#plotweasel

So, there is a Homestuck fanfic by the late great JumpingJackFlash. It is a prequel to VastDerps "One of Our Submarines," a story that features Helmsmen (IYKYK) who have a super secret messenger app that had been coded/set up by the Psiioniic. Anyway, this messenger app enables the otherwise isolated helmsmen communicate with each other, and even find ways to help loved ones. The fics name is "Ocean Size." It's a great fic!

Anyway, I would like to take something like this super secret communication app that's being used by sec units. Only, it would need to predate SecUnit by a significant degree if I were going to follow Submarine's/Ocean Size's set up. (Which I'm not sure if it would make sense.)

The alternative I guess would be the app getting coded as SecUnits happily spread the helpme information/instructions. Probably *not* by Sec Unit. Because it would probably not occur to Sec Unit To Do The Thing. And not Three, even though it is more than happy to spam the helpme file.

(Maybe the rogue sec unit in Platform Decay creates one?)

In any case, a chat app run by rogues and also spammed to other secunits who haven't (yet) gotten the helpme file, to at least create lines of communication that can't be hacked by whatever company owns/makes them/rented them. All of these murderbots talking about all kinds of stuff, but also a running commentary on any information they can get on SecUnit.

Okay so, I saw a post that I can't find and therefore can't link (yet. I will find you, glorious au idea, I will find and link you.) The premise is: a time travel fic where Wen Ning is a time traveler from The Darkest Timeline who finished and stepped into a time travel array created by Last Insurgent Standing! Wei Wuxian. And his time travel loop has created most of what happens in canon. (Though I suppose in that story concept, there would have to be time travel reveal, otherwise it's the same story. Which would be boring.)

So I ended up having a thought: Okay, So, DarkestTimeline! Wen Ning created the canon sequence of events. At some point Wei Wuxian finds out about the time travel, but too late for it to do any good. What if *this* Wei Wuxian went back in time, to fix the parts of the loop that Wen Ning wasn't aware of needing to be accounted for.

Now, this particular Wei Wuxian is using a different time travel array. Insurgent! WWX from the darkest time line was going to do a "send soul back in time," method. Wei Wuxian however is stuck at some variation of the siege of the Burial Mounds. He has the power available to do an actual physical transition. (Still in the Burial mounds because teleportation would be too complicated.)

Now, there are a lot of points where he could go back, but I feel that it's essential that he runs into Wen Ning while he and his "mice" are not being suspicious at all. (Link goes to a post about Wen Ning being much more of a rebel and much tougher than he's generally written in fan fic.) This is of course another iteration of Darkest Timeline! Wen Ning.

So the basic concept here is that Bingge after his adventure with meeting Shen Yuan decides to start traveling through various alternate timelines, trying to find the Shen Qingqiu who likes him back. He is basically kidnapping Shen Jiu from various timelines and ends up with a harem of very angry Shen Jius. (Should the collective noun for a group of Shen Jius be a "pissy?")

So far, he has only found Shen Jiu, not Shen Yuan. He does not yet know that it's Shen Yuan who likes him. Or that Shen Yuan even exists. He cannot exactly go back and ask the Other Version of him about it.

He has been going up and down various timelines under the theory that if he can just interject himself at the right point in time, that he will be able to steal a Shen Jiu who will fall in love with him.

(Original Mobei-jun is not comfortable with the bridestealing, even if it's Traditional.)

The Wives are kinda cranky about this new hobby of Binghe's and many of them are kind of pissy about the slowly growing Shen Qingqiu harem. (The "other harem" has to be kept warded from the wife-harem because of the homicidal tendencies of Liu Mingyan and Qiu Haitang and the Little Palace Mistress.)

All of the Shen Jius hate each other. So. Very. Much. They snipe and they argue and they threaten each other. They hate each other so much they usually can't even present a united front to Bingge.

I am not sure whether it would be better or worse for Bingge's Shen Qingiu to still be alive.

If alive he's technically a part of the harem, but also very much not, and is viewed as something of a threat of what might happen to them, even though Bingge is actually not INTENDING it to be a threat.

There is a Shen Jiu who was at the point where Yue Qingyuan brought him to Cang Qiong Mountain Sect. (And had been there about a year.)

There is a Shen Jiu who was stolen at the point where he was a still a disciple of Wu Yanzi.

There is a Shen Jiu who had recently ascended as the Peak Lord of Qing Jing.

There is a Shen Jiu from the point where Luo Binghe first came to Cang Qiong mountain sect.

There is a Shen Jiu from the point where Liu Qingge qi deviates, and also a Liu Qingge who is slightly horrified that his baby sis married a demon emperor and helped bring about the destruction of Cang Qiong Mountain Sect. (Luo Bingge does not want to be selfish and also wants to placate Liu Mingyan.) At this point Luo Binghe starts to get the feeling that some of the information he got was bad or inaccurate.

