#just in different ways than in mdzs
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llycaons · 1 year ago
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by comparison xl was actually getting along fine before meeting hc. as an immortal he'd been through a lot, but he'd had by and large a very stable and happy upbringing, as a god he still had some power, he had his own house, he had gotten his old job back, his old friends never really abandoned him, he made extremely powerful new friends quickly, he had been scrap collecting for centuries and was used to living like that etc. of course there's always the bwx issue but he had a lot of help for that too actually. it was just that. he was really lonely
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poorly-drawn-mdzs · 11 months ago
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#poorly drawn mdzs#mdzs#wei wuxian#lan wangji#jiang cheng#While listening to the Lotus Seed extra I was like 'aw this art is so cute.'#Post The Fanfic Fiasco (re: last comic's tags) I am haunted by the green orbs. WWX has a bag of edible green orbs and I am in hell.#First draft of this comic's script has JC saying 'dude you wouldn't even share with me!' and I love his little sibling indignation.#Middle child power is knowing that you don't have to share with your siblings. The little wet eyes and weak hand slaps do NOTHING.#JC probably already ate all of his lotus seeds. That's on you dude!#Part of me wants to get deeper with the metaphor of the lotus seeds here. It is a gesture of a certain kind of affection.#JYL gives something to WWX she does not quite share with JC. And WWX in turn gives something to LWJ he does not share with JC.#Really puts JC's line 'You're always eating...eating eating' into a very different light.#There are other kinds of starving besides hunger. There are other ways to be a glutton than just food and drink.#WWX's character pre-burial mounds is heavily focused on 'Indulgence'. Be it wine or flirting or hunting or eating-#-or receiving admiration; He is always indulging in ways we never see JC do.#I think the intentional contrast was with the Lan's 'Live simple and without indulgence' lifestyle. LWJ is the abstainer to wwx's gluttony.#But it does expand to JC as well! Both are locked into the role model position to have friction against WWX's apparent freedom.#I think LWJ and JC (at this point) see WWX as something they both want (in different capacities) and someone they want to be.#Yet despite the history between them it is not JC who WWX reaches out to. It's LWJ.#The boy already has an inferiority complex! Stop making it accidently worse!
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mxtxfanatic · 5 months ago
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@transparent-internet-maker I feel bad about going back and forth on op’s post, especially since I can’t comment in the notes, so I’m just gonna make a new one. It’s come to my attention that idek if we’re discussing the same source material, so just to put it out there: I am discussing resentful energy as presented in the novel.
With that said: Wei Wuxian couldn’t have survived 3 months without food while heavily injured, but the Burial Mounds is never described as a land where no life can live. In fact, we at least know it’s wooded area. He very likely scavenged whatever edible (or at least non-fatal) plants he could find and hunted whatever meager animals may have wandered in. What he most definitely could not do, however, is survive off of resentful energy. In the novel, it is not conscious. It is not sentient. It’s not “deciding” to preserve him, and it’s not making any sort of contract with him like this is jjk, whether Wei Wuxian knows it or not. The overwhelming presence of resentment in the Burial Mounds would only have the power to make him feel terrible, and Wei Wuxian’s survival can be solely attributed to his life’s goal of living and living well without holding on to resentment, thus preventing the resentful energy from breaking him as it had likely done to others before him who may have initially survived their entrance into the cursed place. Resentful energy does not in any way, shape, or form benefit living beings when residing in them. That’s both the moral of the story and the physical mechanics of the world.
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twistedappletree · 1 year ago
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Actually obsessed with the idea of Jin Ling trying to teach Lan Sizhui archery and getting smug as hell because he finally found something Lan Sizhui isn’t an instant prodigy at but at the same time, he sees how determined Lan Sizhui is to learn it and can’t help but love teaching him and wanting to see him succeed so they can hunt together
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randomidiocyncrazies · 10 months ago
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Help I'm being held hostage by fem!Nie Mingjue AU
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pbaintthetb · 2 years ago
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today on fics I will never write:
Mo Xuanyu DOES have a friend in Mo Village, he’s not alone, it’s just that this friend is the disembodied spirit of Jin Zixuan- who only he can see- so it really does nothing to curb the accusations of madness
it’s jokes though, they go a whole month before JZX like, realises they’re related.
