lillazyfox

[lillazyfox]

Shen Yuan just wanted a kiss 😔

[lillazyfox]

well you see...

the problem is — he knows. SJ himself thinks he is a terrible person from the moment he met YQY again and thought he would've preferred to see his remains than him thriving.

we don't have confirmation in the book, but i also think that SJ didn't fight any accusations during the trial because he thought he deserved LBH's vengeance. (SJ is quite smart in canon, i doubt he couldn't find a way out of pretty much evidenceless (is that even a word?) accusations — that was primarily a word against word, and he was still a Peak Lord.

SJ knew he became the mirror of his abuser, and accepted punishment for it with grace. He only underestimated the extent of LBH's grudge against him — and the fact that him "becoming" QJL made CQM Qiu manor.

Idc how ooc this is, I feel like telling Shen Jiu “you turned out just like the Qius.” Or something of that nature would cause him to spiral and would help speedrun his redemption.

[lillazyfox]

op is a genius, behold!

Modern AU equivalent of "bodysharing" scumcum where Shen Jiu is the Cang Qiong VP, director of the Qing Jing division, who fought tooth and nail to work his way up in the world despite a destitute childhood and criminal youth, and Shen Yuan is his useless rich boyfriend who spends all day reading light novels and getting into fights on the internet. (Hey, that's how they met! How romantic!)

One day, Shen Jiu has another qi deviation severe PTSD episode; what's different this time around is that, for once, Shen Yuan manages to convince him to take mental health time off work. He says he'll handle it, whatever that means! And Shen Jiu, for once, isn't suspicious, hypervigilant, distrustful enough to question it. He's having a really bad time, okay?!

But Shen Yuan didn't really think it through. What's he supposed to do, tell Yue Qi that Shen Jiu is out for a few days? Shen Jiu will kill him, and then Yue Qi will storm the preposterously expensive and exclusive mental health retreat Shen Yuan put Shen Jiu up in perfectly normal and reasonable outpatient facility, and then Shen Jiu will kill him again.

So, okay, he logs into Shen Jiu's work laptop (his passwords are all the same and so obvious, puh-lease) and he maybe starts just... pretending to be Shen Jiu. Just while he's away! Just to keep people from getting suspicious that Shen Jiu is gone!

And if he notices that Shen Jiu has been maybe... not handling some of his subordinates very well, then... Listen! There is someone who's on a really aggressive and punitive PIP that doesn't look like deserves it. (Let's remove that performance plan, and give him a merit bonus to make up for it... and let's put him on a better assignment, too, we're just making things right! Poor kid!) It also looks like a bunch of stuff in this division is being handled really poorly in general, actually. Figures, Jiu-ge is a brat at the best of times and really fucking mean and jealous at the worst. Maybe he'll have fewer qi deviations mental health crises if comes back this time to an environment that's not cultivating as much bitterness and negativity as possible, ah??

Meanwhile, at the most infuriatingly new-age uwu bullshit daycare for the richest of sad people, Shen Jiu sneaks away to where the cameras and automated surveillance systems (Hello, esteemed guest! This System must insist that you do not try sneaking out the marked emergency exit doors...!) to pull out the work phone he managed to smuggle in, and...

What the absolute fuck?! There is only on person who both knows his password (ugh) and knows his general writing style (ugh!!) who would be stealing his identity to meddle in his work!

The next several days are spent with Shen Yuan and Shen Jiu logging each other out in turns, and desperately trying to undo the damage the other has caused in their brief moments of control.

Yes, this does continue even after Shen Jiu returns from his mental health retreat. If nothing else, it keeps the Qing Jing division on its toes, and massively confuses one intern Luo Binghe. (The signals. are mixed.)

(Only Shang Qinghua knows what's up, but he's not saying jack shit because he is 100% committing identity fraud himself. “Shang Qinghua” is the name of a dead man with a good credit score, no debts, and no ties to the criminal underworld or warrants for his arrest, so, you know, “it's free real estate” or whatever. "He's dead! He's not using it anymore! It's fine!")

[lillazyfox]

exactly, have nothing to add)

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.)

