So I have theory about Luo Binghe’s fake jade pendant.
(Major spoilers if you haven’t finished the book btw)
I was just reading a fic and author pointed out something about Luo Binghe’s pendant and how it’s a metaphor for Shen Yuan.
Looking back at the book, there are a lot of parallels between Shen Yuan and the necklace.
The pendant is a counterfeit jade carving of the god Guanyin.
Shen Yuan is a counterfeit of Shen Qingqiu, a powerful Peak Lord who dresses in jade colored robes.
Guanyin is noted to be associated with compassion, and Shen Yuan changes the entire fate of the world of Proud Immortal Demon Way by being compassionate.
Luo Bingmei ends his story with his one fake jade pendant while the extras specifically note that Luo Bingge has several real jade necklaces in his possession. Those necklaces are even called out to be fine grade and best money can buy.
Obviously the real jades are a metaphor for Bingge’s harem of peerlessly beautiful women while the fake jade, which has infinitely more value to him, represents Shen Yuan, aka Luo Bingmei’s one and only true love.
However I think there’s more to it than that.
If you track the pendant throughout the book, you’ll notice that Luo Binghe is only ever in possession of the pendant when Shen Yuan isn’t there. In fact, he actually loses the pendant shortly after Shen Yuan transmigrates into Shen Qingqiu. For the rest of the book, the pendant is in Shen Yuan’s possession, only returning to Luo Binghe at the climax.
But here’s the thing that’s strange about that scene: for whatever reason the System could not load the pendant when SQQ tried to summon it. At no other point in the book has the System have a problem loading things in.
So why is it when it does load in, it’s right as Shen Yuan dies for the third time?
My theory is that Shen Yuan is the pendant itself.
Now obviously Shen Yuan comes back and Binghe still has the pendant, but in the last couple scenes of the book, Shen Yuan is always right by Luo Binghe’s side.
Now I know that Shen Yuan was an actual person before dying and becoming Shen Qingqiu, so therefore he isn’t the necklace given human form. So how can Shen Yuan and the pendant be one and the same?
Well let’s go back to the aforementioned climax scene where the System cannot physically summon the pendant until Shen Yuan dies.
Seeing as how the System is essentially an AI and/or a computer program, this kind of issue reminds me of how a computer cannot open a file if another of the exact same file is already running.
I think, that when inserting Shen Yuan into PIDW, the System needed a way to tie his soul into its program and Shen Yuan’s fate to the protagonist. The System needed a physical entity to tie him down so it linked his code/soul to the fake jade pendant. That’s why Luo Binghe loses the pendant so soon after Shen Yuan transmigrates and why the System couldn’t load it in until Shen Yuan’s soul left his body because they’re part of the same file.
This is also evidenced by how when Shen Yuan dies the second time, out of all of his items, only the Jade pendant is kept in his inventory when he wakes up in the Sun and Dew Mushroom body.
Not to mention that Shen Yuan and the pendant have the same effect on Luo Binghe! The pendant has the ability to essientially shock Luo Binghe out of a qi deviation, but is only a one time use. But during Luo Binghe’s first qi deviation, Shen Yuan is able to do the exact same thing but doing so kills him. The pendant reduces Luo Binghe’s anger, and Shen Yuan is the only person in the world Luo Binghe will ever be soft and submittable to.
Tl’dr; The System tied Shen Yuan’s soul to the fake Guanyin pendant.
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Another rough fic concept that I don’t have the focus or mental fortitude to write. Honestly if any of y’all are inspired and want to actually flesh it out, be my guest, because I can’t wrangle my brain into doing it.
Post-game story where Astarion and Tav are on the hunt for a way to help him walk in the sun again.
They are on the trail of a possible solution. Maybe a MacGuffin item that will protect him or maybe a full-on cure for vampirism.
Astarion x Tav cross paths with a powerful vampire. Maybe this entity has the item/cure they are looking for or maybe this vampire is also seeking it.
They don’t have the rest of the party to help them so shit is gonna go sideways in the worst way possible.
There is a confrontation in a fortress or ruin by the sea. During the fight, everything that can go wrong does go wrong and worse.
Astarion gets pushed or blasted off the tower/battlements down into the dark water below, leaving Tav alone with the vampire.
Astarion survives. Barely. By the time he makes it to shore, clinging to unlife by a thread, dawn is fast approaching.
He’s a survivor. He has no choice but to seek shelter. Besides, he can’t help Tav if he’s a pile of ash.
Our favorite spawn spends a miserable day, unable to rest, full of self-loathing that he had to flee, horrified at the possible fate that he has left Tav to endure. Are they even still alive?
As soon as the orange eye of the sun dips back down below the horizon, Astarion leaves his makeshift shelter to find Tav.
He sneaks back into the fortress…
It’s easy. Too easy. Everything is eerily quiet.
In a courtyard, something catches in the corner of his eye: an area of freshly turned dirt.
As he looks dumbly at the person-sized patch, he realizes what he’s smelling. Dirt and blood. Tav’s blood.
They’re dead.
But amid the rising despair, another thought occurs to him. Would a vampire waste the opportunity to create a perfectly good spawn? He’s not sure which is worse; that Tav is dead or a spawn.