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tvxcue · 2 years ago
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the fact that nmj sent nhs to the cloud recesses during the war really just makes me scream abt how young they were bc nhs, wwx, lwj, and jc were literally so young when the war started and yet nhs is the only one who didn’t fight and that is literally bc nmj protected him. he was allowed to still be a kid bc he had someone protecting him. and nmj isn’t even THAT much older, hes literally in his twenties.
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lazycranberrydoodles · 6 months ago
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I am now opening custom Ace Attorney sprite commissions!
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I have 3 open slots.
Depending on how the initial slots go, I may or may not offer more. DMs also welcome.
>> Commission form! <<
Details
What exactly will you receive for $60?
Two 12fps looping .gif files in an Ace Attorney style, one talking and one idle, of the character of your choice from the waist up. They can be in pretty much any still position, but I get final say on whether something is too difficult or too complex. I will work to make the sprite as accurate as possible while adhering to the style.
What will you receive for $20?
Either a short 12fps animation of your character or another two looping gifs (talking and idling) in a different pose/emotion. An animation can be combined with talking. For example, this Wei Wuxian MDZS would be $80: $60 as a base price (standing still and talking) with $20 added for his hand gesture.
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This set of Lan Wangji MDZSs would be $100: $60 (base price, neutral animation) + $20 (happy) + $20 (displeased).
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What counts as a "slot"?
Art of one character, no matter how many pieces I was commissioned for.
For more examples of my Ace Attorney-style work, here is the masterpost for my MDZS x Ace Attorney crossover series, which I have been adding to for a while now. Here are Kabru, Miku, and Hela Vitrum (my most recent commission). They are a good example of the base commission -- a looped talking gif and a looped idle/blinking gif.
Policies (read this before filling out the form!)
I am not affiliated with objection.lol. The sprites *can* be used in the program to great success. However, I will not guide you through creating a case in objection.lol. There are a lot of tutorials available. I am selling animated illustrations of your character and nothing else.
I am not affiliated with Capcom or Ace Attorney. My work copies the style of original games. In many cases, I have referenced pre-existing animations or sprites.
Just in case, I'm limiting the max number of pieces for a single character to 3 poses and 1 animation ($120) (so I don't get bored drawing them over and over again). One person can commission me for multiple characters but they will count as different slots (i.e., you may commission the max amount of work for Blorbo Bingus ($120) and also commission two poses for Dworbo Dingus ($80) for a total of $200, counting as two slots).
It is my privilege to take or refuse commissions at my discretion.
Depending on demand, I may adopt a first-come first-served waitlist system, but I really can't know at this point.
Payment depends on the price of the commission, but in general I will not start the piece until I am paid via Paypal. Venmo is a secondary option. My prices are in USD.
Once I get started, I work quickly, so any changes should be requested at the sketch stage. I will work with you to get it right. Once I have started work a piece (once planning is finished) I will not give refunds. Finished piece(s) should be done within a month of finalization (you giving me the go-ahead to start).
Filling out the form does not mean I have accepted the commission, but it does mean that I will contact you in a routine way about it.
These commissions are intended for personal use. The pricing reflects that. Tell me if you wish to use a commission in a monetized way, as that will require renegotiation.
If you wish to communicate with me about commission work without filling out the form, my email is [email protected]. I am not planning to offer commissions other than Ace Attorney sprites at this time. I will reply within the week.
Communication via tumblr DMs, asks, or comments is welcome!
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poorly-drawn-mdzs · 1 year ago
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Gearing up for the stat boosts
MDZS Disco Elysium AU Part 3 (Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 4)
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whoviandoodler · 2 years ago
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thinking about that scene where wwx comes back from the burial mounds and gets into a fight with lwj over demonic cultivation and how like. absolutely heart-breaking wwx turning to demonic cultivation was from lwj's perspective. here he was, trying for months to get his head around wwx being a rule-breaker but a just man, insolent but very skilled, trying to come to terms with his feelings for someone so... essentially un-lanish. and he finally did (i'd say around the cave arc, because I believe that's the first time that he didn't go back and forth and very seriously stood by wwx to protect him)... but then stuff happened- wwx comes back, this time not wielding his sword, but wielding something that lwj has been taught his entire life is irrevocable evil, by the looks of it for nothing but a whim or a laugh. here lwj had decided to protect wwx and to stand by him, and then wwx goes and... well, seemingly does the exact same thing lwj's mother did- turned to evil just because, or for the convenience of power. do you know what that must've felt like? the terror lwj must've felt, not only because of the price dark magic would have on wwx, but because lwj was in his father's place all of a sudden, the mc in a story that had been used as a lesson of the greatest sin his entire life, committed to protecting someone who did evil. he must've- i don't think there's anyone who could've resisted it- sworn to himself at some point during his childhood that he would never do something so shameful as his father, that he would always stand with good and against evil, and wwx was good, he was certain of that, and he placed his heart at wwx's shrine thinking that it was the rightest thing to do, only to find that it had all rotted somehow. i think this inner turmoil, the shadow of his parents' mistakes, was what got him to wait so long- too long- until he stood with wwx fully again, moreso than just the fact that demonic cultivation was seen as evil and he was taught to fight it.