[lillazyfox]

if Luo Binghe was a dnd character

DND character who accidentally becomes a paladin at their wedding bc they meant their wedding vows a little too hard and invents the Oath of Love subclass. Is this anything

[lillazyfox]

i guess that's because LBH wants to be loved so desperately and fixated on his shizun so deeply that even we as readers got influenced by this.

i mean, that's not just couple normal young years what made the story change; LBH still fell into the Abyss and he still is a literal nightmare to anyone beside his shizun in the end of the novel.

the story changed because SY gave his life for LBH not once but thrice, including without-a-cure (bc let's be serious, it could have been the death of him in any fight after).

the story changed because even while in the Abyss LBH had one person who he loved so much he put this love above everything else.

in the novel SQQ is literally the only reason for LBH to stay sane and not try to cause apocalypse. so yeah, you need to do something with Binghe in fics without Bingqiu — and that is either to give him one or multiple people he would redirect his love to, or eliminate the Abyss arc (and consequences) completely.

i also think of all people who you can put with LBH it's LQG who is best suited for the job. they have a lot of common interests, and LQG is also can be straightforward as fuck soooo there certainly would be less miscommunication between them (i believe they just will fall in one of the fuck-or-die plants one day and continue from there)

also it works perfectly as a triple! in "i don't trust you but we both adore that man so can you help me save him again?" kind of way)

Everytime I go consume content of a ship with Shen Yuan and another character (Shen Jiu, Liu qingge, Yue qingyuan, Airplane... you know the deal) there's always a voice that asks "what about Binghe?"

Like yeah, Shen Yuan could have the most healthy and most communicating relationship ever but also... does he also want Binghe? Like why I thinking that in the first place

[lillazyfox]

and as always i have more angst to add to this!

this-, but age gap is like, five or so yrs instead of just a couple. Jiu was still sold as an infant, and that led to his family surviving that winter and thriving later, but

he meets SY not long after becoming Peak Lord. and like that — well, he made his way through hell to the top by himself, alone, and now there's a family that wants to reconnect?! a family, thriving only because (not only, but SJ doesn't care at the moment) they left him years ago?

but as much as he wants to strangle this little brat who is sure that "kindness is free" and he is just doing his gege a favour ("gege" my ass, thinks SJ, kindness was never free for me), he can't do it. because what are the chances this kid won't tell anyone about his past if he gets upset? so SJ succumbs to Shens' attempts to reconcile, and even meets his probably parents before finally snapping. Because how dare they?! How dare they cry and hug him as if they weren't the same people who sold him as an infant? How dare they act like they were the ones in pain? (they were, they really regretted it but had no other way back then).

SY is forced to play peacemaker here — and he does so by trying to help SJ with his problems. the latter hisses at first, but is still cautious about possible reveal, so he lets his "didi" to come closer (and maaaaaaybe is surprised how comforting SY can be in the process) (and totally flustered (platonically!!) about all the tactile interaction SY dumps on him as soon as he can)

so in the end we have Shen "Okay, maybe family is not so bad" Qingqiu and Shen "I totally would kill for my gege" Yuan, and everyone else watching this soap opera of taming their most feral shixiong in awe.

okay Shen Jiu&Shen Yuan are siblings AU except they meet AS DISCIPLES. Shen Yuan, head disciple of the Animal/Beast Husbandry Peak (or, if we go with this post's awesome ideas, the Hunting/Scouting Peak) runs into Qing Jing Peak Head Disciple Shen Jiu and they're both just staring at each other because that's my face!!! Why do you have it!! But Shen Jiu leaves without a word except a huff bc he's not admitting to being disturbed.

Shen Yuan writes his (peasant) mother that night like. Hey mom!!! What the fuck!! We even share a family name!!! What!!!

He gets a hesitant reply that yes. That might be his ge. Who Shen Yuan did not know he had. He thought he was an only child! Turns out his parents sold his then-two-years-old brother for a sack of rice during a famine year when their mother was pregnant with him! What the FUCK!

So after having a crisis he goes to find Shen Jiu and is like. So... hah... I'm your didi?

obviously Shen Jiu is fucking pissed. What do you MEAN his parents sold him as a slave but lovingly raised their SECOND child! He wants to kill Shen Yuan so bad. Also someone but Yue Qi now knows he was a slave. This is not good.

Shen Yuan is not giving up though!! He wants to know his gege and also he feels fucking BAD and wants to do SOMETHING about the fact that his newly found Jiu-ge is so clearly fucking miserable. He can see it!! That's his own face!!! You can't lie with his own face!!!

[lillazyfox]

In various places -- here, the bird app, even YouTube comments -- I keep running into people with some variation of the same question:

"Does Scum Villain have a teacher/student romance?" And every time I want to answer with: No, But Also Yes, But Also Not Really, It's Complicated (And That's On Purpose.)

Which is an answer that's too long to fit in a tweet or a YT comment, but fortunately tumblr has no (effective) post limit! So here I go.

1 - No

In the very straight forward porn cliche sense of "oh but professor, I really ~need~ to pass this class or my life will be ruined, can't I do ~anything~ to get you to change my grade?" *bats lashes* and "Hoho, my pretty young teen student, I've got your good grade right here in my pants, if you ~apply~ yourself..." then no.

