sure he wouldn't have to warn the tea house workers to expect an unorthodox visitor again! But no, Binghe has been doing well enough for himself. No more harems or thrones, though. He dresses more like a well-off merchant now, deliberately posing as his own mortal descendant rather than as a great immortal cultivator. The food at the table looks far more delicious than usual too (Binghe commandeered the tea house's kitchen himself this time). As they chat, Shen Yuan is regaled with the exploits of Luo Binghe's travels and adventures, how even though he initially set out to claim revenge on those who overthrew him, by the time he was in a position to actually do so they had already died of the usual causes (time, illness, their own schemes backfiring, etc). Subsequently, only their children and grandchildren were left with the scraps of power they had obtained, and when one of those children employed Luo Binghe as a bodyguard, his initial plan to assassinate them eventually fell by the wayside. After all, the wrongdoings weren't actually theirs. From that point, Binghe was able to restore himself to a more comfortable life, joining his new employer on their travels until he had set aside enough earnings to take his leave before his youthful good-looks earned him suspicion. He then began investing in travel and trade, specifically cargo ships, because never spending too long in the same place or around the same people helped disguise his immortality. He had found that, at least for now, this served him better than playing the part of a cultivator. It also gave him time to try and actually repair his ruined cultivation base somewhat, and fighting pirates proved very diverting.

Binghe is midway through recounting his adventures with a gigantic sea monster, while Shen Yuan hangs on every word, when they're interrupted by the arrival of a brash young mistress, clearly wealthy and trained in cultivation. The young lady declares that there is a rumor that a fallen god and a demon meet in this tea house once a century, that they wield strange powers, etc etc, and she intends to interrogate them both with the assistance of her hired muscle and her own spiritual weapon, and discover the truth of the matter. Then she whips out, well, a whip!

Before Shen Yuan can deal with the matter, Luo Binghe is already on his feet, disarming the goons and breaking a few arms in the process. Shen Yuan is so distracted that he almost misses the whip aimed right for him, but before Binghe can catch the barbed weapon with his bare hand (wtf, Binghe, no) Shen Yuan deflects it with a wave of his fan, and then efficiently knocks the troublesome young lady unconscious. The hired muscle flees, Shen Yuan arranges for their assailant to be placed in a room upstairs until she regains consciousness, and he and Binghe resume their meal and conversation in relative peace.

Even though it's clear that Luo Binghe has not yet reached the end of his tolerance for life, Shen Yuan nevertheless finds himself strangely reluctant to part ways at the end of the night. Still, he does, because that's what is expected of him, gently denying Luo Binghe's suggestions that they find some other establishment to continue their conversation at. He also has to investigate these "rumors" that the young lady mentioned. It's probably nothing (Shang Qinghua has a loose tongue when he's drunk, and a lot of imaginative storytellers have frequented this tea house over the years) but he doesn't like being caught unawares like that. Heavenly politics are... complicated, it's best not to court unwanted attention in any capacity.

Another hundred years go by. This time, when they meet at the tea house, Luo Binghe asks Shen Yuan why he keeps it up. Why did he pick Binghe? What is he really after? When Shen Yuan fails to give any kind of clear answer, Luo Binghe shoots his shot and makes a (very obvious) move on him.

Shen Yuan, flustered, gets up and flees. Ignoring Luo Binghe's calls after him. It just doesn't make any sense! Why would Binghe do that?! He's a man who once had a harem of wives in the triple digits! Clearly he's not gay, so what was that all about? Was he just messing with him?! How dare he! Etc, etc.

Another century passes. Luo Binghe waits at the tea house, which has fallen onto hard times again. With the construction of some new roadways, travelers no longer pass through as often. Binghe listens, worried, to the proprietor's laments that this old place will probably not be around in another hundred years. He listens because he has no one else to speak to, because Shen Yuan has not shown up. Not that morning, not during the day, not come evening, and not now that it is closing time. Binghe nevertheless charms and bribes the proprietor to let him stay even after the place has shuttered.

It seems damning, of course. He pressed too hard and now his mysterious benefactor wants nothing more to do with him. Except, no, he refuses to accept that. He's still immortal. And he has gleaned enough of Shen Yuan's character by now that he thinks that even if he was rejected, he would be let down more clearly and gently than this. The more he thinks about it, the less willing Luo Binghe is to believe that he has been deliberately stood up (also, since the tenor of his confession was different from Hob Gadling's, he never delivered an ultimatum about what it might imply when they met up again).