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pan-withnoplan · 1 month ago
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Jiang Cheng is the type to reason that there are two holes, one from which the liquid comes in, and another from where it comes out, because the straw is cut at two points.
Wei Wuxian would bs the type to fiddle with the straw, look at it from all angles, finally look inside it and realize "wait, a straw is a long hollow tube, doesn't that mean that there is, technically, after all, only one hole perpetuated by the form, as long as it gets?" or some shit.
justify your reasoning in the notes!!!
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fateandloveentwined · 1 year ago
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wuxia, xianxia, and cultivation differences meta
translations: wuxia 武俠, xianxia 仙俠, and cultivation 修真/修仙 (xīuzhēn/xīuxiān)
think i've seen posts on this eons ago, and i'm pretty sure there are tons of these online, but since this has been written up already let's just have another one.
wuxia 武俠
wuxia and xianxia sound similar, but basically for wuxia it is about the pugilistic world (江湖 jiānghú). It is relatively more down-to-earth, and people practice martial arts ("kungfu") in their current life -- they do not do it to become xians (仙) and gods (神) however.
Like Thousand Autumns and Faraway Wanderers/Word of Honor, it has more historical background and ties to the current court and kingdoms, because people are living in the moment and concern themselves with worldly issues.
Martial arts may seem unrealistic, but in view of chinese fantasy it would be considered "real". It consists of fighting moves and internal energy, which they call qi or nèigōng (內功), and at times you see people flying around, climbing hills and jumping across rooftops which is qīnggōng (輕功).
xianxia 仙俠
A level up would be xianxia, where characters in the story cultivate to become xians (and gods, like in the heaven official's blessing). They don't really care about earthly issues here now, because their ambitions lie beyond the current world, and cultivation, getting stronger, and an immortal life are majorly all their goals.
You may not always see them working towards that purpose, such as in mdzs they are considered a lower-xianxia society (低魔), meaning people don't go through all the steps of cultivation and only stay at the stage before the "golden core" stage.
In xianxia, characters still learn basic fighting moves aka. martial arts, but to direct the internal energy they use línglì (灵力), zhēnqì (真气), and fǎlì (法力), all xianxia terms you commonly see. "neigong" is practically nonexistent in this genre. That's why people building up their "neigong" instead of "lingli" are likely never going to be able to cultivate.
cultivation 修真/修仙
A subgenre in the xianxia category would be cultivation. Characters actively go through the stages of cultivation, and likely for the MC, because they are the main character, they successfully become a xian and exit the world at the end of the novel.
There are many stages of cultivation, usually defined at the beginning of the novel in the synopsis, and a typical example of the different levels would be this:
练气,筑基,金丹,元婴,化神,炼虚,合体,大乘,渡劫
And with a cursory search, an English translation would be something like this, albeit not with all the cultivation ranks identified.
Qi condensation (练气), Foundation establishment (筑基), Core Formation (金丹), Nascent Soul (元婴), and the names after that vary too greatly with translation and fandom so I'll jump straight to Immortal Ascension
extra info: getting into the philosophy of it all
It'd be interesting to note that the word "xiá" (俠) permeates all these genres. This is something akin to the concept of "hero", but not at all also, and I'd love to speak more on this but this post has already gone way longer than I hoped it would be, so perhaps another day.
Regardless, it is interesting to note that wuxia has a greater emphasis on "xia" than xianxia. (some joke that cultivation doesn't have the word "xia" in it, and much of that is because characters have foregone heroism and focused on gaining powers and working towards ascension instead). As a result, wuxia is more confucianism-oriented, though not without its taoism and buddhism influences.
xianxia, on the other hand, is mainly derived from "dào" (道), from taoism, which is another lengthy concept if I ever get to it.
