mel

just a little writer trying to exist ❧ skiesfall on ao3

[melskyfall]

important links! :D

archive of our own: welcome to my messy writings

ko-fi: on the off chance you absolutely ADORE said messy writings...

twitter: where i’m always blurting out random thoughts, enjoy?

important things /!\

please keep translations of my work on ao3 using the "inspired by" feature!

podfics, fanart, edits, and fancontent in general is more than welcome as long as proper credit to my work is given ❤️

[inkwhelp]

people who are gay: yeah i’m gay

people who are straight: yeah i’m straight

people who are aroace: have you seen project hail mary

[conflitdecanard]

Put a new blanket on my bed and my cat Bonnie loved it so I gave the kneading and comfy to my guy Shang Qinghua cuz I love him <3

[gyxmf69]

xiang fei name reveal................

[0vergrownruins]

Crossposting my moshang age gap omegaverse mating run brainrot at the behest of my moshang wife

Omegaverse culture where once you turn a certain age (18 or 20 or whatever sucks your dick), you’re expected to participate in a mating run. And if you don’t get mated one year, you run the next year. It’s intended to ensure everyone gets paired off. 

Enter omega sqh, who’s like. Bro for one thing, I do not want to end up with one of my agemates, have you seen these guys? Half of them I’ve seen making fart jokes, the other half probably bullied me. Ew. And also, he likes being on his own, no longer subject to the pressure of what he should be. He just got away from his family - why would he want to get stuck with some stupid knot head who thinks he should clean the house or stop enjoying video games (assuming this is modern au, idk substitute it with something else if you prefer historical au)??

So he decides he’s gonna try his hardest not to get caught. Like, at all. Ever. He’s skeptical of his plan at first, but in his first mating run, his combination of speedy, cowardly get-away tricks and ability to hole himself up in a good hiding spot for a long time ensures that he’s a-okay for the duration of the run. It seems like easy street from there - keep evading everyone in the annual runs, and eventually either he’ll be old enough that alphas won’t even bother to chase him anymore for preference of their younger, prettier agemates, or he’ll be old enough that the run organizers will feel too awkward to keep forcing him to continue running. 

And for a while, it works. Year after year, sqh runs better than any before or since. Even the few who might like an older omega start to drop off after a while, writing him off as an impossible chase. Ten years in, at the truly ancient and prehistoric age of 30 or so, sqh thinks he’s in for  another year of getting to curl up in a tree stump somewhere with a book and no one pursuing him. 

Enter mbj.

Mbj, ready for his first run, whose heart is set on the best omega. Whether he’s a prince or an heir to a company or whatever, he knows he wants the strongest and 

cleverest and overall best at his side. He disdains the pretty, flirty young things in his age group; he passes over the omegas with sharp glints in their eyes, on their second or third runs, desperate for a worthy alpha, who will surely let themselves be caught easily by him to attach themselves to his family fortune. 

Unbeknownst to sqh, lazily stretching without a care in the world, mbj is absolutely SET on him.

He sneers at his fellow agemates, who jostle and joke about the uncatchable omega; less competition is fine by him, but they are fools if they think an easier to catch omega is of higher quality. Ten years. Ten years!! Uncaught by alphas of arguably better physique, using his wit and skill to evade capture. One who doesn’t even bother to glance at mbj, assured of his future success. This one has strength, intelligence, and a fierce independence he can admire. Being older by a decade is no matter to him - if anything, he’d rather have someone with life experience. Mbj hates to be the one to break such an impressive streak, but he must if he wants to have this beguiling creature. (Sqh, picking some dirt out of his fingernail: I wonder if writing a sevensome is gonna be too much to keep track of)

The run starts, and Sqh is immediately aware that something is wrong. Namely, that there’s a prickle on the nape of his neck warning him that someone is staring him down like a starving wolf and his cute little ass is a juicy raw steak. Which is so fucking weird, because like, don’t most of these kids think 30 is like, elderly? Who the hell is trying to watch him? But he shakes it off and books it, confident that the alpha will lose interest after a few hours of being led in circles only to come out fruitless, like most do.

Anyway. Many many hours later, still free but completely flustered and bamboozled, sqh is still having to double back and leave fake trails and set traps and not be ensconced in a shady little cave somewhere with some good porn, because the alpha! Is still! Following him!!! If anything, the boy is more determined than ever, when sqh can catch his scent on the wind - like the difficulty of the chase is drawing him in tighter and tighter, a net snared around his neck that chokes further with their struggles. 

