#shen qingqiu is just confused

[toomanyplotbunnies-sendhelp]

Hello and welcome to Day 18 of "Let's Explore My Plot Bunnies"

Happy Valentine's Day to everyone who celebrates it!

Just to be on theme with the day I am (briefly) stepping out of my downward spiral of zany MHA crossovers to talk about a little idea I had last month.

This is a SVSSS fic that takes place in the first decade after the Qing generation took over as Peak Lords, and the end game pairing will be LiuJiu.

This plot bunny doesn't have a title yet, so any suggestions are welcome.

Synopsis:

Liu Mingyan knew she should have kept her mouth shut.

This was supposed to be just another ordinary day where she (and her parents) were subjected to her older brother's rant about his fellow Peak Lord, Shen Qingqiu. Just more hours of Liu Qingge's raging about how 'Shen Qingqiu is so shameless' and how 'Shen Qingqiu is a cheater'. (At this point, her own mother heard more about the Qing Jing Peak Lord's affairs than her own son's - Liu Mingyan doesn't know if she should laugh or despair for her brother's remaining intelligence at that fact)

Just because her brother's ability to sit still and read a book is next to non-existent does not mean Liu Mingyan's is the same. Liu Mingyan is a cultured young maiden. She read books. All of her readings point out that her older brother's behavior towards the Qing Jing Peak Lord is the only thing shameless in their interactions.

Constantly challenging Shen Qingqiu to fights; yelling at him to get his attention; talking only about the Qing Jing Peak Lord whenever her older brother gets to visit home and always complaining about his behavior to their parents - all of these actions would paint Liu Qingge as an unsatisfied and abandoned wife rather than the Bai Zhan War God he is revered as. And, her brother is not even married to Lord Shen Qingqiu - a fact that is, in reality, the most shameless thing about her brother's behavior.

And Liu Mingyan cannot help but agree with what the books tell her. Her older brother's behavior is not that of somebody who hates the person they slander. If Mingyan remembers correctly, the books said this behavior is common with potential couples - "aggressive sexual frustration" was the terminology used, she remembers.

And yet, Mingyan can not find fault in Lord Shen Qingqiu's rejection and/or lack of interest in her brother. After all, her brother is an idiot. Lord Shen must be some kind of saint to be able to stand in the same room, breathe the same air, and even talk with her walking disaster of a brother after all the hurtful words he was given.

The worst part of this is that her brother remains painfully ignorant to the fact that he is very much head over hills in love with a person that Mingyan knows deserves far better than her idiotic brother.

So, really, Mingyan should have kept her mouth shut. And yet, her patience hit the wall months ago and she cannot stand to hear one more slander towards (the saint) Shen Qingqiu. Her mouth opens without her own will and utters the words that make Liu Qingge choke.

"Gege, you speak a lot about Lord Shen Qingqiu. Have you ever considered you fell in love with him?"

Liu Mingyan feels like she might end up hating her big mouth after this, but the sight of her older brother's reddening face is quite the spectacle for her to enjoy. (And it makes for good future blackmail material, too)

This fic shall feature:

Liu Mingyan - the cultured young maiden who should not have read the books she did, nor jumped at the conclusions she did. (and yet, we, the readers, still encourage her endeavors)

Liu Qingge - the closeted gay who just realized (read: self-manipulated himself into thinking) he is in love with the person he hates the most. He also has like 3 crises: 1. His "Gay Awakening" Crisis; 2. His "I am in love with SHEN QINGQIU" crisis; 3. His "I made my crush hate me" crisis (unsurprisingly all of them are about Shen Qingqiu)

Shen Qingqiu - the most normal person here (trauma aside) and the one that is the most bewildered by this development. Someone save his poor braincells for they can't keep up with Liu Qingge's 180 change in personality.

Liu Mingyan and Liu Qingge's parents - who are just glad that 1. their son will stop acting like a neglected wife and 2. their son will not end up dying alone like the idiot they know he is (they already have made plans for Liu Qingge and Shen Qingqiu's wedding)

So what do you think? Good? Bad? Let me know!

