unknown side blog

Meant to lurk, ended up posting whole ted talks on svsss

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One interesting thing about old Chinese society was that merchants/businessmen were basically considered the bottom feeders of society (nobody likes the middlemen!) They were pretty much beneath everyone except for professions such as entertainers, barbers, and sex workers. Basically, trading was not considered “honest work,” which is why you don’t often see fantasy stories that heavily feature merchants unless if it’s one of those “I transmigrated into 800 ad and created magic taobao and became a zillionaire” light novels. I don’t think historically, there was a strong concept of a middle class. Tradespeople and farmers were much higher on the official social hierarchy than merchants, despite being poorer, and this kind of thinking is sometimes reflected in historical fantasy narratives despite the 21st century turning all this on its head.

Historically, a merchant clan could get very wealthy but still be stuck with extremely low social standing. The suppression of the merchant class was a pretty common theme throughout Chinese history, since they were for the most part regarded as societal leeches and potential threats to the Confucian social order. Merchants were often forbidden from entering into civil service and getting any kind of foothold among the ruling class (made up of the scholar caste and the aristocracy), and their influence and wealth was kept in check this way.

It’d shock nobody if even the most destitute of scholar clans looked down their noses at merchant families. Some would probably rather starve to death than have anything to do with them. You see a lot of historical narratives where a wealthy merchant would sponsor some poor peasant boy so he could study and sit in the imperial examinations, hopefully scoring high and gaining some kind of political office, transforming the fate his entire family (which would of course include one of the merchant’s daughters). You also see some stories where the peasant boys do a bit too well and go, actually I have better options now, thanks but bye 😅

I mostly bring all of this up because if sj were to craft a fake backstory for himself at cqm, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me that he’d go for any kind of mercantile background. Like this is probably the worst possible option for him lol. One there’s no way he can fake being rich when he’s got absolutely nothing, and two it wouldn’t even help him. I don’t think the og text shows any meaningful discernment when it comes to this sort of thing, but a lot of it is implicit in the setting. For pure posermaxxing purposes, you’re probably better off being the homeless descendent of some old clan or even an extremely gifted peasant than the son of some random rich merchant

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Guqin music for the pretentious peak lord part 2: "Guangling San"

(Part 1)

As a graceful, cultured, and intellectually superior peak lord, your repertoire isn't just limited to nature-themed music; after all, you're as much a master of the martial arts as you are an Intellectual, no matter what your idiot contemporaries might whisper behind your back 🙄

What better way to demonstrate your appreciation of martial heroism than to play a song about death and assassination? Enter the famed "Guǎnglíng Sǎn", or as I like to call it "Last Breath in Guangling," an ancient song whose origins are as mysterious as the historical narrative it's based on.

The story it tells has many variants, though all of them appear to revolve around Nie Zheng (? - 397 BCE) and his assassination of the King of Han. In a popular version, Nie Zheng is a heroic assassin who vows to slay the tyrant who has killed his father. After years of training in the art of music, he enters the palace under the guise of a musician, then with a sword he pulls out of his guqin, he slays the king before killing himself in an exceedingly gruesome but badass fashion.

Like most ancient music, this song has gone through many iterations. This one is based on a Ming Dynasty edition:

For best results, you should perform the song in the evening, under minimal but tastefully arranged candlelight that cast you in dramatic shadows. A gentle breeze should give you a nice billow in your faux-humble silk sleeves, though take care to seat yourself against the wind so your hair doesn't get in your sophisticated scholarly face. The various knives and poisons hidden upon your person should give you an extra oomph in your performance, lending it an air of authenticity unmatched by your doddering rival guqin masters who are better off producing background noise at senior retreats.

Better yet, it keeps your idiot martial siblings on their toes, should *someone* ever happen across one of your (private, personal, NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS) performances when they skulk around your peak 😠

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Guqin music for the pretentious peak lord: "White Snow"

I caught myself wondering: if I were to pose as a high-minded peak lord, what music would I play?

