#<- still thinking of qiu

[rivvyribbons]

flustered !!!!

[waitineedaname]

can I say something controversial. shen jiu and shen yuan are both characters who are very much shaped by the environments in which they were raised, and those environments are fundamentally opposites. shen jiu is the way he is because he grew up as an orphan on the streets and suffered horrific abuse as a slave. shen yuan is the way he is because he was raised in relative comfort and privilege, with all the benefits that come with being the third son of a wealthy family in the modern era. I say this because in aus where they're brothers, one of them inevitably is going to end up in a fundamentally different upbringing, which is going to drastically change how they behave

this is not to discourage aus but rather to encourage using them as a way to analyze what changing something like this does to these characters. if you take out shen jiu's tragic backstory and give him a wealthy, privileged family, how does he act? how much of what we associate with shen jiu is inherent to his personality, and how much of it is because of his trauma? if you take shen yuan out of his comfortable life and make him an abused slave child, what will that do to him? will his kindness still be second nature? will he find new ways to act like a complete lunatic?

[disaster-magician]

When ur neighbor will reply to ur other neighbor but not u 😔

(Fake screenshots! These are fan made based on incorrect quotes and not in the game)

[r-biter]

The system isn't good at generating things, i think. If it was it could've probably generated users for the tasks it needs or unique punishments. Ergo i think if it tried to make it's own body to interact with the outside world it would just copy some well-remembered figures. In the 'system gets wifebeamed' au those figures are just people shen jiu remembers very very well.

(AKA i think the system would be tryna seduce shen yuan using the faces of his bodies abusers (+ shi wu) because comedy)

[giorgiobrodo]

They have a boat

[pinkniz]

Real footage of me seeing Jin Qiu's skin realising my hc of him being chonky is debunked

[spock-adoodledoo]

And last one (for now lol, I could go on forever but I'll let you think about these ones first 😂) 2 about Li Bing, specifically in manhua/donghua canon?

2. Favorite canon thing about this character?

I feel like this makes up the core (?) of his character but: I like that sometimes Li Bing is naive and makes decisions without thinking through things. like he gets caught up in his investigation or bringing someone to justice that he forgets how politics works; you have to carefully plan, sometimes threaten, and finesse your way through court stuff to get what you want. he just goes rushing in there expecting people to listen to him, which is endearing to me lol. it's only obvious some of the time, but he never fully grew out of that innocent kid trying to save a bunch of war refugees

also he goes feral if he doesn't take his meds. it's happened only once but it's hilarious, A+ design choice for a catboy. in the same vein of "he's literally a cat", they keep stuffing him into boxes that he always fits into

[tonyglowheart]

"Yan Wushi sucks bc he sold Shen Qiao out to Sang Jingxing, and not only that-- not only did he never apologize, but also he said he never regrets it!!"

First off, god forbid women do anything 🙄

Second off - like I mean yes I believe him lmao - but, under normal circumstances he would NEVER say that, have you stopped to consider that he said that to try to put Shen Qiao off so maybe he'd leave/leave Yan Wushi behind and escape the danger?

Literally right before this, he's like, why don't you leave me behind hm :3 you'd escape danger and be rid of an extra burden. (this does Not work). hmph, when have I ever treated you well, A-Qiao? but then he *hides him in the temple to try to keep him safe*, next time you're go to Northern Zhou speak to Yuwen Yong, I'm sure he'll show you ZhuyangCe , also tell Bian Yanmei not to worry about me and take care of himself (SQ: I'm not someone from Huanyue Sect why would bym listen to me? you better go and tell him yourself / YWS! I didn't expend all that effort getting you this far so you could give yourself up!)-- And THEN, only then, does he go I never regretted giving you up! and yet you are not rejoicing at my misfortune, but look so devastated instead?

AND THEN!!! AND THEN !!!! HE SAYS ALL THIS:

(Qian Qiu ch79, nhi's tl)

This whole scene and moment is like literally the one (1) sentimentality to leak out of Yan Wushi, and you have the gall to piss on the poor and fixate on the facade and not see the poorly concealed soft heart spilling through the cracks? This is, like, the least locked down we see Yan Wushi ever, he's still so off balance due to the not-fully-recovered-yet Agonies that he's not even fully misdirecting properly, it's all there on display. If you could but read.