Over the centuries, Luo Binghe has built up a few contacts with similarly strange and supernatural stories. Cultivators, sure, but also others, fortune tellers and people of strange ancestry, questionable abilities, those who have interacted with powerful beings of mysterious provenance. He makes his way to a certain gambling den, frequented often by such people, and while he flashes around enough money to draw curiosity, he collects information. Shen Yuan wasn't the only person who started paying more attention to the kinds of rumors surrounding the two of them after their confrontation with the young cultivator a couple centuries ago. And in fact, Luo Binghe has been spending many, many years trying to find out more about his mystery man. Though, too many potential deities and immortals fit his description for him to have ever conclusively figured much out.

This is how Binghe gets wind of a rumor that an eccentric occultist has somehow captured a god in his basement...

[waitineedaname]

feeling insane about the deep dream extra again. I like to make jokes about shen qingqiu seeing binghe hugging his corpse and deciding to fuck that man to qi deviation, but when I think about the emotions communicated in that moment it's so much more. shen qingqiu just got insight into a moment he wasn't around for, when binghe was grieving him so terribly, when binghe still didn't have answers for sqq's actions, when he kept reenacting a moment of nonsexual physical intimacy that left such a profound effect on his psyche

and shen qingqiu obviously can't change what happened in the past, but what he can do upon waking up is kiss binghe, press his hand to his beating heart, affirm (out loud!! a big deal for shen qingqiu!!!) that he wants him -- communicating with his actions that "I was gone then, but I'm here now, I'm alive, I won't be leaving, I love you and want you even when it hurts"

[mxtxfanatic]

It’s actually kind of amazing that Luo Binghe’s fandom personality is The Crybaby, because just off the top of my head, I can really only remember three places where Luo Binghe cries in the entire book: at Maigu Ridge, when he thinks he’s hurt Shen Qingqiu irreparably (again) during their first time in the Bing-ge vs. Bing-mei extra, and in the flashback of Luo Binghe being “accepted” as Shen Qingqiu’s disciple, where the narration clearly states that was the last time Luo Binghe allowed himself to cry ever again. I think Shen Qingqiu may have cried more times in the novel than him, actually 😭

[spooscribbles]

What to do when a child (half sea dragon and apparently son of your brother’s dead acquaintance) falls into your cave and you know you have to send him back but he’s so small and cute so you accidentally on purpose adopt him into your pod and awaken his sea dragon side and now you have to raise a half human half sea dragon child while hiding him from your brother

[nanyangjj]

aaaaaaaaaaaa i'm going to scream!!! sqq in the midst of feeling horrible pain: as expected of the protagonist! THE PROTAGONIST LUO BINGHE!!!

[achillesuwu]

I think it would be extremely funny if Dream time travel to 1689 (idk father time got drunk or something, I'm in the svsss fandom do you expect me to find actual world-building instead of saying "it's airplane fault"?) because, like Hob just experienced the WORST years of his life meanwhile Dream is like : "wtf is happening" but also "this is my friend, this is my labrador sunshine, this is the guy who waited for me when 99,99999% of my realm thought I abandoned them, what do you mean I shouldn't change the past? Fuck that, I'm gonna pet my labrador sunshine every Thursday like I did the past years in the futur. Watch me. "

Hob would be SO confuse because, he stinks !? (arguably, for dream every animal will stink no matter what so who care) He is poor!? He can't even get a job!? He is pathetic!? People despise him!? He is stupid, he got caught in bad situation so many fucking time!? He is SO far away from the glory of 1589 that his friend ignored, he is worst than 1389 and yet?!!? His stranger like him now!? He meets him often!?! Actually ask him if he would accept help or just need someone to be there!?!? He HUGS him EVEN IF HE STINKS!?!?!

Meanwhile the whole Dreaming wonder if their king just fell on his head and magically got +2 billion years of maturity and + 10 000 points in flirting capacity (what do you mean *HE* /ASKED/ and LISTEN to his new crush's point of views!? DID YOU HEAR THAT HE SAID THANK YOU TO LUCIENNE!?!)

[ace-wangxian]

Absolutely buckwild dreams I've been having but the one that sticks to me the most is the time I dreamt I was Bingqiu's wedding planner and was following an inconsolable Luo Binghe around on the verge of tears myself because we couldn't find Shen Qingqiu.