And some may have heard of the "farming" genre, 种田 (zhòngtián). This has to do with golden fingers (mary sues) in imperialistic china, earning a wealth of money, and all that. It has nothing to do with cultivation, alike they sound in english.
that's it for now, hmu if you wish to ask/discuss!
(and apologies for the pinyin translations, hope it's understandable still! formally writing pinyin they are supposed to be two separate words not one.)
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afsosville · 2 months ago
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You know what would've been nice? Shen Jiu ending up on a different peak that's actually good for him. Maybe Qian Cao, or the beast taming peak could've been hella therapeutic. Or the alcohol/brewery peak to drown away all his sorrows. But what if he stayed fucked up, in a way that's actually good and productive for society? Yeah, I wanna toss him over to Yin Hui and let him run wild! I've seen many iterations of Yin Hui, the fanon peak for espionage and poisons in fanfics. By extension, Yin Hui is also covertly the assassination peak, and I wish this peak got more attention around here tbh. Why do I think this peak is the most well suited for Shen Jiu? BECAUSE ASSASSINS. Duh.
So here comes a baby demonic cultivator Shen Jiu and the Yin Hui peak lord immediately wants him. Shen Jiu would be more readily accepted by his peak martial siblings, and no one would bat an eye at Shen Jiu, his standoffish personality or shady past. A lot of Yin Hui disciples are from questionable backgrounds since the Yin Hui peak lord naturally has to be very particular about selecting their disciples. Yin Hui was established to protect the sect and its people by any means necessary. Sure, the rest of the sect may fight against the supernatural, demons, and the undead, but Yin Hui fights an even greater monster: people.
The Yin Hui peak lord manipulated things so that the first impression the rest of the sect has about Shen Jiu is 'that new badass Yin Hui disciple that killed the criminal Wu Yanzi and saved the future sect leader!' (Seeing as Wu Yanzi would be the very sort of ppl they assassinate, he's already getting goated on Yin Hui too.) So Shen Jiu is known as that new prodigious disciple from Yin Hui and is getting some goddamn respect! And just because of his association with his peak, fewer people are inclined to question his background and whatnot since there's an understanding that the identity of the YH disciples needs to be heavily guarded. The Yin Hui peak lord finds out about the Qiu's soon enough, and they erase any and all traces leading back to Shen Jiu. Even framing it in a way that makes it look like WY did the massacre. Any credibility Qiu Haitang could've had for Shen Jiu's murder accusations is thrown out the window. (Ain’t no way in hell the Yin Hui peak lord is going to name SJ that stupid trauma inducing name like a certain Qing Jing peak lord, that's for sure.)
I'm pulling in elements from MDZS over here. In my version of Yin Hui, they have disciples who practice demonic cultivation, but they make sure it's in a safer way that won't hurt them. There's a surprising number of disciples who have damaged cultivation and chose to cultivate the ghost path. The previous generations of Yin Hui peak lords have created Wei Wuxian's inventions in this AU, and is used by the rest of the peak, like the compass of ill winds, paper metamorphosis, the spirit attraction flag, and empathy. I lowkey want a Wei Wuxian that's native to SV to be the Yin Hui peak lord, now that I think about it. He's good with his kiddos and would be an awesome shizun. And ofc, Shen Jiu is a reflection of his environment, so he's certainly making an example out of Wei Wuxian, one of the only positive influences in his life.
Shen Jiu still has his violent tendencies, so nothing has changed about that, but he learns to take that pent-up energy out on missions instead. And he does them well. It even gives him an edge. Everyone else thinks he's just reallyyy good at his job, as expected of the talented head disciple of Yin Hui!!
He really does try his best to not be an ass (bc he gets the love he deserves on Yin Hui) and ends up venting in a different way (coz he knows better than to take it out on people who don’t deserve it.) His shizun really gave him the free reign to kill sl@ve trad3rs, human tr@ffick3rs, r-ists, and other scum whenever he wanted, in the name of stress relief lol. If killing a particular person becomes politically complicated, like the Old Palace Bastard, then you best believe he's going to scheme like the little schemer he is. He's going to Nie Huaisang the OPM.
Since Shen Jiu is not salty about his fucked up cultivation, and his martial siblings respect him, they get along just fine. His cultivation is some parts similar to Wei Wuxian's: Shen Jiu is a ghost cultivator influenced by music. Sure, he may not be that great of a spiritual cultivator, so what? He's pulling up like the Yiling Patriarch with his demonic cultivation and a haunted guqin of his own.