Astarion falls to his knees and begins clawing at the dirt. Nails be damned, Tav is down there.
It’s massively re-traumatizing for him. Instead of digging up out of his own grave, he is digging down into the grave of the first person he truly cares about, unsure of what state they will be in.
His nails are broken, hands bloodied, face smeared with dirt and sweat and tears when a hand bursts free from the dirt. Tav’s hand.
He pulls them free, coughing and retching up dirt. Tav is wild-eyed and terrified by what has been done to them and the changes they have felt in their body.
Astarion can see Tav’s eyes have gone red and shine with a dull glow. Their canines are pointed, skin no longer bright but with a greyish cast to it. The fresh wound on their neck no longer bleeds, but stares at him like an accusation.
There is stillness for a moment after the frantic scramble. A traumatized Tav clings to Astarion. Maybe he tries to comfort them. Maybe he’s frozen, trying to figure out what to do next. Maybe a horrific guilt is starting to eat a hole through him… they were here to help him after all.
But then…
Tav goes rigid in Astarion’s arms.
Tav jerks back out of Astarion’s grip and struggles to their feet. The red glow in their eyes has brightened and their face is a mask of confusion and fear as their body moves against their will.
They stumble past Astarion…
…and into the waiting arms of their new master.
This vampire is powerful, of course, and not alone. Perhaps they have other spawn or minions now stepping out of the shadows into the courtyard. Astarion is outnumbered and outgunned.
Does Astarion fight (and certainly die) or flee?
Perhaps this vampire looks down at this spawn-of-a-dead-master that they cannot control and decides killing him is too boring. They’re a sadistic bastard after all.
The vampire tells Astarion to run. Run and never look back.
They tell him that if they ever catch his scent again, they will make Tav greet the dawn.
So Astarion flees. Ever the survivor.
He abandons Tav to a cruel sire and a fate he knows all too well.
If you’re an asshole, you could end the story right there. But as much as I enjoy angst, I love happy endings more…
So a bloodied and shell-shocked Astarion turns up on Gale’s doorstep one night. They get the gang back together. You could skim over this or turn it into a multi-chapter found family bonanza about breaking Wyll and Karlach out of the hells and getting Lae’zel back from the astral plane.
The point is, the cavalry comes to save Tav for once.
You could end it any way you like… Maybe both Tav and Astarion are cured or maybe only one of them is. Perhaps there was no cure at all, their lead was a dead end, and Astarion and Tav both end up as masterless spawn, still on the hunt for a way to walk in the sun together. Tav has to learn how to deal with being a vampire and they both have to deal with this new trauma, but they are free and have each other.
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cora’s bad time hell simulation steps or how to play “sprite station for girl” “harvest moon ds cute” the wrong way
(all ways are wrong this game is Accursed)
ok so here’s what my disorganized “guide” to myself for harvest moon ds for girl (aka indecipherable notes i wrote to myself as i played and revised as i tested various things and restarted due to mistakes) looks like. at some point when i become a real gamer i will write a legible guide meant for eyes to look at but uhhh this is how i play this accursed game personally
i’m not sure if anything i wrote will make any sense since i wrote it as notes to myself so probably definitely use fogu and fc2 jonason wiki (may not work but some pages should be archived) instead
ALSO if you’ve never played or barely played the game it won’t make sense at all! hmds was my first harvest moon so i am used to various horrors!
my play style is probably not fun in general HOWEVER if you are a grinding hell goblin like me then it’s GREAT!!!! if not you may still find it amusing that the game gives you permission to play like this
(it’s a great background task game while doing like productive stuff but otherwise playing this way would probably be unbearable)
(image limit)
anyway after that the days go a lot faster, you’ll get the island on summer 1, so on spring 30 i put all my money into million G tickets and sell 200 of em, do the 5x money thing, and save the rest. so when thomas comes the next day to sell you the 900 million G island you can just sell 180 tickets and do the 5x money thing again with like ~600 million G tickets left over. it takes up inventory but you’ll get the shelf in a few days. basically you just need to remember to order from the TV shopping every saturday and place orders with gotz and gray whenever they finish stuff.
random tips
after unlocking the fuckass hot spring sprites (the ones that require you to spend a total of 700 1 hour sessions in the hot springs) i usually grind grazing points— if you put your animals outside for 5 hours you get a “Love Point”, but if you interact with them after they earn that LP then the timer switches over and you can get another LP after 5 more hours. if you wear the time ring the whole time it’s 2.5 hours. i’m not very good at explaining this but basically if you’re super efficient you can get way more animal LP than you realistically should, which is great because the touch glove petting minigame is Bad!!!!
i usually wait on getting the rest of the purple sprites (the ones that require you to hire the purple team and ask for healing) until i’m totally done with the indigo team, cuz i wanna get HG’s purple heart event asap, but you can switch the order if you want
by summer y1 you’ll basically have a feel for everything. aside from Skye, Leia, HG and WP everyone can be married early-mid autumn if you want
if you want to Gay (in the japanese version only) keira is the quickest to marry. leia is the quickest to max affection but it’s impossible to get leia year 1 because the bottle you need to fish up can only be caught in spring. you have to wait until at least year 5 for WP and iirc year 6 for HG.
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