Honestly, this idea just started with a headcanon of cat!Liu Qingge, who brings all the prey to Shen Qingqiu just to prove he can provide for him. From there it grew into Liu Mingyan being so done with her brother's pinning ass but is not going to say something because her brother is not worthy of Shen Qingqiu until he grovels - she also agrees with her books, a good grovel is necessary and her brother is still an idiot so (the saint) Lord Shen Qingqiu mustn't be bothered by the likes of him. And then it settled at making Liu Mingyan the unwilling wing-woman of her brother's (awful) romance. I quite enjoyed this plot bunny, so there is a chance I might actually write it someday.

Hope you had a great day/night and that you take care of yourselves!

See you tomorrow,

-TooManyPlotBunnies-Send Help

[cavesalamander]

Scum Villain fic where Shen Yuan wakes up out of a coma and realizes that he just had a very, very vibrant dream about his boy and that web novel he hatereads.

When he gets back home after observation it's so... surreal. He feels so much older now. He's practically lived a lifetime in that dream, even if only a few months have passed.

His room is so... cringe is the word he wants to use, but he can't help but find his past self endearing about it all. Except that line of thought makes... no sense at all. His past self is just him from a couple months ago.

He decides to check up on the story he'd been dreaming about and finds out that, though there were a dozen more chapters, they had stopped updating completely without warning just a few weeks after his own coma.

(The comments after his coma, a few mention him, calling him out or cheering for him finally giving up on the story. Some people even speculate he might have died.)

His old comments were so embarrassing to read, but there's a part of him that... sees his love for Luo Binghe even in these.

Wait, why is he suddenly okay being gay for this protag??

He thinks he probably shouldn't be quite so chill about it.

He wonders what happened to Airplane. He stops himself from thinking too hard on the possibility it could all have been real. That was ridiculous!!

Meanwhile in the world of the system....

Luo Binghe is flipping OUT. His husband his shizun his beloved just up and went POOF. No trace of him, no clue left behind.

(Or is it worse if he dies? The original goods died that night he qi deviated and was replaced by Shen Yuan, so there's no soul there to replace him. Luo Binghe has had to deal with dead Shizun before but this time it's... different.)

Either way, after a whole lot of everyone flipping out, Shang Qinghua seems to know a little too much about... something.

The truth comes out. Luo Binghe admits he's suspected something like that for a while now, but thats not important. He needs his shizun back, so how..?

Cue dimension hopping shenanigans.

[danmeichael]

"shen qingqiu is a liar who is lying about his feelings so we can't ACTUALLY tell how he feels about anything"

so you admit that you can tell he is lying and by extension you can actually discern what his true feelings on the matter are and that he's just unwilling to admit to them.

[fistfuloflightning]

Liu Qingge and Shen Qingqiu both die in the Lingxi Caves. Young and inexperienced and wholly unprepared, their head disciples are forced to take their place.

[raddestrose]

the chapter’s name was death, so i don’t know what i was expecting. But it was NOT that

[trickstarbrave]

thinking about how when luo binghe gets back from the abyss he doesn’t know why his teacher kicked him in. sqq had told him that not all demons were evil, only to then declare his heritage meant he was actually worse than most demons and couldn’t be by his side. he comes back for answers, afraid to return to sqq as his disciple so he goes to huanhua palace. he is sent on a mission to investigate a weird outbreak. he sees sqq. 

sqq looks shocked, but then says nothing. did he expect lbh to die? did he want him to? if he hates lbh so much why didnt he expose him as a demon? why did he instead just say he died? sqq could stand there, right now, and declare him as a demon and condemn everyone from huanhua for housing and protecting a demon. but he just stands there shocked. he wants answers. 

he goes to see his shizun late at night. sqq was expecting LUI QINGGE to be visiting his room of all things. sqq run from him when he just wants to fucking talk, to ask why sqq kicked him into the abyss. he acts like lbh is going to kill him. luo binghe cant understand why. cant understand what he possibly did to make sqq think he’s some horrible monster. what happened to the man who told him what mattered was the moral character of demons and humans? what happened to the man who saw the worst parts of his psyche and trauma and protected him? what happened to the man who called for him every day, the one who trusted luo binghe, the one who put his honor on the line bc he believed luo binghe could do anything? who made him special practice books? 