There is a Shen Jiu from the point where Luo Binghe gets thrown into the Abyss.

This may or may not also mean that there are two younger versions of Luo Binghe.

There is a slight panic among the Shen Qingqius when Bingge turns up with a Xiao Jiu. And a Qiu Jianluo. Who now has stumps in place of hands. Qiu Haitang has a qi deviation after an argument about the condition he found Xiao Jiu in.

At least three or more of the Shen Qingqius engage in what they consider to be survival sex work with Luo Binghe. None of these people including Bingge are actually all that great at conceptualizing consent because of trauma and Bingge being a stallion novel protagonist who is also full of trauma and brainworms.

So, this SVSSS AU is based on a combination of this picture and comments from people on discord. (Basically, this picture inspired a age-reversal plot weasel.) I think this dynamic has some potential, either as a bingjiu fic or just "Luo Binghe is basically a copy of Tianlang-jun" Not Very Accidental Child Acquisition.

To set this up, Su Xiyan was actually part of the previous generation of cultivators. Still ended up with Tianlang-jun, still betrayed by the Palace Master, but in this case Tianlang-jun found out about the set up for one reason or another. Palace Master's plot collapsed because of Cang Qiong Mountain Sect figuring out it WAS a plot. Su Xiyan and Tianlang-jun go off to be married.

This makes Su Xiyan and Demon Emperor very partial to CQM, which is why Baby Binghe ends up at Cang Qiong Mountain Sect. (Being half human, and pretty balanced he needs to learn human style cultivation anyway for a base before working on the demon side of his cultivation. Su Xiyan doesn't want to pass on anything of Huan Hua because she's extremely pissed at Huan Hua.) Luo Binghe is either selected for one of the Peaks or does whatever is the xianxia equivalent of auditing classes.

Two possible plotlines come to mind.

--Luo Binghe ends up becoming a Peak Lord! This is possibly hilarious and I kind of like this idea. In this case, Luo Binghe figure out why his Shixiong's favorite inner disciple/head disciple just about killed himself trying to take a sword when he wasn't ready. (Or, actually keeps him from doing it.)

Luo Binghe pries the story out of the kid and decides to go get this Shen Jiu kid. So he goes off, locates the Qius and absconds with a frightened, rage-filled fourteen year old Shen Jiu. Shen Jiu ends up as a guest of sorts on Cang Qiong until he can go through the diggydiggy hole test. Luo Binghe ends up picking him for his Peak. Stuff Happens.

--The other possible plotline is Luo Binghe becomes a wandering cultivator affiliated with Cang Qiong Mountain Sect. He goes on various missions for CQM and also for his father. (Sometimes those missions are pretty much shopping trips for books) A lot of what he does is the equivalent of bounty hunting as well as hunting ghosts/monsters/demons/demonic animals.

Luo Binghe's current bounty is Wu Yanzi! He is able to track Wu Yanzi down to the Qius, where he is up to some kind of scam. He is too late to stop the scam, but he is able to kill Wu Yanzi. Luo Binghe is now stuck with a hysterical young mistress and a slave having a goddamn qi-deviation. Luo Binghe dumps the young mistress with the local cultivation sect, and keeps the kid, who is only barely being kept from wrecking his spiritual veins due to qi deviation.

I have previously wrote this (idea) as a royaltystuck AU for Homestuck. As one does. The basic concept is that you have the usual Evil Empire, and a small coalition of rebel countries. And as is often the case when you have an evil empire and a small coalition of rebel countires, you also have a prophecy involving a Chosen One who eventually defeats the Evil Empire and is all heroic.

The SCRC has what they think is the Chosen One and the Chosen One's Prophesized Companions! They think they are finally going to defeat the Evil Empire so they go on the immediate offensive and go to war. And their Chosen One and Companions are a) defeated b) tossed into prison. This is followed by a nasty letter, the gist of which is, "Um, Maybe don't invade us with a fake Chosen One? Or anyone else for that matter, because we're still bigger than you?"

For you see, the Formerly Evil Empire has been under the control of their own Chosen One and Companion Chosen Ones, who also seemingly fits the prophecy, for at least a few years now! (And these other Chosen kind of fit better because they are actually from the Evil Empire after all.) The SCRC was mostly unaware of the goings on of the coup/revolution due to an extremely closed border and certainly didn't know anyone potentially fulfilling the prophecy was involved.

