Watching Bing-ge do mental gymnastics over why his alternate universe self would be sleeping with Shen Qingqiu is so funny to me no matter how I look at it.
You get to witness him talking himself into it in real time, going from, “look at him, that evil bitch, he's the worst person alive, so depraved, I have no compassion for such a heartless wretch," to, "well, I mean he’s never been ugly—but like how gross of AU me, like why would I jump into bed with—well, no okay I can see it. Yeah, okay I won’t lie, I definitely see the sex appeal. I’m just gonna…fake seduce him just to fuck with him a little bit. Yeah. That’ll show him. He’ll be so humiliated..." before immediately jumping to, "you know, I bet I could fuck him way better than AU me could.”
Like we don't even have evidence he's slept with a single dude before, but after like 12 hours with new Shizun he's already progressed to "so here's how I'll get my first male wife into the harem,"
Ended up combining my SY advisor (link) and SY PIDW wife (link) AU's
Where SY is one og Bingge's wives and basically running everything trying to take burden off Bingge. Not that's he's ever noticed. He is full on running the realms while LBH is away. People have to stop themselves slipping up and calling SY emperor/empress.
Bingge doesn't notice and SY is just overlooked constantly he tries not to let it bother him, it's fine he's able to fix for things for Bingge he's busy... it's been years and he hasn't even tried to see him once or notice but it's fine. Really it's fine he's fine.
So what if he's the one running the country, and the one who sits by Bingge's bedside when he does get injured (Only he had to leave for 1 moment to sort out a court issue and in that time Bingge woke up alone and called for one of his other wives to fix the issue because of course he was affected by a papapa plot plant) and so what if when Bingge does walk past him he doesn't even look at him. It's fine, SY is fine...
Only then the Bingmei Vs Bingge extra happens. Bingge is laser focused on getting a kind shizun as his empress...
So to clear harem he starts divorcing wives, including SY.
SY just shattered and it's. OK IT'S NOT FINE HE'S UPSET AND PISSED AND FUCK THIS SHIT.
SY leaves and goes back to wherever the wives family is.
... it doesn't take a week for everything to go to shit.
Advisors and nobles and every member of palace staff is freaking out everything's broken.
Bingge is pulled out of his Shziun focus tasks only to find everything almost on fire and what is happening? why isn't this stuff done? wait he's meant to do this? He's never done this? He doesn't know how to do this?
Cue him having to run realms and figure out how this has just broken whose been doing this before? How much of his job have they been doing? What do you mean it was a wife?
He goes to find wife and finds very upset and unhappy SY who is not coming back and refuses a proposal. Bingge having to woo him and slowly realizing he did have a kind Shziun.
svsss horror game au where shen yuan is first in line to buy the pidw-inspired rpg where you play as a wandering cultivator with amnesia, and are taken in by the cang qiong sect during the head disciple days of the last peak lord generation.
because pidw knows its audience, a large part of the marketing was focused on the romance and action aspect of the game, with additional lore from deleted novel scenes—how could shen yuan not buy this game? maybe the peak lords will finally be more than props in the background! the romance aspect seems to be at least somewhat tastefully done, if he can trust the leaks, with more emotional depth than fetish fulfillment (shen yuan swears that if there is even one unskippable cutscene of some peak lord's feet he's going to chuck his computer out the window).
shen yuan customizes his character, going all out on the clichés because why not, giving him white hair and peerless beauty and all the characteristics of an A+ wife (beauty is power in pidw), actually excited to play the game. the first part is standard, you wake up in a barn with amnesia, only a sword and some items to your name, and have to do some tutorial quests to get used to the game mechanics. it's simple enough. eventually, you end up in a village that shen yuan is certain is possessed, because all the NPC's act very unnatural and strange, and it's pretty unsettling. here, the player is supposed to meet the cang qiong head disciples on their own quest, who naturally think the player is the most interesting person they've ever seen, a super special cultivator, and will take him in because the player is the most coveted character in the universe (apart from luo binghe, that is).