There are many classics to choose from, but the song of the day is "White Snow", if only because of the fable surrounding it.

Till this day, the most well-known chengyu (a type of 4-character idiomatic word that plays a very foundational role in the Chinese lexicon) describing highbrow, inaccessible art remains "阳 (yáng) 春 (chūn) 白 (baí) 雪 (xuě)", or "sunlit spring, white snow."

What does snow have to do with high art, one might ask.

The answer lies in "Dialogue with King of Chu", a classical text that describes a conversation the poet Song Yü (298-222 BCE) had with King Qingxiang of Chu.

I believe the context of the story is that there were people accusing Song Yu (who is still known for being Extremely Hot) of improper conduct in his private life. So when the King questions him about it, instead of directly answering the question, Song Yu came up with some interesting metaphors.

One of them goes: There once was a renowned musician who came to perform in the capital. When he performed a popular street song, a thousand people sang along with him. When he began performing more elevated music, only a hundred people were able to follow along. Finally, when he played the most aesthetically and technically challenging songs, only ten could follow.

(This is followed by some animal metaphors that are basically Song Yu's way of saying: "these losers can't understand a high-minded individual such as I, so they can only talk shit behind my back 💅")

The important bit here is the difficult music only ten could follow, since they are, specifically, the songs "Sunlit Spring" and "White Snow". If one were to look for highbrow music, one can't go wrong with the very song the word "highbrow" is named after.

A version of the song is still performed today, after nearly 3000 years. This one is based on a Ming Dynasty version:

Time to play this in a bamboo grove as my knee-length hair flutters gently in the wind, before I am rudely interrupted by my shidi yelling about something.

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Due to a system error, sy arrives in pidw 99999 years before lbh's birth.

His glitching system crashes and shuts down before he can even figure out wtf is happening, leaving sy stranded in actual primitive society, now cursed with immortality.

After all, he can't be allowed to die until his first mission begins. So what's the mission? Right... He has no idea because his system died before he could finish reading the message.

All he knows is that it has something to do with lbh.

So he goes about trying to figure things out. He has no special powers, but is quite literally indestructible--which he finds out the painful way. Multiple painful ways. Very very many painful and strange ways, over the tens of thousands of years during which he sits around waiting for the protagonist.

He may or may not have accidentally started a cult at some point. Got dragged into some political kerfuffles. Built some cities here and there, because he went through an engineering/architecture phase, out of sheer boredom. He might have invented paper or something, because he once watched some videos about historical paper making--or was it about block printing? He doesn't even remember any more.

Anyway, he waits and waits, and lbh just would not fucking show up. He's lost all sense of time. He can no longer tell if something happened a hundred years ago or ten thousand. He's worried even his memories of pidw would start to fade, so he writes down everything he can remember, and makes multiple copies, hiding them all in secured locations.

And over time, he's... built a bit of a reputation. Legends from multiple cultures all tell of an old, fallen god, forced to roam the mortal realm forever.

Oh yeah, despite his millennia of cultivation, he cannot ascend. It's like something is blocking him from it, probably his stupid mission that just. would. not. start.

No big loss, he supposes. He still has no idea what even happens once you ascend. Everyone who does is never seen or heard from again. What if it's just a big scam?

But his immortal existence can also be pretty depressing. Friends come and go. Kids he's adopted grow up and die within the blink of an eye. He stops adopting, not even pets. The early heavenly demons are somewhat more durable, but even they aren't truly immortal. Sometimes sy would accidentally fall asleep for centuries, then wake up bleary-eyed, unsure where or when he is, before he eventually ventures out again to go on some new adventures.