then in the water prison he blames lbh more. says hes the one who was responsible for framing him. for orchestrating the whole thing. he refuses to even wear his outer robes, preferring instead to be cold, wet, and half naked than wear a shred of clothing from luo binghe. when he escapes, he instantly blames luo binghe for killing guards and gongyi xiao, even though while he isn’t happy with them he wouldn’t go so far as to kill them. why does sqq assume the worst in him? assume he’s a monster? assume he’s manipulative, underhanded, vicious, and cruel? 

but then, during a qi deviation, even though sqq could have used it to escape, he once again jumped in between lbh and danger. he gave up his life to save lbh. why? didnt he think lbh was horrible? didnt he think lbh was ruining his life? he hears that sqq bet an enormous amount of money on him at the alliance. that he didnt even return lbh’s sword but buried it and mourned it. that he was losing his mind from grief. that he lied about lbh dying to protect his honor, so it wasn’t revealed that he was half demon.

luo binghe probably couldn’t make sense of it. did he act afraid the whole time because he thought he had wronged lbh? did he think binghe was back for revenge? to hurt and kill him? did he feel guilty, and thats why he ran? why still give his life to save him? why did sqq keep doing things that didn’t make sense?

but no answers came. he was just left alone with the body of the man who was his savior and protector, and the man who feared him more than anyone. the man who both cherished and shunned him. the only other person besides his mother who truly loved him, and now he was gone too. gone before they could make amends. gone before he could get answers. gone before he could tell sqq he never hated him, that he loved him. 

[ineffectualdemon]

You know it would be really funny if Luo Bingqiu are considered to be a really cringe couple in the demon realm whereas Moshang are like...epic lovers

Like if you ask a demon about Shen Qingqiu they'd be like: "Sure, I guess he's a peak lord but he died a lot. Weak. Why would you take someone who can't take torment as a spouse? Also he doesn't scheme at all AND he and Lord Luo are all soppy with each other. And he's never murdered anyone for Lord Luo even once :( seems kinda cringe to me"

But if you ask about Shang Qinghua they're like "He took the beating of Mobei Jun for years! Three times a day I heard! That's old school romance that is! And he fought off Linguang-Jun twice! That's not to mention the scheming and cruelty he employed when helping his lover exact revenge against his ancient foes! That's true love right there. That is a romance of the ages! They murder for each other a lot! True love!"

I like to think there is a Moshang equivalent of the regret of Chunshan but it's written by demons for demons

Maybe Sha Hualing writes it to snag her girlfriend idk

Whereas even though Bingqiu has it's detractors in the human realm it's still widely considered to be an epic pornography romance

While they probably find Moshang just confusing and out of left field

[sunderwight]

SV AU where, while Luo Binghe is supposed to be in the Abyss, Shen Qingqiu comes across a hellhound puppy.

Now, there is an arc in PIDW where Luo Binghe became a hellhound. But it happened like at least a century out from where they are in the timeline, after Binghe had come into his full demonic power, and involved him turning into a slavering beast that eventually become a slavering man-beast (werewolf, basically) who could only be cured by having a lot of very questionable sex with his wives. Shen Yuan wrote a rant about how yet another potentially interesting transformation arc was instead reduced to porn tropes, but it was one of several dozen such rants across many similar story arcs. Airplane barely even remembers writing it because he was having a pretty shit week and just wanted to get the chapters out.

So it doesn't really occur to either him or Shang Qinghua that finding a hellhound puppy might be suspicious. Unexpected, sure, but demons are turning up all over the place all the time, really. And it's years before Luo Binghe is even supposed to be out of the Abyss, like a century before his hellhound transformation story, and when Binghe did turn into a hellhound his two forms consisted of a fully-grown beast and a fully-grown man-beast. Not a puppy.

Of course: that hellhound puppy is definitely Luo Binghe.

He unwittingly triggered this subplot early, and because he's still a young adult, he gets stuck in a juvenile puppy form because hellhounds don't reach fully maturity until they're like fifty.

Anyway, this creates something of a pickle for Luo Binghe, because he's legitimately stuck in this form and can't figure out how to change back. This is not part of his plans. He's fleeing from Huan Hua Palace cultivators who are trying to kill him, which they might succeed at because his Heavenly Demon powers don't seem to be working.

He runs right into Shizun, who is on one of his "investigate stuff to forget the depression" field trips with Liu Qingge.