of course, before shen yuan can get very far, he ends up being transmigrated into the game as his own character. it could be way worse: he's a cultivator, peerlessly beautiful, destined to be picked up by the most prestigious sect, and has his own protagonist halo of sorts. he's honestly pretty excited about this
until he finds out that the marketing heavily downplayed the horror elements of the game.
shen yuan is calmly eating a meal in an inn of the village, waiting for the next quest point to start, when suddenly,
[ system notification ]
"you are being observed"
observation level: ???
entity classification: unknown
engagement protocol: do not acknowledge
right after, the windows go dark, not closed or shuttered, dark, as if something large has just leaned against the side of the building. no one else acknowledges this.
shen yuan shakes it off. it's just a game, it's... ambiance, that's all. build up.
he walks through the streets of the town, using his low-level talismans to try and find traces of the entity he's supposed to defeat or uncover to complete the quest. he pauses beside a broken cart, one of its wheels is half-sunk in the mud. the system pings again.
[ system notification ]
"it's behind you."
note: do not turn around.
(option to suppress message: [ ] not recommended)
the street is utterly silent. a prickle begins at the base of his skull. something is there. some deep animalistic part of him is already screaming not to look.
it disappears. he earns 5 survival points. he hopes he won't have to earn any more.
later that night, shen yuan looks for shelter, finding an old shrine visible from the road, just at the side of town. he steps inside and sees old incense sticks, some forgotten offerings. it's simple, but dry. it will do.
he crosses the threshold—
[ mission triggered ]
mission objective: hide
time limit: unknown
condition to complete: remain unnoticed
footsteps crunch in the leaves outside. every nerve in him goes rigid—not human.
too heavy. uneven. it's coming.
shen yuan ducks behind the offering table, body pressed flat against the ground. he slows his breathing, barely daring to blink. a screen in his peripheral vision blinks to life.
[ environmental mechanic activated ]
microphone mode: ON
sound detection level: HIGH
a semi-transparent sound meter appears. with every shaky breath, the bar pulses red. shen yuan clamps his hands over his mouth.
something passes, just beyond the shrine's opening. large. the system does not count down. there is no timer. the floor boards moan faintly beneath a ponderous weight, something drags across the ground.
shen yuan forces his body still, trembling so hard it hurts his teeth.
it leaves. the system congratulates him for surviving. it doesn't tell him what he just survived.
it's a relief when the head disciples of cang qiong show up, and the story delves into romantic cliches and relationship prompts. he gets to see liu qingge shirtless. shen qingqiu is typical tsundere. yue qingyuan is the soft gentle type. shang qinghua acts... off. he isn't what shen yuan thought he would be, less cunningly charming, more, well. nervous. of all the head disciples, he's the only one who actually seems like he doesn't want shen yuan to be here, always looking around.
like he knows shen yuan didn't come alone.
more instances like this occur. one moment, he's farming reputation points and relationship points with the other characters, doing quests and gathering memory fragments that will help unlock the player's backstory, the next, the system seems determined to make the game hell.
it always comes out of nowhere
[ system update ]
"warning: your heartbeat has been logged by another entity."
would you like to mute heartbeat tracking?
[ ] yes
[ ] no
[ ] it's too late.
he can never figure out what's following him, what that creature from the village is, but it's always there. no one else seems to notice, not a single talisman or ward can stop or detect it.
it comes even when he's in bed, still faintly blushing from a wife-plot equivalent where he fell from a ladder and was caught in wei qingwei's arms. he got to pet the pangolins too!
he's just about to fall asleep when the system pings:
[ mission objective: survive until dawn ]
hint: do not scream
somewhere beneath the floorboards under his bed, something begins scraping. like claws trying to memorize the layout of the house from below. shen yuan doesn't dare move. sleep never comes that night.