And some of those adventures are... um. Look, he gets really, really bored sometimes, okay? And somebody like him obviously shouldn't get romantically involved with mortals (and when did he start thinking of other people simply as "mortals"?) So, the responsible thing to do is to just have strictly casual relations. And since sy ain't no player, he limits his options to other men. Like, he's not gay or anything, but it's just the sensible thing to do. It's just a bunch of men helping each other out, getting some physical release together. And he's weirdly popular with men for some reason? Maybe they all got the same idea as him. Cool, cool.

And thus, the legend of an unfathomable immortal who cruelly toys with the hearts of men is born... Beautiful beyond comparison, ancient beyond time, but oh so terrible. Beware, O mortals, of the temptation that would be your ruin!

And sy, of course, assumes its just some funny story about a powerful succubus, or something.

And so he waits. And waits. And waits. And waits. And waits.

And during one of the century-long naps he takes, somewhere on the Luo River, a newborn is sent floating downstream in a basket...

_

Luo Binghe has not expected to see his own name written on an ancient scroll, locked inside an even more ancient fortress in the demon realm.

The fortress is in ruins, so old and battered it's barely recognizable as one. The scrolls are only preserved by some powerful magic, likely of heavenly demon origin.

Except, none of the characters on the scrolls look ancient. They're almost the exact same writing lbh himself uses.

All this weirdness pales in comparison to what the writing describes.

It's a exact, detailed record of lbh's own life.

Thing's no other soul should know. Things from his early childhood. From his disciple years. From those nightmarish years in the abyss.

Moments of his greatest shame. Moments of his greatest triumphs.

Then, there are the things that have not yet come to pass. Some are even accompanied by crude illustrations. There are sketches of *him*, not quite accurate but still recognizable.

And the scrolls claims he will go on to rule the three realms, even though lbh's world domination ambitions are still in their infancy at this stage.

What is this, some ancient prophecy? So many things feel so awfully *off* about these scrolls, but as lbh continues his bloody wars of conquest across the realms, he can only admit that they have their uses.

They tell him who would help, and who would ultimately betray him. The traps laid out for him. The damsels waiting for his rescue. Lbh feels like he is cheating fate. He feels like he's toying with something dangerous beyond comprehension, but he is not one to fear such things.

But where do these scrolls come from? Why were they created? Just *who* created them? As his power grows, lbh puts everything he can spare into discovering the secrets behind the scrolls that have inadvertently defined his life.

But he also has another more immediate problem to deal with. There are whispers that there is an ancient, elusive god in slumber, who is the only being that may be able to put a stop to lbh's supposed tyranny. Lbh wants to dismiss such myths as mere make-believe, but his scholars are less certain.

Well, if some ancient being does exist, then lbh will certainly root them out, and then either slaughter or subjugate them, like he's done with all the other false gods that dare to make noise in his domain, which at this point encompass the entirety of the known world.

Though, it's said that this one is also some sort of deadly seductress. Lbh snorts. Yeah, he's met plenty of those, too. Maybe this would prove to be the *fun* sort of subjugation after all...

tbc...

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A bit surprised that my brothel post from like a year ago is still getting notes! If you're interested in the topic, I just came across a more in-depth look into it, though this one focuses specifically on high class brothels

Some other facets of Chinese brothel culture:

I don't think I've come across any mentions of mixed gender brothels. The courtesans at any given establishment were usually either all female or all male.

The no gender mixing thing still holds true today, as far as I'm aware. Though I guess I can't really say this with complete confidence since they're now very illegal and I have not and do not plan on visiting one.

Speaking of modern high class brothels, their existence (during a time when writing a bit of smut can get you sent to prison) and mode of operation (invite-only & outside of the price range of 99.9% of the population) makes me a little dubious whenever I see "selling the art not the body" claims about early Qinglou culture. I'm not saying those types of situations didn't exist, but I'm willing to wager that behind-the-scenes sexual transactions were much, much more common than what was recorded in history, even in the fanciest, classiest of establishments.