[add1ctedt0you]

"When my brother and I were 13, our parents saved the Chief of Iron Palm Sect, Shangguan. To return the favor, Shangguan Jiannan promised to teach little bro his wugong. It should've be me, big bro, Qiu Qianzhang. But since Qianren in childhood was often ill... I gave him that chance."

[rubys-domain]

at this point i dont even care if i get kokomi. i just want a 5 star

[disaster-magician]

Sorry your crush is oblivious Qiu, better luck next time!

(Fake screenshots! These are fan made based on incorrect quotes and not in the game)

[charmandheaven]

Hm. Hmmmm. Actually I think it's better if lbh just didn't refer to sy in bed at all.

[stiltonbasket]

Shen Yuan should transmigrate as Qiu Haitang! He *could* break himself and SJ out of the horrible Qiu household, but Qiu Haitang showing up “early” only to kidnap SQQ’s littlest disciple would also be funny.

"Why are you here?" Shen Qingqiu asks flatly, as he leaves the bamboo house with Ming Fan in tow.

"I heard that you took on a new disciple," says the woman before him.

Qiu Haitang does not meet his eyes. She has not looked him in the eye for the better part of twenty years—not since that first murder on the road, when she came to bring him a basket of food and found Shen Qingqiu and Wu Yanzi with blood still dripping from their hands—but even so, her avoidance of him has never grown easier to bear.

"I did," Shen Qingqiu replies. "What of it?"

"I told you not to," Qiu Haitang says, her hands curling into fists. "That—Li Haoran was to be the last. You promised me."

"Ning Yingying wanted a shidi."

"I don't give a damn what Ning Yingying wanted," she says sharply. "You swore you would never take in another boy."

Silence.

"If I go into the house," Qiu Haitang continues, her voice deceptively calm, "tell me, Shen Jiu—what will I find?"

At this, Ming Fan steps forward and stretches out his hands in supplication. "Shiniang—"

"Be silent," she snaps. "Your shifu is a lost cause, and that can't be helped; but if Disciple Ming cannot learn from his mistakes, then you don't need to speak in front of me. Did you even think of coming to fetch me when you saw that he had picked up another little shidi to bully?"

With that, Qiu Haitang snorts and sweeps past him into the bamboo house, where Luo Binghe is still kneeling in the middle of the front room with tea trickling down his tearstained cheeks.

"There, don't cry," Shen Qingqiu hears her whisper. "You didn't do anything wrong. Can you look up so that jiejie can dry your face?"

"Shizun—shizun told me to kneel," the little wretch in the house replies, half-sobbing. "It's this lowly one's fault. I offended him, so of course this disciple should stay here and reflect."

"You didn't offend anyone," Qiu Haitang says gently. "He has a terrible temper, and he never learned how to control it. It's not your fault."

"But—!"

Qiu Haitang hushes Luo Binghe again, after which Shen Qingqiu hears nothing further: for at that moment, his wife seemed to have recalled the existence of the bamboo house's privacy wards—but later that evening, she returns to house with a sheaf of papers and flings them down on Shen Qingqiu's desk.

"Sign these," she tells him.

Shen Qingqiu glances at the first page in bemusement. "What are they?"

"Dissolution papers for Luo Binghe's discipleship. What else?" Qiu Haitang's lip curls. "From now on, I'll be his Shizun instead."

He lifts an eyebrow. "Did Yue Qingyuan give you these? He approved when I asked for that little beast, you know."

"He must have thought you'd wait at least a week before doing something to the child," Haitang says coldly. "I told him that he could either give Binghe to me or send him to Bai Zhan; and he was determined to save face for you, so he chose me."

And then, when Shen Qingqiu does not reply:

"Sign them, Shen Jiu. You don't want to know what I'll do to you otherwise."

At this, Shen Qingqiu picks up a brush and signs his name at the bottom of the dissolution form: for the last time he and Qiu Haitang fought in earnest, she fed him a cursed tonic that had him babbling in tongues before a hundred-odd dignitaries at Huan Hua.

"Thank you," she bites out: and with that, she turns on her heel and blows out of the bamboo house like a gust of chill wind.

Not for the first time, Shen Qingqiu finds himself wishing that he had left Qiu Haitang behind at the Qiu estate when he fled with Wu Yanzi. But her father and brother were dead, and she believed that she was betrothed to him; and when he saw her great brown eyes staring at him through the flames of her home, some power beyond Shen Qingqiu's own had prevented him from turning his back on her.

She was not meant to accept when I offered to take responsibility for her, he thinks dully, watching through the open window as his wife strides towards the women's compound on the other side of the mountain. She hated me then, and she hates me now—so what was it all for?