*
he can farm intelligence points by attending classes, and being the monster and plant nerd he is, qian cao peak is his first choice (it's either that, being beat up by bai zhan disciples that aren't even liu qingge, or running into shen qingqiu).
in the middle of a lesson on demonic poisons, the system pings quietly
[ system message ]
"one of the bodies in the infirmary is not a body"
objective: don't lose sight of it
shen yuan turns his head, slowly, to the curtained recovery beds along the wall. the curtain on the last one is slightly open.
it wasn't before.
mu qingfang continues speaking. shen yuan doesn't dare to look away.
*
one day, the thing starts to catch up
[ mission failure ]
"the sound you made has been registered"
estimated proximity: 00:00:17
do you want to run?
[ ] yes (not recommended)
[ ] no (not recommended)
*
[ emergency notice ]
"you were seen"
objective: hide
time limit: expired
success rate: 2%.
do you want to proceed?
[ ] yes
[ ] yes
*
[ achievement unlocked: it found you anyway ]
*
anyway, can you tell i had fun with the horror prompts? ^_^
i just have sooooo many ideas for the player's backstory, where it seems the character is just a blank slate for the player to project themselves onto, but there is so much more to them than you think. im also having loads of fun with the creature that follows the player around, i love making it as disturbing as possible.
mild spoiler: the creature is real and connected to the player. other characters can't detect or interact with it, but it's slowly growing stronger. shang qinghua is, of course, airplane, and as he was directly involved with the production of this game, he knew that as soon as an OC showed up, that thing wouldn't be far behind.
also, i love the idea of shang qinghua being stuck in a dating simulator as one of the options to romance. now shang qinghua has to play along with his own cringy cliche meetcutes, like showing the player around, flirting with the player, and generally playing the role of suave administrator with a dark secret (he's terrible at it). he had to do the "there's an eyelash on your cheek allow me" move on the player (shen yuan), and almost cringed out of his own skin. though, shang qinghua is the only one who can properly emphasize with the player, because he actually knows what horrid creature is stuck to him and what kind of horror scenarios the player has to go through (accidental cumplane? it's more likely than you think).
it's a bit of a mindfuck too, because shang qinghua can't tell whether the player is also a transmigrator, a puppet controlled by someone from another dimension, or a fleshed out OC of the system. he's also not allowed to ask, so it remains ambiguous. until, of course, they find out they're transmigrators and shen yuan has to deal with the fact he almost romanced airplane.
shen yuan makes a joke about defeating the creature with the power of love. shang qinghua says he wished it was that easy.
I ended up having a really interesting conversation with some people at the bus stop today. They were getting out of some sort of ‘clean and sober’ meeting and had starting saying how they were so bored because they didn’t have anything to do, and had to stay at home because all their old friends would pull them back. So I said something like, ‘So this is the time to do all the stuff your parents told you they didn’t have money/time for!’
“Whatcha mean?”
“You know, like when you were five and you REALLY wanted to have that toy or do that thing and you were like, ‘Please mom please I gotta have this I gotta go do this’ and they went ‘Hell no you think I’m paying for that do you want to goddamn EAT?’ “
And this light went on in their eyes. The lady is going to go check thrift stores for an Easybake Oven and I told her about Wilton cake decorating classes. The dude is going to Griffith Park and ride horses, because, ‘I always wanted to be a cowboy, and you can’t drink when you’re on a horse ‘cause you’ll fucking die!’
Fuck it. This is what being an adult is. Sure it’s bills and work and relationships, but damn it, it’s also time to do the things you LIKE.
I signed up for a free class/lecture on Water Gardens. I’m going. It’s time.
no joke, this is such an important aspect of overcoming trauma. I mean the trauma of abusive parents, the trauma of broke ass parents who got toxic because of it, the trauma of capitalism. Like fuck it. Go to Wrestlemania. Build a shit ton of terrariums.
drawn as a thank you for birthday greeting!~ Based off of lostremedy's and @little-thoughts-i-guess profile picture~ (all rights go to the original creative owner.)