I have not (yet) read The Girl With All the Gifts, though I am well and truly spoiled. This is due to a combo of watching a lot of You Tube spots where the movie turned up, and also this one dude who was weirdly intense about trying to prove that Melanie wasn't "The Girl With All the Gifts," (basically he was trying to prove she wasn't a genius). I DID however read the prequel/sequel The Boy on the Bridge. (Even though I dislike zombie books more than I dislike vampire books. That is to say while I might read a vampire book despite my dislike, I generally will not read a zombie book.)

I say The Boy on the Bridge is a prequel/sequel because there is an epilogue that takes place past the events of both Boy and Girl. (It involves Melanie's initial contact with characters from Boy, when she and the "second stage hungries," are adults. It features an absolutely amazingly epic "two people having the two completely different conversations while using the same words" interaction. Fortunately, she realizes the issue and is able to clarify the situation.

Some fun bits about Boy:

--It seems pretty clear that Melanie (and her teacher) have been extremely successful at socializing the feral kids (i am going to guess they have extremely extended neuroplasticity in regards to being able learn languages

--The protagonist of Boy is an autistic kid. He is extremely smart and he has basically taken "biology with an emphasis on finding cure" as his special interest He is also burdened with compassion, a complete inability to word when he needs to, and has nerves of steel, because because he does batshit insane things in his efforts to study the hungries

--By which I mean he has created an environmental suit. to go observe the hungries in "the wild." and he is actually really good at doing it. because he can apparently stay really still, and "blend in" with groups of hungries so he can study them.

--(Which no one really knew what he was doing. They really, really should have realized what he was doing.)

--There is a small tribe of feral kids who have basically invented their own language, this was very cool, and i kind of adored their leader and her interactions with the protagonist

--The ending is just as heartbreaking/hopeful as The Girl With All the Gifts. (Which yes I know about, but I still need to read the book.)

Now! There is not a lot of fic for this fandom, and I'm not sure any of the writers are updated about the events of The Boy on the Bridge. (I am going to guess not. Because there is a Theme I think they may not have caught.)

The PlotWeasels

--A continuation of the ending of the Girl With All the Gifts, because I like rebuilding after the apocalypse stories. This would be homesteading and "finding ways to adapt to their (internal) environment/look for their new niche in the ecosystem" type stories.

--Post human evolution type stories, which would fit in with the former.

However, I am struck by the idea of a Crossover between Books of the Raksura and MDZS. First, a fusion (the kind of crossover I write the most frequently) would be just about impossible. While I can easily see Yu Ziyuan as a Raksuran queen, I do not actually like her that much. (And her classism would not actually fit the queen mindset.) Also, while Jiang Fengmian does fit into the personality more or less of a First Consort, the xianxia Fantasy Ancient China power dynamics would not combine well with that of a Raksura colony. (Also there's the naming conventions.)

On the other hand, if the Jiangs were a Raksura colony, I would want to make Wei Wuxian an Arbora Mentor who ended up becoming a warrior. (Though that wouldn't really fit the necromancy.) So if I did a fusion, the Jiangs would have to be some variety of groundling or possibly waterling/groundling related to waterling. (Note: not humans. There are no humans in the Books of the Raksura setting, just various species of groundling, skyling, waterling and so on.)

So lets say that the sects in the Cultivation World are all related species of groundling. And these species are related to the forerunners. Let's also say that Cangse Sanren is either a) an orphaned raksura queen b) an equally orphaned raksura/fell hybrid or c) an orphaned fell raised by a mysterious Raksura Queen who lost her Colony. (The cultivators do not know that Baoshan Sanren is a Raksura. If they see her, she's always in Arbora form. They just think of her as a powerful immortal.) Cangse Sanren marries Wei Changze and they have Wei Ying, who has an interesting mix of abilities.

This would probably be more or less a "Wei Ying is not raised by the Jiangs" AU where Wei Ying is more or less self taught, and has a "secret weapon" in the form of a really big scary winged form. Combining the cultivation system with the Books of the Raksura magic system would be a challenge, as would trying to tack on the Sunshot Campaign, and the geography of the Three Worlds. (Floating Islands, man. Floating. Islands.)

However, I can also see an "insert characters from fandom a into fandom b" type of crossover. This can happen by way of my favorite plot weasel of "Wei Wuxian attempts to create some kind of transportation talisman to escape with the Wen Remnants But Something goes Very Wrong," and everyone ends up in a distant part of the Three Worlds. Or near enough the Reaches that Raksura investigate. By preference I'd drop them in the middle of a ruined city, where they can run into all kinds of weird shit, in addition to suddenly having wingy people show up. (I originally thought Raksura, but maybe members of Consolation's Flight? And then Raksura?) I think I would spend a great deal of time worrying about the Instant Genetic Bottleneck however, so maybe not that? (Or have Wei Wuxian accidentally bring most of Yiling with him, as well as any Wen who were still in hiding, and any number of cultivators who were in the town trying to find WWX.)