Luo Binghe is fully expecting his righteous Shizun to kill the demonic beast, and has a moment to think that at least that's better than being killed by Huan Hua, before Shizun rescues him instead.

Shen Qingqiu, meanwhile, is actually kind of excited. There was a lot of lore in PIDW about how hellhounds can actually make loyal companions if they're trained up from young enough of an age, but finding hellhound puppies would be difficult for anyone who wasn't a demonic nobleman, and most of the "trained" hellhounds just disappeared into the harem as gifts to various demon wives and were never seen or heard from again. No additional information, like the full extent of their abilities or what kind of companions they made beyond "loyal" or anything! A species of demon that could even potentially be domesticated by humans, and it was just left at that?!

Needless to say, Shen Qingqiu's not letting Huan Hua Palace kill this one. This is a rare chance for him to get a cool monster companion!

Although... such a creature might die when Luo Binghe comes to take his revenge.

Well, he'll deal with that when he has a chance. Maybe Shang Qinghua can take it to Mobei Jun or Shen Qingqiu can find another place for it before then. In the meanwhile, at least going back to Qing Jing Peak with him is better than being killed on the spot. He talks Liu Qingge into going along with it (Liu Qingge thinks he's insane but also folds like wet tissue paper), under stipulation that the hellhound's demonic energies are sealed and it gets muzzled before they bring it back with them.

Shen Qingqiu rides with it in a carriage, and feels so bad for the poor doggo looking miserable without his demon powers or even his mouth free that he secretly takes the muzzle back off while Liu Qingge isn't looking.

Luo Binghe is overwhelmed with the mixed sentiments of confusion (doesn't his shizun hate demons? is a Heavenly Demon really so especially repulsive to him?), happiness (he's going home! Shizun found him and is taking him home!), worry (Shizun please do not un-muzzle random demonic beasts just because they look sad!), and some rather embarrassing personal revelations about the appeal of being Shizun's pet. The latter situation worsens exponentially after the first time he gets good boy'd and petted for the first time.

Regardless, Shen Qingqiu does take him back to Qing Jing Peak and settles in to train and observe his new puppy. No one thinks this is precisely a good project but it is a project, and is not for instance "staring blankly into the distance while kneeling in front of a sword mound", so on balance everyone decides they'll just keep an eye on things and make sure the hellhound doesn't maul the peak lord. Lots of "just dropping in for a visits" by a rotating cast of peak lords (they have a schedule).

But the hellhound puppy is a fabulous pet! Actually, Shen Qingqiu thinks it's really remarkable how smart and readily tamed he is? Barely a few days in and he's obediently following Shizun's commands, except for "stay", which he seems to struggle with. He doesn't maul or threaten any of the disciples, only growls at Shang Qinghua sometimes and makes a few aggressive displays at Liu Qingge. The former case is just good taste, and as to the latter, well, clearly the hellhound is sensitive and intelligent, and has a more-than-rudamentary understanding of words spoken to him. He probably remembers that Liu Qingge wanted to kill him when they first met. Shen Qingqiu takes his time soothing his puppy and assuring him that he won't come to any harm, he's perfectly safe on Qing Jing Peak with Shen Qingqiu.

At least, for now.

Although actually, the more Shen Qingqiu thinks about it, the more convinced he becomes that Hellhound (sue him, he's not the best with names) would be a perfect companion for Luo Binghe once he gets out of the Abyss. The only difficulty would be in how to convince Binghe to accept him, and also how to keep his now-loyal hound from trying to defend his master when justice comes due. Shen Qingqiu figures he'll cross that bridge when he comes to it, and in the meanwhile takes some time to explain to Hellhound about his disciple, Luo Binghe, who is enduring a terrible trial in the Abyss, but who will return one day having become Emperor of the Demon Realms and could probably use a steadfast and intelligent companion who is interested in more than just his incredible amounts of power or irresistible good looks.

Luo Binghe Himself: ?!?!?!