From here it’s a choose your own adventure - whether mbj fails this year and for the next two, growing more and more obsessed with every lost chase, until sqh finally runs out of tricks and mbj falls upon him like a beast starved; or, if sqh gets unlucky in classic sv fashion and makes mistake that has him dealing with an assful of grabby, oppressive young man whose lust and naive determination makes sqh feel like some kind of dirty old man for sitting there and taking it.

[melskyfall]

moshang meet-cute on an airplane? anyone?

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

[notsofrozt]

All us right now. Finally the triad is complete...

[melskyfall]

what’s my moshang wip i hear you, the void, ask?

sqh always has a set of daggers on himself bc he might be dumb but he's not stupid and during a scuffle mbj finds out so sqh thinks he's angrywillkillhim but then mbj fucks off and disappears and gifts him a fancy new set when he returns 🥰

[melskyfall]

HERE IT IS TEEHEE

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

[melskyfall]

this is a bit of a babble, but i'm thinking about shen yuan, shen qingqiu, the aphantasia/hyperphantasia spectrum, and the system's punishments.

this might be a bit disjointed so try to bear with me, but I'm specifically thinking about shen yuan's body having aphantasia (no mental imagery) while shen qingqiu's has something closer to hyperphantasia (very vivid mental imagery). the ability to picture things and how vividly you do it is inarguably neurological, and people who are on one extreme of the spectrum have a hard time conceptualising that there's someone on the complete opposite end.

what do you mean you can visualise things as clearly as a picture and see a movie in your head? what do you mean you can't picture anything at all and when you close your eyes it's just a black void?

being in another body means having a different brain. this comes down to thinking about what it's like to switch bodies with someone who

has a specific mental disorder, but that's a very complicated topic for another day.

all in all i think it'd be super interesting if shen yuan's body couldn't picture things. people with aphantasia can still love reading after all! i think it'd be an interesting twist on why he hated reading PIDW while simultaneously loving it.

people with aphantasia are more likely to be picky about prose, as they don't have an internal movie supporting the descriptions. we know airplane's writing was actually pretty good in the beginning of PIDW, hooking cucumber in until it all starting going downhill after he lost his outline and cucumber has been at least partially holding onto the hope that it would become good again. not only this, but by that point he was! attached to binghe!!!!! he could have gone looking for fanfic with better prose, sure, but that's not really the same.

with that in mind i think shen yuan loves fanart because it allows him to put a picture on what he's reading, and the monster designs become less wtf is this and much more cool. another reason he might've stuck around with pidw, especially if he could not picture all the harem smut even if it haunted his mind lmao

because of this i think it'd be funny for shen qingqiu's body to be on the opposite side of the spectrum — that he can picture things very, very vividly. more torturous for poor shen jiu alas, stuck vividly remembering and seeing his past.

i don't know, i personally can't picture shit, but i do have some friends with hyperphantasia and to me it sounds?? pretty terrifying???? i think i might picture things a teensy bit in dreams, but i can't even be sure about that. especially nightmares like holy shit

so i think that for shen yuan, now in a body that can picture things and see actually human-demon luo binghe in front of him, in the fucking flesh, it's not just animation or fanart or nebulous mental descriptions, that's a whole real person in front of him and now he can picture that face vividly in his mind too holy shit?

slap onto his forehead the demon mark design he saw on all PIDW propaganda and get rid of some of that baby fat, add a few inches to his height, and now the emperor that'll kill him is super easy to imagine, to picture, to see. intrusive thoughts, which most people get at least the once, would become that much more distressing surely

i don't think the system would have necessarily risked sending shen yuan to another dimension for his punishment; what if a glitch or smth happens hello? i think it just would have taken advantage of shen yuan's newfound fear being heightened due to how vividly he can visualise and hear and feel things and sort of given him essentially a very, very vivid nightmare that he couldn't escape with fancy cultivator teas or simply not sleeping as immortals are wont to. only he doesn't have the relief of waking up from a nightmare, because he knows the system sent him there, he knows it's possible, and now all his imagined scenarios are unmistakably vivid (how many times will i use the word vivid holy shit) and what if? what if this is what the system actually has planned for his fate rather than just the original that he never could actually picture while simultaneously reading?