The second dream involved Hualian and myself in a cave and I really did not see how I was going to get out of there alive so I just woke up

[tossawary]

An SI-OC / transmigrator with house husband goals as Sasuke is funny to me for many of the same reasons that I like Shen Yuan in SVSSS. A Sasuke who abruptly gave up on most of his ambitions and started trying to genuinely enjoy life would break everyone around him with shock and confusion. (And on a slightly more serious note, this could be used to explore the toxic expectations surrounding masculinity and honor in this world.)

A new element making a mess is potentially a great way to explore the canonical characters who are still there. Truly, it is SO funny to imagine how Naruto and Sakura would react to a Transmigrator Sasuke suddenly being pretty nice to them and essentially saying, "Yeah, my dream is to be the husband of a Hokage." I think this would awaken something in both of them!

Maybe Transmigrator Sasuke mostly means this as a joke. Falling in love and getting married someday would be nice, sure, being protected by an OP protagonist while he focuses on rebuilding his clan would be cool, but his current focus is SURVIVAL and this is really motivating Sakura to pick up her training and it's getting scary fast. Which makes Naruto more competitive too! Also, Sasuke enjoys the grossed-out faces and disgusted noises that young Naruto makes every time that he makes a "Oh, your dream is become strong enough to marry me?" joke. So funny!

Our transmigrator is severely underestimating what this kind and flirty behavior is doing to his teammates here. (The mental term I have for this process is "Luo-Binghe-ification".) Kakashi is on the sidelines of this, watching his student (mischievously but also somewhat obliviously) sow chaos, thinking, "Oh, this is going to be a fucking disaster of teenage love drama in five years or less. Great."

(Kakashi is also potentially thinking, "I wish I'd been in the right headspace to pull this shit on Obito back in the day. Damn, that would have been hilarious.")

[jade-len]

wait was it you that made a cishet guy read svsss and he kept saying a bunch of gay shit? how's that going

lmao yeah that's me. i lowkey forgot about giving updates lol (and got a bit scared because he was a little too close to finding this account), but he finished it a while back already!

i'll just provide some key thoughts and things here:

he was traumatized by the maigu ridge incident and had to skim that section. hated lbh for like a day but then began to self project onto him, sooo

kins luo binghe. heavily.

favorite character is shang qinghua. he's a proud moshang shipper

made an ao3 account just to read locked svsss fanfiction (he swore he'd never touch that site)

his favorites are "Pride Is Not The Word Im Looking For" and "Tarnished Gold"

wants to make a fanfic where sqq adopts sha hualing after the invasion, teaches her morals, and becomes a girl dad ??? "gay son (lbh) or thot daughter (shl)?" "both."

dream place is at bai zhan peak. he has a bai zhan gym routine. i will not elaborate.

"hates" svsss and me for tricking him into reading it but we all know he loves it (and me)

"WHY IS BINGQIU FUCKING EVERY OTHER CHAPTER" -him reading the extras

says he'll strangle me if he ever finds out what my account is and the site/app i've been using to showcase his torment.

overall he really likes and enjoys it. he's like, the only irl person i can actively talk to about sv and will reciprocate the convo. svsss actually made us way closer and better friends! so thanks mxtx for creating bonding material!

⬆️ him coping abt his love life through bingmei

edit: btw sorry to some of you guys who were expecting us to get into a homosexual relationship lmfao (im a third wheel to his very straight feelings for a woman)

[lomlompurim]

Do you think that in svsss post canon, when bingqiu is in their marital bliss in their bamboo house, Binghe lays awake at night look at the ceiling and remembering all the nights he spend in his side room dreaming of marrying his shizun?

That silly teenage dream that seemed so far and unrealistic, utterly imposible, but he still held it close to his heart, in hope that one day, maybe one day Shizun would allow Binghe to court him. And then The Mess™ of the plot happened and he had no time to think too much about it. Maybe he still thought about it briefly, but not so much while dealing with the prospect of his affections laying death on his bed.

And after all that they just started a relationship, got engaged and had their wedding shortly after that.

And here they are, sharing their marital bed every night, living together, eating together, kissing, cuddling, having nasty loving sex and just existing as husbands. He became Sqq's husband.

I like to imgine Binghe looking at his husband sleeping peacefully next to him, then looking at the ceiling and getting all blushed while raising his fist to the sky while thinking "we did it, little me, we did it!!" And screaming internally like a giddy young girl in love.

[least-carpet]

What do you like about jc? Why he is your favorite?