Shen Qingqiu has pondered upon that question night and day since he and Qiu Haitang first bowed to one another, not long after his instatement as Qing Jing's head disciple; and he is no nearer to the answer by the morning he is widowed, nearly a decade later.

What point was there in saving her? he wonders, as a grown Luo Binghe weeps in the streets of Hua Yue with Qiu Haitang's still body cradled to his breast. Would it not have been better for her to die after the first betrayal, rather than live to be betrayed twice?

"Why are you all just standing there?" he hears Ming Fan roar. "That's our Shiniang! What are you afraid of? At most, that white-eyed wolf she raised will just beat us all to death!"

"Leave it."

Ming Fan stares at Shen Qingqiu in dismay, his eyes so swollen with tears that he scarcely seems able to see through them. "What is Shizun saying? What do you mean, leave her? She's our only Shiniang—she's your wife!"

Shen Qingqiu gazes at the cooling corpse in Luo Binghe's arms for a little while longer; and then, at length, he turns away.

"Your Shiniang's end was of her own making, Ming Fan," Shen Qingqiu says, already starting towards the group of screeching cultivators trapped behind the wards at the other end of the street.

"Shen-furen has made her bed. Let her lie in it."

[teazart]

Continuation of the Beast Peak Lord SY AU with SJ.

Click here for part 1

They both would have gotten to Cang Qiong a little later than everyone else. However, with SY there with SJ, SJ is less bitter with someone with him that is also a little bit behind on their cultivation. With SY there with SJ he never had to learn under Wu Yanzi so his cultivation core is only underdeveloped rather than shattered and pieced back together haphazardly.

When SJ first found out that SY got into the Beast Peak instead of Qing Jing he was absolutely upset. He went on long silent stint, ignoring SY until he couldn't take it anymore. Meaning that SJ broke first, despite being equally as stubborn as SY, and sought him out to talk.

Idk if I want to go into more detail about their disciple years. Maybe if I find the energy I will :). But when SJ first became Head Disciple and understood that would mean he would be the next peak lord he was hesitant to accept as he didn't want to leave SY behind. Thankfully SY, or course, being the top performer of his peak also became Head Disciple. I like to think they have this sappy promise when they first joined the sect (or even before when they met at the Qiu mansion whispering late into the night about far off plans of escaping and becoming more than what they are now) that they promised each other that they would get married when they became Peak Lords. But or course, it's only so that they could guarantee that they would both raise above their stations forced upon them at childhood. Yes, definitely not because they both started to realize that maybe they were the only two people on the face of the Earth that knew so much about each other without the fear of judgement. Or that they are so comfortable around each other than any other person. And to add some sparkle I think it would be hilarious if they did a small no-nonsense wedding that was just them and the officiator. And none of the other peak lords know about their marriage status and it somehow become unveiled at the most inconvenient time.

I haven't thought about how YQQ would fit into this but I'll figure it out...maybe. And I still want SY to be a transmigrator. Maybe his early arc could be that he's starting to learn that SJ had a more complicated past/ maybe this was like the rough draft of what SJ could have been. And SY is PISSED that readers were left without vital context to SJ motivations and even more so that SJ was delt the worst hand out of all the character. I also think it'll add a little flare with the system there or if like SY started out with the system and then gained enough points throughout his life to get rid of it idk. I do know for sure that when SY meets with SQH and finds out he's the author there is going to be less words spoken and more action taken lmao.

Sorry for the rambling. Again I'm a shitty writer and just had this AU stuck in my head that I needed to get out so all I got is drawing dumb doodles of this. I'll link the first part of this AU up at the top of this post incase y'all want to see the humble beginnings of this AU.

[confuzing]

Ok but what if Shen Yuan and Shen Jiu were the same person.

Little YQY is used to little baby SJ being a little strange. He talks about missing 'the internet' and one night when they almost freeze to death he solemnly informs YQY that "this transmigration experience sucks, 0/10 would not recommend."

As they grow SJ stops talking about odd things, but since he never explained about his past life to YQY he doesn't realize SJ is forcing himself to forget those memories of being warm and safe and happy because they hurt too much now when he is none of those.

The System is still there if course but since LBH isn't even born yet it's in low power mode. But that night locked in Qiu Manor after YQY leaves it pops up with a notification he's finished the 'Sorrowful Parting' quest and he loses it.