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A weird quirk of ancient music notation systems

is that many contain no clear indication of rhythm. When we think of sheet music today, we'd usually picture some kind of time-based record keeping method, with things like measures to keep track of rhythm and beats. But strangely enough, this wasn't always the case with ancient Chinese musical notation (as well as many other ancient musical notation systems)

Honestly, I feel like this is the one thing that might trip up a transmigrator. If you grow up playing classical music, measure-based thinking is so deeply ingrained that it can be difficult to wrap your head around a notation system that doesn't seem all that concerned with rhythm.

Example of an ancient guqin score:

Vs a modern measure-based score, which is very similar to modern western notation:

When you're already putting this much effort into recording the exact fingering of each note, I can only surmise that it was a deliberate choice to not leave any indications of rhythm. Maybe it wasn't needed in a time when most people played by ear, maybe they found it too cumbersome and inflexible, or maybe they just didn't feel like it was helpful to record the exact rhythm, as it should be left to interpretation.

But yeah, the average transmigrator is probably gonna look at something like that first image and be like wtf (˃̣̣̥ᯅ˂̣̣̥), even if they already play the instrument at a pretty advanced level.

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I saw on X someone mention that Yue Qingyuan was looked on more favorably by Chinese/Japanese fans, something about seeing him more sympathetic and noble than it seems to be in the western fandoms. Do you feel like that could be a translation issue, or culture difference maybe? asking because it made me think of articles about asian parents not telling their family they were dying, bc they didn't want to upset anyone about something that couldn't be changed.

Hello anon! This sounds like 2 questions being asked so I'll break it down in a way that I hope is helpful.

Is yqy looked on more favorably by east asian fans?

This is a difficult question to answer because of the sheer size of the fandom and the tendency for people to divide into sub factions according their "allegiance" to ships or characters. Something else that might influence the perception of favorability is the presence of particularly prominent/prolific accounts being vocal about one issue or another, which can throw things off. I never quite got the impression that yqy isn't also well-liked by the western fandom (what with the mpreg polls 😅), but there might be vocal fans who like to portray him unfavorably, and it sort of reverberating through and getting absorbed by the fandom.

2. IF yqy is looked on more favorably, why?

Honestly the only things I can think of is (potentially) a higher tolerance for the lack of direct communication, and an implicit understanding of family/social hierarchy. I don't think yqy's situation is really comparable to the cancer thing, which is essentially a white lie to protect family members. I feel like yqy's situation is less about not burdening sj, and more based on the belief that sj wouldn't care either way. He's sort of painted himself into a psychological corner where he thinks coming clean would just make sj angrier, albeit for different reasons, and he'd be an oathbreaking loser regardless.

In terms of social heirachy, I think yqy might come across as more patronizing and obnoxious in his interactions with sj to western fans, whereas to asian fans things might be more easily perceived as typical nagging older sibling behavior. For example, when yqy tries to get sj to stop visiting brothels, a western reader might read an extra layer into that interaction where yqy is crossing personal boundaries and infringing on another person's autonomy, whereas an asian reader might see it as expected behavior for someones who's both the future sect leader and a senior martial sibling. Then again, I think the very fact that he's attempting to be those things to sj just sets him off more, and depending on how you feel about the qijiu relationship, might still inform your perception of yqy as a character.

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Hello! I was thinking about the time in the holy mausoleum when it seemed like TLJ was trying to kill LBH. I never knew how to feel about that because it just didn't seem right that TLJ would want to really kill him. Afterall, only the saintly ruler can enter the holy mausoleum, and I assume ZZL and LBH were able to enter because he allowed them to. If TLJ really wanted LBH dead wouldn't he have just refused LBH entry, let him die when he tried to enter, and then take xin mo? SQQ says that anyone who is not the saintly ruler will die immediately upon entering the mausoleum, was he being literal? There's also the fact that after SQQ accidentally locked himself out with ZZL, TLJ left the room he was alone with LBH in. If he wanted LBH dead he could have killed him there too. Do you have any thoughts about TLJ?