No sex or romance between a teacher and their student in the bounds of a teacher-student relationship happens in this book. No deliberate grooming of an underage student on the part of a teacher occurs in this book. No sex or a romance between an adult character and an underage character occurs in this book, nor is the adult 'waiting' for the minor to reach adulthood to initiate one.

2 - But Also Yes

No sex or romance between a teacher and their student in the bounds of that relationship happens in this book. Two people who were formerly in a teacher and student relationship do enter into a sexual and romantic relationship by the end of the book. Also the nature of the society they're in further means that even though they are no longer in the schooling environment, it is socially assumed that the deference owed by a student to their teacher lasts forever, even after the student leaves that environment, and they continue to regard themselves and refer to themselves in those roles even though the teacher no longer strictly speaking has authority over the student.

Also, the student was really hot for his teacher even when he was still a student. (The teacher was oblivious to this fact.)

3 - But Also Not Really

By the time sex and romance is even on the horizon for these characters, their relationship has so drastically changed from that of a "teacher and student" that it is barely recognizeable as such. The power/authority dynamic between a teacher and their student is subsumed pretty much entirely by the facts that:

A. The 'student' has become a medeival fantasy warlord of such unsurpassable magic and might that literally no other person in this world can stand up against him, 'teacher' included, and the 'teacher' is well aware of that.

B. Also, the 'student' is metaphysically endowed (heh) with the Protagonist Halo, a literally active force within the setting they're part of, which means that not only can he not be defeated, he ontologically cannot be denied anything that he desires; what he wants, he gets, and what he doesn't want, cannot be forced on him.

C. ...But also, the teacher in this setting is a metaphysical outsider to the world order the student is part of, which means that he is aware of all of the above, and can and does manipulate it to suit his own agenda, which may or may not align with giving the student what he wants at any point in time. Assuming that the teacher has the correct understanding of what the student wants. (He doesn't.)

D. ........But also also, for all his power, one harsh word from him can destroy him. For all his knowledge, one tear can devastate him. (Which one? Both.)

4 - It's Complicated (On Purpose)

*throws the chalk against the wall*

Between a teacher and their student, who has the power? Between an emperor and a scholar, who has the power? Between a hero and the villain he is predestined to destroy, who has the power? Between a character and the reader who's read ahead to the end of the story, who has the power? Do we find some of these power imbalances more acceptable than others? And if so, why do we?

Trying to track Who Has The Power or Who Has An Unfair Advantage socially, physically, and metaphysically between this particular pair of characters is damn near impossible and that's on purpose.

The Scum Villain's Self Saving System is a lot of things, but one thing that absolutely defines it is that it is a parody. It's a parody and a deconstruction of a lot of things -- the 'stallion' genre, the 'isekai' genre, the 'pay-per-chapter webnovel' genre, the 'gay drama' genre and, most relevant to this conversation, it is a deconstruction of teacher-student romance.

What kind of a teacher-student romance has a clueless, fish-out-of water NEET in the role of the Wise Old Mentor? What kind of a teacher-student romance has a black-hearted, demonic, domineering feudal warlord in the role of the Blushing Virginal Student? What kind of a teacher-student romance has the two principals so close in age -- by the end of the book, they may be as little as a year apart -- that they're more like peers than teacher and student? What kind of audience are we, going into a story like this one and finding ourselves cheering for the teacher to fall in love and lust with his student, only to be disappointed when that doesn't happen because the teacher fails for three books straight to recognize love and lust when it's literally looking him in the face and crying?

Asking "does Scum Villain have a teacher-student romance?" is sort of like asking "does Galaxy Quest have a lot of high science fiction concepts?" No, but also yes, but also not really. It's complicated, and that's on purpose.

[lillazyfox]

literally best description of these two. have nothing else to say!

The power dynamic between Bingqiu is so complex and unhinged.

On the one hand, Shen Qingqiu is the Shizun, and Luo Binghe the disciple. He still pretty much serves and defers to him as such. Shen Qingqiu is the master, the elder, the superior, in a way that can never change in a culture so steeped in respect for such hierarchies, and where reversal or equalization is simply not a thing. Shen Qingqiu himself still refers to himself as "this master" for most of the story (even post canon? I can't remember), and the one quality he appreciates in Luo Binghe (at least that he says aloud) is his obedience. In both their minds, he's very firmly the one who raised and trained Luo Binghe - though with very different connotations depending on who you ask.