[nibbelraz]

I am endlessly entertained by the prospect of MBJ just having literally no clue how human physiology works, and thus believing everything he hears (which, paired with SQH's propensity for saying dumb shit without thinking, is a recipe for disaster)

like:

SQH: ugh if I read any more expense reports my eyeballs will fall out of my head

MBJ: *frantically gathering as many expense reports as he can carry before shoving them into the fire*

SQH: *literally watching all his work burn up in flames* i-

MBJ: please hold in your eyeballs

______

SQH, offhandedly: lmao wei qingwei ate so many bao buns at the festival that I honestly think he's going to turn into one

MBJ, absolutely horrified, actually gives his condolences to the (very confused) human man because this affliction which will soon take his humanity is a fate worse than death. Also he starts hiding SQH's melon seeds

_____

SQH: ugh I'm so stressed out i'm gonna EXPLODE

MBJ: NO-

Yes YES OH man Shang Qinghua definitely has no filter when complaining about stuff, Poor Mobei he's learning so many awful things about humans and how MUCH DANGER THEYRE IN (how much danger his favorite human is in)

He tries to learn more about what can happen to his poor human so he's spying on Shen Qingqiu and Shang Qinghuas meetings only to hear them BOTH dramatically explain how tired they are, Shen Qingqiu with some peak lord duties juggled with Binghe and Shang Qinghua with just the amount of paper work and how they both won't make it if things don't slow down soon which prompts Mobei to immediately tell Luo Binghe that his consort is going to DIE if he doesn't get rest immediately this second

I can see this getting SO out of hand so fast, He'd bury Shang Qinghua in blankets and hold him tight so absolutely nothing can bother him and he'd be safe

[sacredfire44]

Kinda wanna read/write a post-canon Bingqiu fic set years later, where during some routine, silly wife plot, Binghe somehow finds out that the soul attached to his husband’s body is not, in fact, the original soul.

Like any person, his first assumption isn’t that his husband had replaced the original SQQ. It’s that an imposter has replaced his husband.

A skilled imposter. One who knows all of his husband’s little quirks, who slipped under even Binghe’s watchful eye.

Binghe takes care to not indicate that he’s noticed. His blood parasites confirm this is still his husband’s body, and he refuses to scare them into running before he can get the imposter out.

Binghe spends weeks researching and practicing, until he’s finally certain he can tear the imposter’s soul apart without hurting his husband. Praying, desperately, that it’s a powerful possession instead of a replacement. Praying his husband is still alive in there.

Finally, he slips into the imposter’s dreamscape, clinging to threads and forcing his way as close to the soul as possible, for the surface-level dreams show him in SQQ’s body. Inside, he finds a small man, with big eyes and stick-thin arms, features far too similar to his Shizun. A cheap, pathetic mockery of Shen Qingqiu, he makes sure to tell them.

They are weak outside of Shen qingqiu’s powerful body. It is all too easy to restrain them, to rage and revile them for their crimes, to question what they’ve done, to tear them apart, limb from limb-

“How long?,”He’d snarled, furious, claws digging into the pathetic parasite’s left arm, yanking it just far enough for the strain to burn.

“Years,”The imposter says, eyes wide and wet. Crying.

Years. Years with his husband that this imposter has taken, has stolen from them. Nights spent entangled, lazy mornings spent curled into each other’s embrace, soft evenings spent watching the sunset.

Binghe yanks the arm the rest of the way out, relishing in the way the parasite screams. It will know pain for what it’s taken from him, for what it’s taken from his Shizun.

XXXX

At first, Shen Qingqiu, formerly Shen Yuan, didn’t know what was happening. He’d thought of himself as Shen Qingqiu for years now, so waking up in his original body had been confusing and disorienting.

When Binghe appeared as well, he knew immediately it was a nightmare. It couldn’t be anything but that. Binghe, his Binghe as he was now, would never look at him like this, like he was the dirt on the bottom of his shoe, the scum of the earth.

It was rare to have nightmares nowadays. Binghe was always watching his dreams too closely to let something like that slip by. But the last few weeks, he’d been absorbed in his newest little pet project, exhausted and stressed by whatever it was he refused to talk about. Shen Qingqiu didn’t blame him for having one night of sleep without constant vigilance.

“So the imposter shows himself,”Dream-Binghe said, and ah, what an odd thing to dream up! Shen Qingqiu was just as good as the original goods, and he knew it! There was no way at all he had such insecurities, and certainly not any strong enough to appear as dreams! If he’d had such dreams before, that was simply a coincidence, a trick of the mind repeating the scenario it’d already created to avoid making a new one.