whatifwhatifwhatifwhatif—

i think at some point in the novel shen yuan was also unsure if the actual luo binghe was in front of him or bingge's copy :')

i don't know what the end goal of this post was tbh! just yapping!

i think it'd be funny if years down the line shen yuan and shang qinghua have a conversation and sy is like gee the imagination really is rampant in this world. sqh is like tf you on bro, and sy is like oh yk how people can actually see things in their mind in this world, meditation makes so much more sense. meanwhile sqh, who always had a decent ability to picture things is like hold the fuck uuuppppp bro hahaha also because i think it's a fun addition to sqh's "you're more handsome than I ever imagined" or smth line rather than also making him aphantasic hahaha

[cintiri]

Demon-ish SQH Moshang AU. More accurately, SQH with a demonic transformation for his time in the northern desert.

When Shang Qinghua starts first visiting the northern kingdom, every single demon who encounters him gets pissed the fuck off and tries to murder him.

This, of course, leads to every few hours SQH having to summon MBJ to save his ass. Which his king gets annoyed by VERY quickly, and demands SQH find a solution.

SQH takes this seriously, deciding to find a magical amulet that can transform you into a demon while you are wearing it. It was initially used in some old wife plot, where a human wife used it to disguise herself as a demon and sneak into LBHs demonic court to try and kill a retainer who killed her family or something, and LBH ends up sweeping her off her feet and adding her to the harem.

This goes... Surprisingly well. The amulet matches you to the type of demon that makes most sense for your location and personality, and SQH gets turned into a lemming demon while he is in the Northern Kingdom.

(I picked lemming demon bc 1. They look like hamsters but are arctic critters, 2. The lemmings jumping off cliffs myth and SQH LAUNCHING himself off maigu ridge to try and save MBJ, and 3. They're adorable LOOK AT HIM)

His cheeks become puffy and he starts storing melon seeds in them like a hamster, he gains a soft layer of fluff on his arms, legs, back, and around his new little tail. His legs twist into a more digitigrade configuration, and his skin gains some calico spotting.

And, most crucially, he gains demon instincts while in this form. And this instantly sends Mobei Jun spiralling, because Shang Qinghua has finally started responding to his courtships, but... Weirdly? And afterwards seems to freak out? And also doesn't seem to really understand completely either??

When he whacks SQH around for the first time in demon mode, SQH responds, instead of with pleas and whimpers, by growling and clawing at his arm, leaving small scratches. He's weak enough that he doesn't even break the skin, but he's responding, and it excites Mobei-Jun enough that he tries to trigger a whole courtship fight.

Growling, Mobei-Jun leaps at SQQ, who instinctively dodges and goes to bite MBJ, his eyes lighting up in excitement.

Then confusion.

Then horror.

And in a moment, SQH's knees hit the ground and he starts desperately kowtowing and begging, leaving MBJ wondering where he went wrong.

---

Demons don't stop challenging SQH, all that changes is how he responds to it. He may be a lot weaker than MBJ, but he easily outclasses most of the common demonic servants, beating respect into them quickly.

After they start to understand and respect SQHs role in the hierarchy, something strange starts happening. Some demons begin starting fights with SQH again, but in a... Gentler way.

SQH begins to pick up that this is demonic play fighting, something commonly done with people of a similar rank to you. While SQH does technically outrank most of the servants, he is the head of household for MBJ and essentially their first level above superior, so some of them consider him close enough to start play fighting.

SQH... Decides to give it a try. And it's fun! He never enjoyed sparring as a peak lord, and screamed and cried every time Liu Qingge tried to spar him, but this feels different, somehow. The stinging blood dripping down his body feels more like a love tap than a grievous injury in this form, and he heals quickly. The blood pumping in his ears during a fight is exhilarating.

He remembers a bit of lore he had written, something about demons needing higher cortisol levels in order to function, and fighting each other for fun to regulate. Hm. It was meant to make them scarier, but really this is a lot of fun!

MBJ seethes as he watches SQH play with a couple random snow demons from the cleaning staff. He's tried starting regular play-fights along with his courting fights, and SQH refuses both! But he can see in his eyes he wants to play! What the hell is going on!!

---

One day, SQH has returned from a long day of negotiations in the northern palace. He's tired, irritable, and stressed, and just wants to relax. Maybe he could seek out the head chef and see if she wants a quick brawl? That might make him feel better.