Anon, this has been sitting in my inbox because I was afraid to open this can of worms. I've rotated this character nonstop for, like, the past three years. I got on Tumblr because of this character. I'm not even that wild about MDZS as a novel! I'm a SVSSS main! I don't know how I ended up here!

He loves his nephew so much. I love what we get about Jiang Cheng's relationship with Jin Ling, who had what was probably an indescribably weird childhood, but who has never once thought to himself that his uncle didn't love him. Jin Ling is evidently spoiled and rude but also so genuinely courageous, forgiving, and loving in his horrible teenage way. I love these two and they love each other!

He's dutiful. I think people sometimes think of duty as a burden, and obviously it can be, but I also think of it as an expression of care towards others. He sincerely cares about his responsibilities, which include all of the people who joined the Jiang sect to follow him.

He's supremely competent. We see the poor guy fail a lot, but he restored a massacred sect to Great Sect status in 13-15 years with what seems like no familial support and no apparent close external connections. He must be really, really good at his job.

He's such a bitch. He's here to make things hard and unpleasant on purpose! He's witty and will say the meanest possible thing he can think of in a fight! Just like his mother, he can sense your insecurities like a bloodhound and tear into them at will! I think this is a good and endearing quality (for a character, obviously).

He is profoundly screwed by the narrative. Dude is, as @winepresswrath puts it, "ontologically cursed." He exists to fail. His creator made him the most determined little toaster and then put him in 1000 unwinnable situations. He is trapped in, like, a bespoke torment matrix, that he only really escapes at the end of canon (dignity in tatters but nephew in hand).

Killer style in CQL and maybe also the donghua from what I've seen of the gifs? Fashionable king. Deeply uncool despite the drip, which endears him to me more.

Wang Zhuocheng's crying face. Yes, it's that gif set again. It haunts my dreams.

[violetdisasterzone]

yet another svsss hill I'm dying on despite the apparent popular opinion — bingqiu would be great parents! give them a decade of peace and quiet to start healing from the trauma of.. everything and to get comfortable in the fact that their love and commitment to the other is reciprocated equally, and I can 100% see them wanting some little ones.

Shen Qingqiu overcame both his age AND gender to become Cang Qiong's resident milf in a matter of days after his transmigration. He's great with kids - as Shen Yuan he had a younger sister who he likely helped raise or was at least somewhat close with, he obviously loves teaching and doting on his disciples, he's immediately protective of random-abandoned-toddler!Binghe in the dream realm after escaping from the Water Prison, and obviously in the Return to Childhood extra he's (the only one) having a great time. you're telling me he WOULDN'T want a baby version of Binghe for real??

and as for Luo Binghe himself, the joke/argument I see most often is that he'd be jealous of the baby for taking his shizun's time and attention away from him. first of all, by the end of the novel, do you know how many times that man has died in his arms, pushed him away, or been separated from him in some other very traumatic ways, mostly while he was being influenced by an evil sword that amplified his worst intrusive thoughts? do you know how many people WOULD take Shen Qingqiu away, given the chance?! I think he deserves to be a bit paranoid!! but again, with a bit more distance and healing from his traumas, time, and reassurance that Shen Qingqiu really is staying, I fully believe he will mellow out in that regard. with that aside, Luo Binghe is a total mama's boy, he's a part-time emperor full-time housewife, and his greatest dream has always been to be a family with Shen Qingqiu. I don't think it's a stretch at all to imagine that someday in the future, he would want to grow that family with him too. and although we don't see him interacting with children in canon the way we do Shen Qingqiu, I cannot imagine him not loving his kids, a tangible result of their love, to pieces too.

[corduroyserpent]

i love zhuzhi-lang conceptually but every time i see him i am forced to wonder if his father was just a regular old snags, or was it like a naga situation… did his father pass the harkness test? as the foremost tumblr expert on this specific guy, i was wondering if you have any insights

you've certainly come to the right place! unfortunately the canon information we have about zhuzhi-lang's father is slim.

we get this nice little tidbit about snake demons from shen qingqiu –

The snake race resided on the southern border of the Demon Realm. Strictly speaking, they still counted as part of the demon race, but their true forms took on the appearance of giant snakes. They were born in this form, and as they grew in age and cultivation, a terribly small number would over time shed their scales and take on a human appearance. But even more stayed in the shape of a snake for their entire lives.