But Binghe doesn’t rant and rave at him for lying, doesn’t call out his betrayal. Instead, his eyes hard and cold, his claws tight where they dig into his wrists, he questions him.

Why?

I don’t know, Shen Qingqiu has to answer. I woke up in this body.

Where is he?

I don’t know, he answers again.

How long?

Here, Shen Qingqiu bites down a cry of pain as his left arm his yanked painfully out, a loud pop as it tugs out of his socket. The pain is real, he realizes deliriously. It’s real the way the Punishment Protocol had been. The thought makes ice pool in his chest.

What had he done to deserve a punishment from the System?

The hand tightens, the bones in his wrist creaking ominously at the strength of the hold.

The look in Binghe’s eyes hurts far more, though. Shen Qingqiu doesn’t even notice the tears in his eyes until they’re spilling over, until his voice comes out as a broken warble.

“Years,”He whispers at last, aware he’s hammering the final nail into his coffin.

It’s only as his arm is yanked away, as muscle and sinew tears with a sickening squelch, that it occurs to him. The punishment protocol had worked by sharing his dreamscape with the original Bingge. It hadn’t summoned nightmares out of no where.

This wasn’t Bingge. He’d known it on sight. Had recognized it in the curlier hair, the taller build.

This wasn’t Bingge. This was his husband.

And this wasn’t a dream.

XXX

Binghe watches as the pathetic worm scrambles away from him, gasping and hiccuping through his tears. His remaining arm shakes against the jagged edge of his stump, trying to stem the flow of blood. It won’t do a damn thing. This is a dream world, and that form is just a representation of his soul.

“I’m sorry,”It begs, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Binghe forgive me- “

“Do not call me that,” He hisses. This parasite had squirmed its way in, had settled in and gotten comfortable in its place as his husband, but that spot would only ever belong to his Shizun, his rightful Shizun. Everything else… everything else had been a lie!

“No!,”The imposter gasped. Had Binghe spoken out loud? “No, it wasn’t! I really- I really tried to be honest, I- I-“

It gulped, face pale and wan, tears spilling over its cheeks. Its voice dropped to a whimper.

“I loved you. I thought you loved me too.”

Luo Binghe let out a harsh laugh. So that was the plan? Replace his husband and try and make him grow attached? Try to squirm into his heart, when it was already spoken for?

“I could never love a pathetic fake!,”He snarled. “I’ve been planning your death from the moment I learned!”

The imposter sucked in a sharp breath. They stopped scrambling away, simply sitting before him, shaking and curled into themselves.

It didn’t try to run again as he stepped forward. Not even as he grabbed its leg and tore it from its body. It screamed, and thrashed, but made no effort to pull itself away again.

Instead, the insolent wretch began muttering under his breath, a plea and a prayer in one. Begging for forgiveness, for the dream to end, for Binghe to wake him up. Pathetic. Had the imposter really fallen in love with him over the course of its tenure?

He dug his claws into the stump at its shoulder to stop it. The muttering broke into muffled cries, biting their lip as they struggled to hold them back. A habit he recognized from his husband. Disgusting, he thought, holding to the illusion for pity until the very last second.

“You’re just a cowardly weakling, leeching off of Shen Qingqiu. You fell in love with me? Then know this in your heart.”

Binghe dug his fingers in harder, harder, until his claws scrapped against the shattered bone of the socket and dug in. The parasite’s eyes nearly rolled back into its head as it jerked. Binghe lifted it off the ground by the bone, then held still until the worm caught its breath.

“I could never love the man before me. I would never have even looked at you twice had I known.”

Binghe expands his awareness to the dream world around him. From a greater distance, the soul of the imposter is more like a small flickering flame, a little glow between his hands, than a man.

It takes almost no effort at all, to close his fist around it and smother the flame.

XXX

Binghe wakes up in the morning, ecstatic to finally be done with this journey and desperate for love from his husband who he’s apparently not seen in years.

Shen Qingqiu doesn’t wake up with him.

Shen Qingqiu doesn’t wake up at all.

XXX

Anyway now that I’ve officially written a short version of it I want y’all to know that Shang Qinghua would be the one to tell him, after rushing over when he gets an alert that the account of User 002 was deactivated.