Hi there anon! IIRC lbh forces his own way into the mausoleum by siccing something like 2 hundred rhinoceros pythons on its barrier, since he's already been planning to break in and revive sqq in there. I don't think people literally drop dead the moment they set foot in the tomb; it's more that the place is so well guarded that it's impossible for normal people to survive its defenses unless they're granted entrance by virtue of being the demonic sovereign.

We don't really know exactly what tlj is thinking at this point in the story. I don't get the feeling that he's particularly interested in killing lbh; it's just that he needs to steal his sword and doesn't really care if lbh dies in the process. Given that tlj has been wasting away in a cave for 2 decades, I doubt he's lucid enough to really consider the implications of lbh's existence, though I do think he's aware that it's nearly impossible to properly kill a heavenly demon in their prime, or he'd already be dead himself twenty years ago.

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Hiya! I wanted to ask, does CQMS has servants? I remember there was mountain guards and stair sweepers being present but do they count as servants or no? And by this line of thinking (from other questions that you answered about slavery in your more popular posts) would those servants all be slaves or are would they be on some sort of employement? Is there any evidence (or vibes) that it is being a case?

Hi anon! Since there's no real indication what their employment situation is actually like, I think it's open to interpretation. Imo they're probably just servants, but I don't think it's ever mentioned where they come from or what they actually do. They could just be outer disciples, or they could be former outer disciples who failed to cultivate, but remained with the sect for regular employment. We don't really know how the sect really functions on a day to day basis, but in most xianxia settings there are so many outer disciples vying for a chance to become a proper cultivator that there's usually no need for slaves. The outer disciples would just do all the grunt work, since most don't end up making it very far in terms of cultivation.

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Hi there! I wanted to ask you a question

I noticed that some authors have Luo Binghe use both "yuan-ge" and "a-yuan" for Shen Yuan (in modern au) . So I was wondering:

1) Is this something that can happen in real life?

2) Would Luo Binghe be the person to address Shen Yuan like that (regardless of propriety)?

Hi there anon! To answer your questions:

1) It’s possible, just not very likely. Both are sort of weird addresses for your typical modern au. The “Ah” prefix is largely regional and can be sort of dated sounding to the majority of the mandarin speaking world, and “yuan-ge” is just a strange thing to call a romantic interest. It’s like calling your lover “bro”. I’m sure there are people who do that, but it’s just not a very typical thing. I can’t remember where I brought this up before—easiest way to explain, is to imagine “yuan-ge” as a cross between “yuan-sama” and “yuan-dawg” 🤣

2) I think it really depends on the context of their relationship. A typical Bingmei would probably say “yuan-gege” instead. A lot of people do just call their lover by their formal names, so you might not even need a diminutive

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I'm posting all my svsss rimworld updates on a side blog to avoid spamming this one with those dumb posts lol. Things have been getting... interesting

[lodgerlodger]

I haven't been online as much lately, and when I finally got a moment to sit down I ended up spending the whole day making the sv cast in Rimworld because I found a collection of cultivation mods that turns the whole game into xianxia silliness.

(If you aren't already familiar with the title, Rimworld is a sandbox game where you manage a group of little pawns in a brutal colony building simulator where literally nothing is off the table. Wanna human stick a pawn? The game says go ahead. You might even be able to turn a profit reselling body parts...)

These are just the 4 starting pawns so I don't lose track of 20 ppl all running amok lol. I did make the whole sv cast that will eventually join up with these. Will the sj pawn get to keep his limbs? Will sqh and mbj ever be reunited? We'll see how long I can keep this game running with 200 mods 😅

I was looking forward to the cultivating stuff but honestly, the moment they got dropped into the world, no cultivation was done because everybody was aggressively flirting with and pursuing each other.

Now is not the time, sy!! At least put out that forest fire first...

Meanwhile the lqg pawn is getting rejected over and over again.