He stumbles across someone on his way to the kitchens, quite literally. He stumbles into the man, causing him to reflexively hiss until the scent of cool winter air and pine hit his nose.

Ah. He knew that scent. A friend. He grinned, letting out a snarl, and reaching out to slash across the man's chest, before darting backwards, inviting them to play.

And he looks up, to see Mobei-Jun's bewildered face. Well, bewildered for MBJ. All it really is is a slight widening of the eyes and a shift in the posture, but SQH can tell he's confused.

Fuck. He's just about to start desperately apologizing, when MBJs face settles and his slitted pupils widen into wide saucers, and then MBJ leaps at him, sending a slash at his wrist.

Nonlethal starting attack. His posture is open, and he's using teeth and claws rather than demonic energy.

...This is a game. Mobei-Jun is playing with him.

He only has a moment to be baffled before a reflexive grin splits his face, and jumps back into the fray.

[melskyfall]

my cat is napping on me. purring. i watch her entire little body move up and down with each of my breaths. life is hazy and terrifying and so worth it to feel this soft love.

[sunderwight]

I can't remember what post it was but somebody once posited that part of the reason why SY!SQQ is like catnip to most of the cast of SVSSS/PIDW is because he's Airplane's type, Airplane sort of created everyone, and so it carries through to the point where all of the characters who have The Hand of God touch their personality inherit being down bad for this one weird internet critic.

Which is a hilarious notion but it occurs to me that this, if true, would have equally funny implications about Mobei Jun. Who is designed by Airplane to be his ideal man (both in the sense of representing the masculine ideal, and also in the sense of Airplane wanting to climb him like a tree).

Because like... is everyone also just kind of lowkey into Mobei Jun, too, then? Are they all having moments where they're doing spit takes mid-battle like, damn that guy's curiously attractive for a demon???

[melskyfall]

what’s my moshang wip i hear you, the void, ask?

sqh always has a set of daggers on himself bc he might be dumb but he's not stupid and during a scuffle mbj finds out so sqh thinks he's angrywillkillhim but then mbj fucks off and disappears and gifts him a fancy new set when he returns 🥰

[ennunanaiurov]

I just think Shang Qinghua should get so angry one time that he unconsciously overrides the System and unlocks Admin privileges and just deletes entire clans out of existance in the blink of an eye while going "writing you in was a mistake".

And I also think everyone who saw that refuses to ever talk about it, but they're all scared shitless of the tiny human by Mobei-jun's side now because they realize he's not just really smart and an amazing strategist, he's also a god and can kill them all in 0.5 seconds. And now they all think that Shang Qinghua is actually the one running the show and Mobei-jun is just, like, the face of the Northern kingdom only.

Shang Qinghua is utterly horrified when he snaps out of it and realizes what he's done (somehow??? He doesn't know wtf just happened) and how now everyone is terrified of him except for Mobei-jun who is just looking at him with heart in his eyes lmao

[consumeroflemoans]

Svsss worldbuilding idea where demons tend to have stronger hunting instincts than humans. They’re opportunist predators. When they see a human trembling and weakened or running away their instincts make them want to chase the easy prey and catch it. They can smell fear and blood sharper than a human can and can identity who it belongs to if they’re familiar with the person.

Heavenly demons have evolved to appear more human than most demons and tend to have more of an emotional flare. It allows them to appear weak and pathetic, which makes other demons more likely to bite and ingest blood, at the cost of making them predisposed to heart demons

This leads to Shang Qinghua getting a little too much attention in the demon realm because any time he visibly panics heads snap his way and mark him as prey. Of course most demons can control themselves. They know this snack belongs to Mobei Jun. They don’t know why he’s flirting with the human, though. It’s weird to play with your food that much. Once Shang Qinghua proves his competency and that he’s just as much a hunter as the other demons he’s left alone more

The smell of Shang Qinghua’s blood has Mobei Jun lapping at the wound to close it so others don’t close in on the wounded prey. Bruises are acceptable but cuts are dangerous for Qinghua. That would draw unwanted attention. He has to hold back from biting his future lover to claim him as his own

They know better than to fall for Luo Binghe’s tears and softened nature. His tears are a trap waiting to be sprung by the most foolish demon. It takes time to learn Shang Qinghua is dangerous in a similar way

[sunderwight]

Concept: An Ding Peak disciples and Mobei Jun's faction in the northern court have been under the impression that they're secretly allied for decades, and that they're just supposed to talk about it in code so that the rest of Cang Qiong and/or the demon realms don't find out and pitch a bitch fit over it.