Binghe gets to metaphorically self-destruct, realizing everything he said and did was to his own husband and not an assumed imposter. The world shapes itself to Binghe’s wishes, and he still has access to the holy mausoleum, so he manages to bring back Shen Qingqiu. I debated having him bring back Shen Jiu instead but I love the protagonist of any book I read, and that includes Shen Yuan, so instead he brings back his husband whose heartbroken and runs off, with a new level of instinctive terror to go along with it. Binghe really does try to give him room, but that does neither of them good because Binghe drowns in his guilt and the confirmation of his husband’s fear, and Shen Yuan drowns in his heartbreak and confirmation of his husband’s rejection.

The happy ending comes after a slowburn of binghe groveling and breaking himself down(a la Lost and Found in Limitless Clarity) with a side of both being left with new insecurities to add to the existing ones post-canon.

(And if Binghe now dreams of the delicate flicker of a soul between his hands, now jolts awake to the reminder of how small it was, how easy to smother, well-

-it’s the least he deserves, isn’t it?)

[therubyjailcell]

mobei "hang out with me and i'll keep you alive" jun, using the now mandatory hanging out time to figure out how humans work, except shang qinghua is like, the worst human to observe bc he's not like the rest of the characters since he quite literally made the world, and so sometimes, he says things that either aren't from that world OR lets it slip that he knows things he shouldn't

so now mobei jun uses earth slangs and also assumes humans just know a lot of stuffs they shouldn't

(this is made worse by shen qingqiu who is The Same(tm) bc he was such a hardcore fan hater that he knew the entire fucking thing by heart)

mobei jun using "wtf" once and shen qingqiu just pauses and looks at him like he just saw a ghost and screams "you too?!?!", which just confuses the hell out of mobei jun - shang qinghua has to do damage control after that. mobei jun assuming every humans know something bc shang qinghua (and shen qingqiu even maybe) knows it, and every other human discovering hidden secrets.

[tiredbitchposts]

Whenever i'm close to forgetting how much perspective actually matters i just remember that if Scum Villain was written from Luo Binghe's pov it would be the most gut wrenching danmei with one of the most confusing romantic leads ever. Like, we'd be seeing first hand Luo Binghe's descend to madness, Shen Qingqiu seemly fickleness, we'd be experiencing Luo Binghe's jealousy towards everyone in his shizun's life, his time in the abyss, Shen Qingqiu sacrificial death and ressurection. We'd be having fandom wars to see which interpretation of Shen Qingqiu was actually accurate, if he was truly dense or if he just likes playing with other's feeling and we'd all be raging bc we would never receive the closure of knowing why Shen Qingqiu did all that he did

[anqelbean]

I need a bingqiu fic where everyone reverse transmigrates into the modern world but only Binghe and Mobei Jun remember their old world cause now THEY have the system and their task is simple: find their husbands and make them fall in love with them again.

Seems easy right? They've done it once already.

WRONG.

Because, when Binghe finds Shen Qingqiu, he's heartbroken to find that his Shizun's personality is almost the same as before his qi deviation in their previous life, and has absolutely no interest in him.

He also finds out that for some reason in this life Shen Qingqiu has a younger brother, Shen Yuan.

Shen Yuan is sweet and kind and pretty and gentle and funny and pretty. He's also closer in age to Binghe. Slowly Binghe starts to feel a devastating guilt every time he looks at him. He doesn't know where this man was in their previous life, but in this one. In this one Binghe is pretty sure he's falling in love with him.

He feels guilty because it feels like betraying his Shizun, his husband. He feels like the only reason he's in love with Shen Yuan is because he reminds him of his husband, but that's not fair to Shen Yuan either. It's like he's just replacing one brother for the other.

But no matter how much he tries he can't get Shen Yuan out of his mind.

Then his Shizun, Shen Qingqiu, starts dating Yue Qingyuan and Binghe's confused more than anything. He doesn't understand why he doesn't feel heartbroken. But when the System doesn't take away any points for this, he finally asks it "Hey, System." "Yes?" "Do you know why Shizun is acting as such?" "What do you mean? We've detected no abnormal behaviour from Shen Yuan." "No, not Shen Yuan, Shen Jiu— WAIT, WAIT, SHEN YUAN?????"