It finally happens... Right in front of poor lqg. Sqh tries to join in but alas.... I think he spawned in already dating mbj so idk what he's trying to accomplish here

Lqg's mood bar is nearly nonexistent because he keeps getting rebuffed. His little sword glare fails to defeat one (1) wolf, and while he's laid out in bed all bandaged up, he's still at it.

In revenge, lbh sleeps with sqq right in front of him..... Except the next day, lqg actually scores! It happened off screen so I didn't even notice until after the fact. Bingliushen is real (?) Cumplane is probably never happening...

Laughing my ass off at some of these entries in his social interactions log. They keep failing to romance each other.

All this constant horniness is probably the unintended result of me giving everyone the "attractive" trait. This might become a problem once I add more character to the mix...

[lodgerlodger]

So I lost Sunday to Rimworld as well...

Bingqiu pawns are officially engaged!! Proposing in the rain smh

I checked on binghe's relationships and it turns out he has a negative opinion of lqg now due to too many failed romance attempts 😂 These are some very in character insults.

The way poly works in this game, is that each pairing is tracked separately. So sy dating both lbh and lqg has no impact on the romance chances between lbh and lqg lol

Unfortunately, a bed can sleep two pawns max. I had to build a extremely weird bedroom setup for them and manually swap sy's sleeping spot every other night so they don't get mad about being left out.

But all else is going well for my little lqg pawn! He had a cultivation breakthrough and got fried by lightning for a bit.

Since my settlement is stabilizing, more sv pawns are joining the party!

It's honestly really unlucky that the game threw these two at me out of all the possibilities lol. I gave them nobility backgrounds so they refuse to do any kind of manual labor. They are, however, extremely op in combat due to their custom demon xenotypes.

Rn mbj's only contribution is creating ice crystals in my temporary walk in freezer. Turns out, these crystals turn the room negative 60 celcius and my human pawns are not happy about this...

Excuse me what?????

Ah. I forgot I left my same sex pregnancy mod on.

The Bingqiu wedding hasn't even happened yet and sy already got knocked up by lqg 😅

I have no medical supplies left (most have been used up by lqg!!!). No idea when Mu Qingfang will show up so no good doctor available either. Will sy have a smooth pregnancy and successfully deliver this baby?

Tbc...

[lodgerlodger]

Sorry about all the Rimworld spam, I think I'm becoming obsessed. Today we had a Bingqiu wedding!

You might wonder, where is everyone and why is there a random pawn attending.

The random pawn just happens to be staying in town for a quest. As for where everyone else went, we have to back up a couple of days...

It all started with a random fight between lqg and mbj. They both have the "abrasive" trait, and out of nowhere they began to insult each other and brawl.

Lqg absolutely destroyed mbj, holy shit. He only got a bruise on his arm. I guess he's still the War God of Baizhan!

A comical scene where lqg is sprawled out in bed, receiving medical treatment for his one (1) bruise.

I later sent them to the healing hot spring and they're suddenly getting along again. Still, I decided to put them on time out and sent mbj, sqh, and tlj out of town to negotiate with the local lizard people. (Tlj only went because both sqh and mbj have atrocious negotiation skills...)

This brings us back to the wedding. A day after they left, lbh and sy decide they must absolutely hold their wedding right this moment. Maybe they didn't want an audience!

Then, immediately after the initial ceremony was complete....

Right at the wedding, liu-juju!??

Turns out, his relationship with sy was so high it didn't even get affected by being rejected 😂

So do not fret. Not five minutes after this happened, at the same wedding party, sy apparently gave it some more thought and changed his mind!

While all this chaos is happening, a new pawn quietly shows up at the edge of the map...

[lodgerlodger]

I haven't been online as much lately, and when I finally got a moment to sit down I ended up spending the whole day making the sv cast in Rimworld because I found a collection of cultivation mods that turns the whole game into xianxia silliness.