On the other hand... well... Luo Binghe plays the obedient puppy-ish disciple, but he pretty much cute/pathetic-bullies his way into anything he wants, because Shen Qingqiu is weak to him and can't say no. So Luo Binghe plays submissive, cries a little, then gets to top Shen Qingqiu into next Sunday in the most unfillial way imaginable lol. Also, and I cannot stress this enough, he's the most powerful person in the world, he doesn't have to serve anyone in a humble cottage. He literally has an empire and is a ruler, but he plays housewife and meek disciple to this one spoiled guy who gave him the correct manual once and head-patted him with abandon.

Also let's not forget that, to Luo Binghe, Shen Jiu and Shen Yuan are pretty seamlessly the same person. This serial head-patter is also the guy who poured hot tea on him and would string him up to beat him and made him sleep in the woodshed like a particularly miserable Cinderella. To him, one day, his cruel master deemed him worthy of his love after he made him go through many trials, and then slam-dunked him into the abyss, and then self-destructed to save him and then turned out to be alive and avoiding him like the plague and then sulked because Luo Binghe did not properly ask his hand in marriage. Luo Binghe may be the most powerful man in the world and have Shen Qingqiu wrapped around his manipulative golden little finger, BUT the grip and ascendant Shen Qingqiu possesses over Luo Binghe's psyche is unparalleled.

BUT the other side of this equation is that Shen Qingqiu feels so guilty, and loves Luo Binghe so much, he can't bear to make him unhappy and folds like a wet paper towel any time there is the merest hint of tears - which is a conscious strategy on Luo Binghe's part! Shang Qinghua told him acting pathetic works, and it does, and so he milks it! Who knows how much of it is real? Not me. Not Shen Qingqiu either, who also does not care that he's being manipulated. He knows he's being manipulated! But it works anyway!

Because what are you going to do when a cute puppy makes sad eyes at you?? Not give him the bit of meat???

You're his master but he owns your heart so that's your fate, now. He's huge and could maul you but he loves you too much and prefers to act spoiled. He sits when you say sit, comes when you say come. You tell him no but he climbs into your lap anyway and you are helpless to stop him so you pet him. It's messy, full of pathos, possibly unhealthy. You're both living your best life.

That's Bingqiu.

[lillazyfox]

svsss body swap au where shen qingqiu and liu qingge swap bodies, and while shen qingqiu (either yuan or jiu could work!) is having the time of his life with the full power of the bai zhan war god, liu qingge is having a very rude awakening on how much chronic illnesses suck and how much pain and discomfort sqq is in every single day.

liu qingge finds out how awful without-a-cure is, it's blocking his cultivation and leaving him helpless, and it hurts, too, a constant ache that lingers in the back of his mind. it takes mu qingfang calling him out on his behavior to realize that he's been lashing out at others out of his own discomfort and frustration. the only relief he gets is the cleansing of his meridians, but to take all those brews every day and be dependant on his martial siblings for his base health is really frustrating, because he can't do so many things he used to be able to do without second thought.

meanwhile, shen qingqiu arm-wrestled every peak lord and won, cleaved a mountain in half, ran a marathon for fun, and approached every dangerous animal he could find to study them because his strength and reflexes get him out of tricky situations every time.

shen qingqiu: i just ran eighty miles and im not even sweating !!

liu qingge: i tried to circulate my qi and now i have a horrible migraine

eventually they switch back; liu qingge is very relieved, glad to be himself again. shen qingqiu is keeping up a brave face, but the constant discomfort feels a little worse now he knows what it's like to live without it.

[lillazyfox]

Again, Ouroboros. Again, again, again—

[lillazyfox]

yesssssss.

you are so right.

controversial but VERY good at his job runwaycoach!sj

rumored to be fucking ceo yue qingyuan, is considered a nepo baby of some hidden millionare, had a connection with company hier (and also suspected pimp)!qjl, would habitually leave whichever male models tjat approached him SOBBING but absolitely STRUTTING that stuff

would Never be caught walking in heels below 5 inches nor with broken, unglossed nails

he gains attention from the public eye when one of his students secretly films him demonstrating a catwalk

the look he was coaching his student for needed their hair down, so he took his hair out of his signature high pony/bun

[lillazyfox]

SJ who after his qi deviation and the fire escapes WYZ immediately and fucks off to cqms. He figures he needs to be a cultivator to live long enough to find qi-ge's remains.

Anyway, it's not time for disciple selection and everyone in the town near the mountain is like "yeah you're probably too old anyway"

So SJ decides fuck the police and climbs BZP. He is obviously a street rat and very much has it out for little lord Liu, but the dynamic is different. LQG (eventual) assumes SJ just doesn't know any better and tries to teach him how to fight honorably and SJ tries to teach him honor doesn't matter if you're dead and beasts certainly don't understand honor.