And guess what? Shen Jiu enjoys teaching. He's training miniature assassins, spies, and the art of demonic cultivation, so forgive him if he's more than a little enthusiastic about it. I imagine that he's exactly like Shifu from kung fu panda when it comes to teaching. Still extremely harsh and strict when training, but outside of actually teaching, he's an attentive and caring shizun. And yes, he completely does act like a father figure who is proud of his murder babies, and ends up being called A-Ba so much that all of Cang Qiong thinks he's officially adopted every single one of his disciples. (After being saved by SJ on a mission, NYY persistently begs SJ to take her in even though he desperately thinks Yin Hui isn't a good fit for her. And then, after being under him for a while, she's completed her first mission successfully, has smn else's blood on her face, and is smiling brightly. 
Ning Yingying: "I completed my mission shizun! Are you proud of me?"
Shen Jiu: "..."
Some other peaklord: "Haha like father like daughter! She's definitely your girl alright!"
Shen Jiu: "...!?!" )
Yue Qingyuan is conerneth about his Xiao Jiu, but as long as he's happy, who cares. Shen Jiu has a better relationship with the other peak lords, so when asked about why he visits brothels, he straight up tells them that it's the best place to gather information in the dark. He doesn't have that mentality of "why explain myself when no ones finna believe me anyway" He actually trusts them and is more honest with time. Shen Jiu does come clean about killing the Qiu's at some point, and the peak lords are all like-
"I didn't hear shit"
"See, I'm blind in my left eye, and 75% blind in my right-"
"Completely understandable, Shen shidi!"
They don't even ask why he did it and just assume he had a valid reason, and he absolutely fucking did.
Oh, Shen Jiu gets accused of playing dirty? Liu Qingge, he literally kills ppl and makes poison as a daytime fucking job ofc he's gonna play dirty! Shen Jiu tried killing you that one time on the well mission? Bro you good? The fact that you think he tried to kill you and failed?? You just insulted an entire peak of disciples and their ancestors. You would've been dead before you could even think of sensing their killing intent if it were true. And there was a witness too, doofus. Be fucking for real. Nahh coz there definitely would be more people who are taking Shen Jiu's side whenever the two of them fight.
Shen Jiu uses a shit ton of versatile weapons because most of his fighting and cultivation prowess comes from his wits and adapting to fighting with different styles/methods. He is kinda similar to Xie Lian bc both of them lack spiritual energy/qi (damaged spirit roots in Shen Jiu's case), but that does not mean they are weaker. It just means they learned to train their body and minds instead of relying on cultivation/qi. He has a massive arsenal of weapons along with the demonic cultivation. (Airport security would hate him)
Yin Hui has got to be my favorite fanon peak, and Yin Hui! Shen Jiu plauges so many of my waking thoughts, I can't stop-
I can add elements from my other hyperfixation into this AU, the Avatar Chronicles. Which are the written books from ATLA. The criminal organization Kyoshi joined, the Daofei, for example, could be a good plot point. Or the Platinum Affair from the Yangchen books. If you don’t know what the Avatar Chronicles are, just ignore this last part lol.
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therealstonedelephant · 1 year ago
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(more good tags via @cerusee)
Listen, both Yu Ziyuan and Jiang Fengmian were shitty parents that fucked their kids (& wwx) up in various different ways. But I will forever be more sympathetic to a frustrated women in a patriarchal society stuck in a toxic marriage than to the man who has power and authority to change something but refuses to do it because he doesn't like conflict and pretends like nothing is wrong.