(If you aren't already familiar with the title, Rimworld is a sandbox game where you manage a group of little pawns in a brutal colony building simulator where literally nothing is off the table. Wanna human stick a pawn? The game says go ahead. You might even be able to turn a profit reselling body parts...)

These are just the 4 starting pawns so I don't lose track of 20 ppl all running amok lol. I did make the whole sv cast that will eventually join up with these. Will the sj pawn get to keep his limbs? Will sqh and mbj ever be reunited? We'll see how long I can keep this game running with 200 mods 😅

I was looking forward to the cultivating stuff but honestly, the moment they got dropped into the world, no cultivation was done because everybody was aggressively flirting with and pursuing each other.

Now is not the time, sy!! At least put out that forest fire first...

Meanwhile the lqg pawn is getting rejected over and over again.

It finally happens... Right in front of poor lqg. Sqh tries to join in but alas.... I think he spawned in already dating mbj so idk what he's trying to accomplish here

Lqg's mood bar is nearly nonexistent because he keeps getting rebuffed. His little sword glare fails to defeat one (1) wolf, and while he's laid out in bed all bandaged up, he's still at it.

In revenge, lbh sleeps with sqq right in front of him..... Except the next day, lqg actually scores! It happened off screen so I didn't even notice until after the fact. Bingliushen is real (?) Cumplane is probably never happening...

Laughing my ass off at some of these entries in his social interactions log. They keep failing to romance each other.

All this constant horniness is probably the unintended result of me giving everyone the "attractive" trait. This might become a problem once I add more character to the mix...

[lodgerlodger]

So I lost Sunday to Rimworld as well...

Bingqiu pawns are officially engaged!! Proposing in the rain smh

I checked on binghe's relationships and it turns out he has a negative opinion of lqg now due to too many failed romance attempts 😂 These are some very in character insults.

The way poly works in this game, is that each pairing is tracked separately. So sy dating both lbh and lqg has no impact on the romance chances between lbh and lqg lol

Unfortunately, a bed can sleep two pawns max. I had to build a extremely weird bedroom setup for them and manually swap sy's sleeping spot every other night so they don't get mad about being left out.

But all else is going well for my little lqg pawn! He had a cultivation breakthrough and got fried by lightning for a bit.

Since my settlement is stabilizing, more sv pawns are joining the party!

It's honestly really unlucky that the game threw these two at me out of all the possibilities lol. I gave them nobility backgrounds so they refuse to do any kind of manual labor. They are, however, extremely op in combat due to their custom demon xenotypes.

Rn mbj's only contribution is creating ice crystals in my temporary walk in freezer. Turns out, these crystals turn the room negative 60 celcius and my human pawns are not happy about this...

Excuse me what?????

Ah. I forgot I left my same sex pregnancy mod on.

The Bingqiu wedding hasn't even happened yet and sy already got knocked up by lqg 😅

I have no medical supplies left (most have been used up by lqg!!!). No idea when Mu Qingfang will show up so no good doctor available either. Will sy have a smooth pregnancy and successfully deliver this baby?

Tbc...

[lodgerlodger]

I haven't been online as much lately, and when I finally got a moment to sit down I ended up spending the whole day making the sv cast in Rimworld because I found a collection of cultivation mods that turns the whole game into xianxia silliness.

(If you aren't already familiar with the title, Rimworld is a sandbox game where you manage a group of little pawns in a brutal colony building simulator where literally nothing is off the table. Wanna human stick a pawn? The game says go ahead. You might even be able to turn a profit reselling body parts...)

These are just the 4 starting pawns so I don't lose track of 20 ppl all running amok lol. I did make the whole sv cast that will eventually join up with these. Will the sj pawn get to keep his limbs? Will sqh and mbj ever be reunited? We'll see how long I can keep this game running with 200 mods 😅

I was looking forward to the cultivating stuff but honestly, the moment they got dropped into the world, no cultivation was done because everybody was aggressively flirting with and pursuing each other.

Now is not the time, sy!! At least put out that forest fire first...