(he should know, he is one)

He's on qcp getting tended to after another knock down drag out fight with LQG (eventual) when Yue Qi is dragged out of the lingxi caves to be assessed.

SJ sees YQ's unconscious face and immediately his feral threatening to rip everyone's face off, who did this to him?!

He actually manages to wrest YQ's body from the qc disciples while the sect leader and qjpl look on interestedly.

SJ is told it was a qi deviation and yq needs medical attention, but SJ refuses to let him go and instead carries the much bigger teen to the exam room.

He susses out almost everything by reading between the lines and the sect leader comments he wasn't aware BZP had such an intelligent gem.

Qjpl: not anymore :)

YQ wakes up to SJ's face only for SJ to start reading him the riot act. He's only interrupted when a disciple comes in with SJ's qjp robes and room assignment.

SJ agrees to go with him but tells YQY "We're not done here"

All of YQ's Christmases have come at once

[lillazyfox]

yessssss.

he's literally a nightmare to EVERYONE except Shen Yuan. i don't think it's entirely a mask, though; i believe that he is a bit insecure and anxious inside, SY is just the only person to whom he can (and will, bc it works) show it. but yes, he will snap right out of it the moment it stops working.

i guess LBH is what called 'dark empath' in psychology (not sure about the term, but basically it's a person with good emotion-reading talent who can use it to manipulate people into liking them)

i also love when in fanfics this trait is the same for LBG. he hadn't yet had any person he would really change who he is for in canon, but it works soooo well with postcanon BingJiu.

luo binghe is such a good manipulator that he managed to make an entire fandom believe that he is an actual crybaby

[lillazyfox]

i like that sort of headcanons. it reminds me that even if lbg is a bad person (which he certainly is in the end of the story), just how broken he might be under all the masks.

headcanon that bingmeis food tastes better than bingges because it's made with love an not just the desperation of trying to remember what it felt like

[lillazyfox]

i think we know to little to judge.

why sj hated lbg at all? was he jealous?

which, in turn, begs the question — was lbh the only child who suffered under sj's abuse or the only one who survived?

did sj went to water prison without a fight hoping to protect cq or lbg had outplayed him?

how much xin mo influences his wielder? it had nearly driven lbm mad in less 10 yrs of using it, and required sy's death (x2!) to fix, how much of lbg's original intentions is even left there?

if previous question is valid, what exactly were lbg's intentions at the start?

what happened during endless abyss arc?

why sj never explained himself? not in trial, not before it

was sj encouraging bullying or just turning a blind eye to it?

how lbg behaved during his disciple years? were some of punishments justified?

were these kinds of punishments really violent to those times? i mean, lqg had been beating his disciples bloody and calling it education, could it be normal for then?

would sj do something differently with the qius if he had power to seek revenge and not only escape?

i think it highly depends on pov we read from, also. in svsss extras we see some of sj's pain, and most of the time we see him powerless, and we can know his thoughts and feelings. but we don't know much about lbg — we meet him once, already after all he lived through, darkened; it's also happened from outdider pov, which is his victim.

would we have the same level of pity for sj if we saw him through lbh's eyes?

AND

would we sympathize lbh more if we read his pov?

in conclusion, i believe we can't know, who is better of the two. these two ended up differently mostly because they had different amounts of power.

A common thing I have seen is fanfiction is people making these two seem better than they are, so I feel like I should remind you that Luo Binghe has canonically forced himself onto women, and Shen Qingqiu has canonically given a child a defective cultivation manual in hopes that he would qi deviate

With that in mind, who do you think is the bigger villain?

[lillazyfox]

there is a huge fight in comment section i don't want to be a part of, so i reblog, bc i have something to say about it.

also, i want to mention that i have nothing against smiling to children who look at you, only the message of the whole post.

world definitely needs to be kinder and safer. but there are some problems.

firstly — it's not gonna become that way just because you think it is. to fight the beasts of this world you need to know them. it's really better to be educated about danger before it hits you in the face.

secondly — there are people who are going to be the kind part of the world, and that is your family, by blood or not, doesn't matter. that's their job to tell you the world is kind, because they also would be there when it would show you its bad side.

and last thing which can be specific for me but i feel I'm not the only one who feels that way. there is a saying — "it costs nothing to be kind". but that's wrong; being kind is a lot of work, actually, and a lot of energy. even a smile sometimes can be difficult. so i have huge respect towards people who manage it everyday, they are very, very strong. but i am not that person, and i don't want to be, it requires enough energy just to cohabitate with the people from my close circle, not speaking about being kind to strangers.