#nodding to all of this#the jfm/yzy situation (and yzy getting most of the blame for bad parenting) also annoys me because#quite a bit of yzy's abusive behavior was seriously exacerbated by jfm's avoidant and indulgent behavior#and i think on some level jfm must have known this#but he just refused to grow a spine and be even a bit of a hardass#classic case of dad always wants to be the cool parent which leads to some level of emotional negligence from a lack of discipline#leading to mom overdisciplining kids to try and compensate which spirals into an overall stressful and neurotic leadership style#also v good point that theres a big dissonance with jfm considering wwx like a son and yzy not#i read meta at one point about how wwx's unclear relationship to the jiang family led to a lot of his self-sacrificing/destructive behaviour#like. post-attack on yunmeng. the ways that he would be expected to support his siblings is very different if they are family#vs. if they are martial family#and wwx makes particularly self-destructive choices while trying to fulfill both forms of support#like the golden core transfer was wwx trying to provide emotional support to jc#because he didn't think jc could cope with living without a core#but it was also the kind of extreme self-sacrifice that a head disciple would carry out for their sect leader#with whom they may have a close relationship. but still a different relationship than a sibling#where the role of head disciple can be filled by someone else if the head disciple dies#whereas a brother cannot be replaced#but i digress#mdzs#the untamed
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sunderwight · 10 months ago
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thinking about reverse SVSSS AU where the demon characters are human and the human characters are demons (LBH is still both), but cultivation society operates more like MDZS so that the demon characters can preserve their ruthless clan politics and inheritance systems, and but demon society (which the formerly human characters are now part of) operates more like the ghosts in TGCF, where it's mostly a free-for-all of powerful demons establishing whatever kind of system they please in whatever space they can carve out. I think that'd preserve the meritocracy elements and "twelve different sects in a trench coat" qualities that cang qiong has as an organization.
so the peaks are instead these sort of liminal space cities which are ruled by the most powerful/influential demons, who choose their successors (at least ostensibly) based purely on talent and ability. instead of the sprawling alternate dimension demonic realms of PIDW, they're more like pocket dimensions which can only be accessed if you know the secret ways, existing in the shadows of otherwise seemingly normal towns, mountains, cities, forests, etc. humans sometimes wander into them by mistake, although whether they can get back out again or not depends a lot on which demon lord's domain they were unlucky enough to stumble upon.
Mobei Jun and Sha Hualing are still the heirs of their respective sects/clans, which are among the most powerful sects around. The CQMS peak lords are the rulers of twelve allied demon settlements. Tianlang Jun was the heir of the strongest sect, sort of like Wen Ruohan if Wen Ruohan's biggest motivation was to have his Hot Girl Summer rather than conquering everything, but after his and Zhuzhi Lang's disappearances their sect lost a lot of clout. Su Xiyan hailed from a wealthy demon phantom palace, known for its exceptional hostility towards humans (this version of HHP definitely literally eats people).
The demons-turned-humans are still exactly as cutthroat and dubious as in PIDW. Sha Hualing still wants to kill her father to take his position, Mobei Jun's uncle still tries to assassinate him, the cultivation world has an underground business in trafficking demon body parts (officially decried, but unofficially often consumed to help boost cultivation or create certain tools), the sects often go to war with one another and tend to wreak havoc on the secular human governments and societies whenever they do. All that sort of stuff.
On the humans-turned-demons end, demons in this setting are sometimes born the same way as humans -- two parents of compatible genital orientation get it on and some months later etc etc, which is how siblings like Liu Qingge and Liu Mingyan happen. But sometimes demons also just sort of manifest out of concentrated pockets of demonic energy. Some demons come from humans (SJ and YQY were both born from the unquiet ghosts of slave children), some come from animals (SQH was a pet hamster who was tormented enough to become a demon hamster, and then cultivated enough to take on a human shape), some come from collisions of powerful elemental forces such as volcanoes or floods (Su Xiyan).
So demons have a lot of apprenticeship and teacher-and-student style familial relationships, and demons looking to build families often will risk venturing out into the human realms and trying to find other isolated demons to bring into their fold. Demons alone in the human world are highly vulnerable to being hunted, killed, or enslaved. This is also why there's such a high percentage of "orphans", and contributes even more to a demon like SJ (no parents) resenting a demon like Luo Binghe (found and adopted by a kindly older demon almost right away).
So in the original PIDW, Luo Binghe is a kid who thinks he's a demon and grows up under the cruel and resentful talons of the Lord of Qing Jing, Shen Qingqiu. Every twenty or so years the demon settlements manifest much more strongly in the human realms, during which time they are a lot more vulnerable to attacks from humans. To help deal with this this, the demon rulers traditionally host big, dramatic, scary events that bring everyone within a certain geographic range together, the better to put any righteous sects off the idea of trying to single them out and attack. Most of the smaller settlements clear out entirely in preparation, leaving "ghost towns" where the buildings appear but the demons and anything too valuable to risk leaving behind are all gone.