Meanwhile the lqg pawn is getting rejected over and over again.

It finally happens... Right in front of poor lqg. Sqh tries to join in but alas.... I think he spawned in already dating mbj so idk what he's trying to accomplish here

Lqg's mood bar is nearly nonexistent because he keeps getting rebuffed. His little sword glare fails to defeat one (1) wolf, and while he's laid out in bed all bandaged up, he's still at it.

In revenge, lbh sleeps with sqq right in front of him..... Except the next day, lqg actually scores! It happened off screen so I didn't even notice until after the fact. Bingliushen is real (?) Cumplane is probably never happening...

Laughing my ass off at some of these entries in his social interactions log. They keep failing to romance each other.

All this constant horniness is probably the unintended result of me giving everyone the "attractive" trait. This might become a problem once I add more character to the mix...

[lodgerlodger]

Hello! I have a question about SJ extra. I've been pondering about what exactly QJL family's social status was. He obviously must have been from higher standing families, having authority to free SJ as a slave. But what perplexes me was a snippet where QJL said to Shiwu that "his family build this street" as a comeback to Shiwu.

Yet from what i know, building streets, roads, canal or other menial labour was reserved as a corvee duty for the common folk ( or at least during Han dynasty which is my main source of info). That said, I don't think it could be used as sorta 'gotcha' moment against Shiwu were that sentence be taken literally so i sorta theorize that maybe his family was part of magistrate or officials that lead the constructions? or something adjacent to it.

That said, is there any further context in original chinese novel on what kinda social status QJL had, whether it be by explicit/implied wording or even vibes? I would love to hear your opinion or even some of your own theories as well :D

Hi anon, this is an interesting question! I don't think his family physically participated in building the road. I assume he meant they funded/oversaw the construction of the town, by being either a large landowner and/or government official, maybe a bit like the landed gentry of Europe, though I also think he's trying very hard to overstate his own importance and is just being an ass. The "freeing a slave" thing feels more like a plot convenience than anything else; realistically speaking, I feel like the whole social heirachy would collapse if some rich kid could just go around freeing slaves for fun. In actual history this would be an extremely complicated process.

That being said, we don't really know how the sv world operates in terms of civilian governance. It feels like the sects all exist in a state of tribalistic anarchy, which is popular in this type of power fantasy stories because it makes it convenient for bingge to just do whatever he wants lol. As for QJL himself, it really seems to me that he is only notable on a very local level.

[lodgerlodger]

Hello! Let's say that in a made up scenario SY!SQQ get's doused with a truth serum-type powder that makes him voice out his inner thoughts. A word vomit side-efects where he voices out his internalized thoughts without filter.Soo... how would his internal-now-external thoughts would sound like other characters from svsss? Since he mostly uses slang and modern chinese as opposed to traditional, and how you described his internal commentary as a 'deranged twitter thread' if i remember correctly, then it would have to make some kind of impression on other people. Would his thoughts be seen completely incomprehensible to others or would they hear him talk and go " how vulgar/uncouth🫣"? Would they clutch their pearls or would they just be really confused?

Hi there anon, sorry this took a while! I feel like the language of the pidw world (operating under the assumption that airplane wrote it to be as accessible as possible) is pretty straight forward and already fairly modern. There's some old timey traditional speak here and there, but for the most part people talk normally. That being said, I do think if he went on a proper peerless cucumber rant people probably wouldn't be able to follow much of it; it'd all be "skibidi toilet ohio". This guy's internal monologue is so Extremely Online that I feel like even non-internet gremlins from his own world wouldn't be able to make sense of half the things he says. I don't think he sounds particularly vulgar, in the grand scheme of things, but it's going to be a shock because he's supposed to be THE aloof immortal. (Though I'm sure original sqq could do way worse, not that he'd ever find himself in that situation. Guy's probably got 20 different formulations of various antidotes ready to go at all times lolll)