He alternates between insisting it doesn't exist and demanding to know why it only shows up when something bad happens to him. The System explains this is all necessary character development before he meets the main character.

SJ rages, not because he's not the main character but because he apparently needs to suffer for them, this person he's never met. Eventually the System turns off all notifications except essential ones, and that at least leaves SJ mostly alone in his own head.

And he takes that buried ache of his past memories and that he was apparently born to suffer and uses them to save himself when YQY fails him. Even though he promised. And he's fine- look, he's a Peak Lord! He's fine.

Until LBH turns up at the peaks, the System lights up for the first time in a decade, and SJ looks at this little boy and hates him. SJ can't see him without thinking about all the hurt he suffered, which the System insists was necessary for this boy's story.

So he does all those horrible things to LBH that he railed about as SY a lifetime ago and doesn't regret it. (PIDW is mostly lost to him, buried under the trauma, he doesn't know who LBH is, or who he is)

Until the qi deviation, which wipes all his memories except the ones he has buried. So he feels like he's a different person. He thinks he's transmigrated in late because he can't remember being 5 and teaching YQY carmeldansen.

A week after the deviation YQY hears SJ mutter something about Google and he relaxes, he does recognize this SJ after all.

Meng Mo pulls the memories out of SY's head after all. For all that SY draws the line between himself and SJ as different people he still remembers SJ's memories. But crucially not the ones from when he was little where his past and current lives overlap the most.

Sometime after the series ends SQQ is humming something modern- my heart says 'Never Gonna Give You Up'- and YQY casually mentioned he's always liked that one most of SJ's songs.

SQQ: What songs?

YQY: The ones only you know. You used to sing them all the time when you were little.

SQQ's head is spinning and he finds some privacy and questions the System which confirms he did in fact transmigrate as a baby like SQH did.

The memories come back slowly after that. He remembers telling LQQ he'll kill him after a bad fight, street kid him trying to explain to YQY what a T-Rex is... exactly what was going through his head when he dumped a cup of hot tea on an orphan he'd just met.

And SY has to deal with the fact that yes actually, that was him. That wasn't some other asshole. It's him, he's the asshole. Maybe that was the worst possible version of himself, maybe he got a second chance and changed for the better - but it was still him, and he's still capable of being that man again if he isn't careful.

[lgbtlunaverse]

I'm struck by just how much Shen Jiu's abuse of Luo Binghe is an elaborate self-harm ritual.

In ch 74 Shen Jiu seethes about how Luo Binghe has so much and how jealous he is of him. But I really don't think it's straightforward jealousy that drives his actions

For one, the peaks are filled with entitled young masters from noble families with much more to envy than homeless orphan Binghe, and he never treated them like that. But even moreso, the things he's jealous of are things that Shen Jiu also has. Or rather... had.

He's mad about Binghe calling his adoptive mother his dearest person? Well. Young Shen Jiu, at age ten, also had a dearest person. Someone who might not have been rich and powerful enough to ease his suffering, but who loved him and would do anything for him. Young Shen Jiu had Qi-ge.

He's mad about Binghe's amazing cultivation potential? Well. Shen Jiu, despite arriving much later than the optimal time to cultivate and having his foundation warped by demonic cultivation, somehow still managed to become an immortal peak lord of the world's most powerful cultivation sect. He's that powerful with everything stacked against him, imagine what his full potential must have looked like.

He doesn't hate Luo Binghe for these things because it sets him apart from Shen Jiu. He hates him because he's exactly like Shen Jiu... except for one crucial difference. That he got to the sect on time.

He's who Shen Jiu would have been if Qi-ge had come back for him.

He's Shen Jiu without the betrayal, without the corrupted cultivation, without the years of horrific abuse spent falsely hoping for help that would never come.

And that can't stand. Shen Jiu cannot witness what he could have had if only Qi-ge had kept his promise. He needs himself and everyone too similar to him to be doomed from the beginning, because otherwise he might start thinking about what ifs and he can't afford that. And so he does to Luo Binghe everything that was done to him. He becomes Binghe's Wu Yanzi, Qiu Jianluo, and Yue Qi* all wrapped into one. Singlehandedly, he turns Binghe into Shen Jiu.

And just like Shen Jiu, Binghe eventually snaps and razes the whole place to the ground.

(*well, the version of Yue Qi that exists in Shen Jiu's head, anyway. The promise of salvation that never comes. The person you'd thought would save you but who left you in hell instead.)