This Demonic Alliance Conference is a time for contests, trials, matchmaking, partying, festive hunts, trading, and big displays of power. What could be a massive weakness instead becomes a big celebration, and a time for mingling and making new connections.
In PIDW, after suffering years of abuse at the hands of his cruel master, Luo Binghe attends the DAC in hopes of securing some better place for himself in demonic society. But when the righteous sects launch an unprecedented attack on the event, his human heritage is revealed, and Shen Qingqiu tosses him into the twilight space between realms in disgust. Binghe is forced to navigate the hollow and desolate place, locked into his newly-revealed and very weak human form, until he bonds with the legendary Xin Mo blade and effects his escape. Then he sets about bringing the righteous sects to heel (his bloodline means he's heir to one of the biggest sects around, even if they've fallen on hard times the past 20 or so years) and of course conquering the demon realms, and taking revenge on Shen Qingqiu, all while accumulating a record number of wives.
Shen Yuan transmigrates into Demon Lord Shen Qingqiu, ruler of Qing Jin settlement, a haunted bamboo forest in the most cursed mountain range ever.
Downsides -- he's of course destined to be dismembered and/or shoved into a pickle pot by the protagonist.
Upsides -- he's a demon with amazingly awesome demon traits! He has talons! Fangs! WINGS! Also, Binghe is a little demon bun and he is so cute, like a puppy with his fluffy wolf ears and baby claws and darling bright red eyes. Who could ever persecute such an adorable monster boy?! His tail literally wags when he's excited!
Plus Shen Yuan gets to spend as much time investigating cool beasts and other demons as he likes. He's in heaven. Well, not literally of course, but for his standards. Pretty close. Almost worth the price of admission!
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tossawary · 1 month ago
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I'm back to frequently thinking about a Transformers AU for SVSSS, because I love trying to fuse the worldbuilding (working across several different continuities of TF, admittedly) into something recognizable to both worlds that's also new. I also love pulling on the elements these worlds have in common: immortal beings, endless conflicts, switching bodies, cores of power, building yourself up to become a higher being, oppressive systems controlling entire worlds, people (characters) who were constructed and are discarded for specific purposes (profit and sometimes just entertainment) and are not always viewed as real people, the creator god might be just some guy over there, and so on.
For this AU, my story outline currently sticks to Cybertron and its surrounding space. I don't have any characters whom I want to make human, I have very specific backgrounds in mind for everyone already, and I have a plotline that doesn't require Earth or humans in any way. Though, for fun, I was absentmindedly fiddling with the idea of taking the characters of a different MXTX story (MDZS or TGCF) and making them into the humans of this AU.
I feel like Wei Wuxian would be one of those human characters who is basically already climbing into the seat before a transformer can finish introducing themselves as a giant space robot; oh, he is DOWN for whatever the fuck this is. However, if I was writing Wei Wuxian as a human in a TF AU, I don't know which SVSSS character I would pair him with as his "partner", as I personally would be far more interested in writing a story in which Lan Wangji and/or Wen Ning (both?) are Cybertronians. (Yes, obviously, Wei Wuxian would be a robotfucker for LWJ.) I'm leaning more towards Wen Ning, because there's the "I rebuilt this guy and turned him into an abomination who acts kind of in service to me" aspect, and also it's funny to imagine human Lan Wangji having to put up with his boyfriend's alien car being a part of the relationship.
With TGCF, making the characters into the humans of a TF AU for SVSSS feels like a reversal. Xie Lian's narrative everything arguably makes him an even better Cybertronian than any other MXTX character. The fall from being, say, a Prime and the Bearer of the Matrix to apparently being some poorly-maintained bot that spends its time picking up trash on Earth in the aftermath of some Cybertronian war? Delicious. Hua Cheng was some half-broken, half-starving, outlier freak, MTO discard saved by the new Prime EIGHT MILLION YEARS AND SEVERAL WARS AGO, and has never gotten over it and never will. And a lot of the other TGCF characters also match very nicely to TF worldbuilding: mmm, my brain likes chewing on the image of beautiful and terrifying, near-immortal robots falling from the "heavens". It's even easy to source internal TGCF characters as the humans if you need human characters, so there's no real need to make it into a crossover with MDZS or SVSSS.
So, ultimately, this TF AU for SVSSS is not going to be a crossover. I don't want it to be. But I did enjoy thinking about TF AUs for MDZS and TGCF as well, where the worldbuilding or character arcs fit nicely together, so I wanted to share that here.
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