[SVSSS Volume 2 – Chapter 12]

and this from zhuzhi-lang –

"My bloodline is lowly, all because my father was a simpleminded giant snake. I had this half-man, half-snake appearance from the moment my mother gave birth to me.

[SVSSS Volume 3 – Chapter 21]

so i'm of the opinion that zhuzhi-lang's father had either yet to cultivate a human form at the time of zhuzhi-lang's conception or at the very least was in his original giant snake form when tianlang-jun's sister got to live out her monsterfucking dreams (good for her MY GOD GOOD FOR HER)

the naga form we often see depicted in fanwork (for good reason, it's fun and sexy) is never seen in canon. so i think it's highly unlikely he was breasting boobily while slithering XD

but! i do think it's likely that their relationship passes the harkness test! just based on the sentience we've seen from other beast type demons and how zhuzhi-lang in his original half-snake form would definitely be able to consent. but we also only have zhuzhi-lang's word about his father so *shrug* who knows!

the only person who could tell us for sure is MXTX 🥺 i'm on my hands and knees begging, please release the forbidden heavenly demon princess x giant snake extra PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE

ahem. anyway! these are my thoughts and i hope they were helpful <3

[mars-syndrome]

sooo if ur somehow stumbling across this randomly nothing about this post will make sense unless youve read this fic https://archiveofourown.org/works/57909193

but hey, that promised bingge pov post! (full disclosure i am writing this before ive written the sqh scene so some info may be repeated!)

binghe was aware of sy’s nature from the very beginning. he knew it was demonic, but meng mo was the one who let him know about the concept of demon dolls and how theyre created. when he chose sy for qing jing, he was fully convinced it was actually a demon doll with sqq’s exact soul/copy and wanted to get ahead of whatever revenge he and/or yqy may be planning.

meng mo also told him that since sqq’s been dead yqy had probably used his own soul to help ‘create’ sy so both of them were hesitant to use their dream manipulation incase it let yqy know something was up since they could be spiritually linked and lbh’s half demon status was unknown plus he’d be the first person yqy would want to blame. while he wouldnt use dream manipulation since it was spiritual based, he would use the blood parasites as insurance since it was fully physical.

upon meeting sy, he began to have doubts about whether it was sqq’s soul. hence the fungi mission. he used that mission to judge just how human or demonic sy’s body is and also gauge his reaction to not being affected by the spores if his body was demonic to tell how “in the know” he was. when sy was genuinely confused and just accepted whatever explanation lbh gave him, he concluded sy knew absolutely nothing at all and shifted his focus to actually making sy care for him.

his confrontation with yqy after the fungi mission was basically yqy and lbh trying to psych each other out about how much the other knew. it ended with lbh implying he knew what was up, that he could reveal yqy for colluding with demonic cultivators and/or demons, and that he wouldnt let sy get found out unless yqy does some shit bc hey, thats his disciple. so up until now (chapter whatever this is linked on) they’ve operated under a strained truce that yqy stays away from sy and lbh wont reveal them.

for lbh getting close with sy was just a fun little side project. after all, a little sqq who adored him more than anything in the world? sqq would be seething and rolling in his grave. it doesnt hurt that sy was so earnest and cute either and him being on the peak made nyy happy so he was fine with getting some revenge like that.

in the fic’s og pidw, this grows into lbh desperately craving affection and validation from the kid who looks so much like his shizun who withheld it. he’ll grow codependent with sy, but the relationship stays very much master/disciple. on some level he’s aware that though sy does genuinely care for and admire him, hes playing out a role to receive lbh’s protection.

but in the fic our sy, earnest and naive, found the jade pendent.

this is bingge, two decades removed from the abuse he suffered. he’s had two decades to get stronger, to realize the world bends to his whims. to realize no matter where he goes he’ll have women falling over themselves to get into his bed but none of them will ever truly love him and what they give him is shallow. to realize he’ll have men envying him and wishing him harm just for being better. this bingge doesn’t have mobei-jun or any wives to share even the illusion of closeness or companionship with. he has nyy yet she’s been relishing in her role as da-shijie and hes happy for her truly, but he’s been alone in the bamboo house for 20 years.

when bingge meets sy!sqq in svsss who shows him just two days worth of normal domestic kindness, he immediately wants to leave with him. so how would our bingge feel with our sy, who he’s had unrestricted access to for 2 years, who holds genuine affection for him with no ulterior motive, who admires him openly and unashamedly, when he returns the very symbol of his happiness and the last bit of true love hes ever felt?