This came about through a combination of several factors. On the demon end, Shang Qinghua was way less circumspect about his identity whenever he was in the demon realms, so Mobei Jun was just flat-out telling his people that the Head Disciple and later Peak Lord of An Ding was his guy, and putting Shang Qinghua in charge of other servants or jobs as he saw fit, so his court faction were like alright cool guess that gives us a leg up in some departments, let's start coordinating with An Ding Peak?

Then on the other end of it, An Ding Peak is like ground zero for Cang Qiong's malcontents anyway, it is simultaneously the most vital peak and the most looked down upon, so reaching out to one of Cang Qiong's enemies to forge an alliance and hold it at the ready just in case they decide they want to overthrow the other peaks and change the hierarchies of the sect forever actually just feels cathartic. Like they probably won't, but knowing that they could is soothing. Shang Qinghua's closest disciples started figuring out the secret during his Head Disciple tenure, because what do you mean Shixiong survived an encounter with one of the most powerful ice demons alive and now suddenly sometimes his house is winter-cold and he can access a whole bunch of things from the northern climes of the demon realms?

The first few disciples stumble upon and then try to have semi-coded conversations with Shang Qinghua about it, which leads them to the conclusion that their shixiong is colluding with demons but doesn't have any plans to betray An Ding and mostly seems to dislike Huan Hua Palace (respectable) and is maaaybe pissed off enough at Bai Zhan to throw a demon at them one day (a sentiment shared by 99.9% of An Ding disciples) (they brought it up and most of it flew over Shang Qinghua's head but when someone was like "ok but are we taking action against the rest of the sect?" he was sardonically like "not unless Liu Qingge breaks another gate this month").

So when Shang Qinghua becomes Peak Lord and some of the more subtle servants of Mobei Jun show up, a lot of the senior disciples are like yup it's go time. They start conspiring to oust the less open-minded dregs of the past peak lord's rule, consolidate Cang Qiong's power overall and An Ding's influence specifically, help tit-for-tat the northern demon lords and specifically Mobei Jun's faction and disputes with his rivals, remove anyone who stumbles upon the plot and can't be trusted, establish trade deals and information brokers and etc.

All the while Shang Qinghua and Mobei Jun are still just like, it's only us two who have an arrangement going on here.

Mobei Jun's servants will often talk about their "mountain clan allies", in a way that leads outsiders to think there's some feral tribe of logistics experts who they've established an alliance with in one of the demon realms many inhospitable and hard-to-reach mountainous borders, while An Ding disciples in-the-know will talk about their "friends in the north", which most of the rest of the sect interprets as just yet another merchant network that they aren't compelled to give a shit about.

[ase-eolia-blog]

When we talk about the northern nobles’ jealousy over the human Shang Quinghua’s position, we’re mainly referring to his relationship with Mobei-jun.

While SQH doesn’t oppose using his worldly knowledge to help his king manage the court, his approach shifts dramatically depending on the gender of his interlocutor.

The original story focuses primarily on Luo Binghe and his wives. This means that SQH’s intrapersonal knowledge is far more developed regarding the female members of the royal court than the male ones.

Yes, he’s aware of all the plots—he knows which ones will cause trouble and which won’t, on a broad scale. But above all, he knows the favorite gifts, personal preferences, histories, and struggles of each female court member.

What will bring a smile to one’s face? What matters most to another?

Imagine you’re a woman in the northern royal court. You encounter this unassuming advisor, who is the polar opposite of the classic, domineering male energy of the demons.

He always knows just what to say. He’ll bring you your favorite food when you need it most. He understands exactly what you want and how to make it happen.

And most importantly, he’s happy to gossip with you about your problems with your father, uncle, brother, or whoever—all while celebrating your achievements and reminding you how special you are (because, let’s face it, even the smallest bit of character development for women in harems is still more than most NPCs get).

And here’s the kicker: he’s not doing any of this to sleep with you!

(Some, whose low IQ prevented them from picking up on MJ’s very obvious signals, tried their luck. At best, SQH politely declined. At worst… let’s just say they fell into royal disgrace.)

This is how SQH becomes the closest thing to a “gay best friend” (complete with all the clichés) for the women of the court.

Of course, since northern demons mostly express affection through violence or bullying… well, he’ll be the last to know.