“precious fake jade indeed” he said

this fake sqq, this flawed copy of the man who tormented him, gave him back this fake pendant that he held most dear, that he lost hope of ever getting back again.

was that not symbolic? did that not make shen yuan his as well? did that not make shen yuan another symbol of love for him? did shen yuan not hand himself over to binghe when he handed over the pendant?

he begins objectifying sy almost. this was his person. obviously if sy was defective for yqy’s purposes, then wouldnt it make sense for sy to have been made just for lbh? after all, who else could cherish and protect sy like he could? yqy let him out of his sight long enough for him to becomes lbh’s so he wasnt fit. sy cant look after himself. only luo binghe could.

the mission he took just after sy’s 16th birthday was to track down the demon clan responsible for sy’s creation and learn more about it to see if he could sever and/or work around yqy’s connection. as soon as he learned everything, he returned and used dream manipulation (after he figured out it was safe) to walk through sy’s memories like svsss bingge did to sqq. he realizes sy’s memories are gone, he and meng mo conclude it was probably an error in the connection to body and soul bc of the nature of demon puppets. but hey, a wins a win. sy has no affection for yqy and the fact sy is loyal to only lbh remains unchanged.

speaking of, he should probably make sy his head disciple officially so yqy cant make any accusations about lbh’s inappropriate closeness to his disciple, no matter how true they are.

[spockandawe]

Here's a big project I've been sitting on! All That You Love Will Be Carried Away, by our very own @ceruleancynic! And a box, naturally, building boxes for books continues to bring me immense joy.

What we have here is not just the main fic, or the main series, but also All That You Love (The High Hope Remix) alt pov short fic by byzantienne, and, a detail that I was really excited to include: the initial comment exchange between these two fantastic authors of m the first fic in the series. Did I title that second little book 'all that you meet cute will be carried away' as a silly placeholder? Did I then get super attached and refuse to change it? Uh-

Hell yeah, I refuse to be dignified about any of my favorite hobbies!

But the real secret delight here was that I've been looking for the right opportunity to get weird with boxes. Peller boxes, hinged slipcases, yes, fine, but those are like the box version of my sixfold book adventure. I'm still shooting for some parallel to my fourteenfold book, I'm looking for a way to go completely off the rails. I have some ideas, but it's hard, finding a good large chonk and a small number of equally sized texts, which made a unified and complete set, AND which excited me to work with. That might sound unnecessarily picky, but I swear, there was a good reason for it!

Oh baby. Oh baby.

This worked out so perfectly. I wanted a large book at the center of things. And I wanted two small books oriented in a different direction, placed end to end, at its edge. And I got it! I didn't want to commit too early, and it would have been heartbreaking to fail, but once the big book was together, and the preliminary typesets for the two little books were almost identical? I just HAD to try.

Tumblr is already silencing me and refusing to let me attach as many images as I want, so for this post, let's talk about the main book a little! Cute little quarto bricks are my new FAVORITE favorite thing, as I'm sure you can guess from my archives, and this one was a dream to put together.

It had to be a three-quarter leather binding, naturally. And I was sitting on some gorgeous iridescent maroon paper for endpapers (no photos in this set, it refuses to photograph well, as is the way of pretty iridescent things). I spent some time agonizing over my other material, and whether to use two different marbled patterns, but I went with it in the end. The vibes were distinct enough but the palettes overlapped enough that I really enjoyed the effect. And with the northcott art of marbling fabrics (my beloved) I was able to use lines of symmetry to get some nice fussy cuts for the big book and the little ones. All of the books have leather endbands, matching the spine. And the big book has the big thick faux raised bands I tried out with my last svsss! I don't have enough pictures to show off all the book interiors, but I used this cover plate for the series and main fics within it.

And then, like I showed you above, I put it all together. Marbled paper and silk moire for covering the box, a lot of very tense wrangling of glued-up paper in very small spaces, and, at one point, carefully lowering glue-covered pieces of moire bookcloth down these little pits (walls already covered) using that tab in the front like the world's awkwardest elevator shaft. But the EFFECT!

I'm very, very pleased with myself, and delighted to have delivered this book to its new home. I've been absolutely VIBRATING with a desire to share, so! I can't be contained by tumblr's image limit. Hold on for two seconds (approx.) and I'm going to reblog this post with some wip pictures and more detail about how I worked this thing out and assembled this box and modified my initial design on the fly