Then he finds out, this whole time, he's been going after the WRONG. GUY.

Shen Yuan, on the other hand is heartbroken.

Despite acting like he's straight his whole life (and very much believing it himself), there was just something that stabbed him in the chest every time he looked at Luo Binghe playfully flirting with his ge (while getting rejected every. Fucking. Time. Shen Yuan really doesn't know if his ge doesn't know the hottest guy on the planet is flirting with him, or if he's being an idiot and rejecting him).

He's gotten to know the guy quite well, and they have become quick friends. They talk, they text and they hang out, all the time. He finds that Binghe is an amazing cook (seriously, HOW can food be so good?). He also loves to read, and they proceed to rant about the books they've both read. He's also a huge cry baby. (Shen Yuan thinks it's cute)

And sometimes.

Sometimes he'll just look at Shen Yuan with so much, well, fondness. It's in those moments that Shen Yuan let's himself dream that maybe, maybe, this boy could be his.

Sometimes he'll say something that cannot be categorized as anything but shameless flirting.

Like the first time he made Shen Yuan congee. "This is the best thing I've ever had. Holy shit." "Ah, you like it that much? Alright then. I'll make it for you all the time, with variations." Then he proceeded to wink. WINK. (Shen Yuan did not blush. He did not. He's straight. It's just the halo-like light that surrounds Luo Binghe is enough to charm sven a straight man. Like him. Cause he's straight. Definitely.)

When his ge starts dating Yue Qingyuan. He expects Binghe to look heartbroken, but. He doesn't. He acts like nothing is wrong. Absolutely nothing is out of place.

Except he smiles at Shen Yuan with that fond look way more often. He flirts way more often. He cooks for him way more often.

Shen Yuan doesn't know how to feel about that.

Has this guy been some kind of playboy this whole fucking time? And when one target is no longer available, he just moves on? To his BROTHER? Yeah, no, scratch that, he knows exactly how he feels.

He's furious.

(Binghe has no idea why Shen Yuan seems so angry with him. He just wants to kiss his husband. Why must this always happen when they reunite?)

Mobei Jun on the other hand is having a, uhh, sorta better time. He's found Shang Qinghua. Shang Qinghua is the Shang Qinghua he knows, flighty, cowardly and cute. But, the thing is. Qinghua's absolutely terrified of him.

Every time he pops up next to him, he squeals and jolts so bad that one time he slammed into a door.

But he still blushes at their proximity. Still has the same taste in trashy novels. Still writes. Still loves having his hair ruffled.

They get together within 2 months. The system congratulates him 3 times.

[mikkeneko]

Thinking about the ways that Scum Villain is about dualities, and in some ways the most important parts are in the spaces that are left undefined by those dualities.

Luo Binghe is of course himself a duality of two worlds - human and demon, angel and devil, but he’s also two men, the Luo Binghe of the original PIDW and the Luo Binghe of the new narrative. And Luo Binghe is also both the hero and the villain of his story (and also the love interest.)

But Shen Qingqiu is also a duality. Because he is both Shen Yuan and Shen Qingqiu, also a hybrid of two worlds, and neither of those persons would be who they are without the other half. Shen Qingqiu is also both the villain and the hero of his story (and also the love interest.) 

The story can sometimes feel oddly off-center and unbalanced because Shen Qingqiu, the most confusing and unreliable of narrators, refuses to center himself even in the story that he’s narrating about his own life. His attention is always on Luo Binghe; he is just as obsessed with Luo Binghe as Luo Binghe is with him.

Scum Villain is a story about Luo Binghe in a way that MDZS is not a story about Lan Wangji, and TGCF is not a story about Hua Cheng. If Lan Wangji or Hua Chang had never existed Wei Wuxian and Xie Lian’s stories would have been sadder, emptier, but their stories would still have existed. In Scum Villain, there is no story without Luo Binghe. (And when there’s Luo Binghe but no Shen Qingqiu, that’s when you get Proud Immortal Demon Way, and it’s very bad.)

Luo Binghe and Shen Qingqiu spend the entire story dancing around each other, changing places and even changing roles, one rising while the other falls, until they finally come in sync together at the end. They create their story between them. Neither of them could have done it in the absence of the other. They circle one another like a binary star, and the gravitational center of the story is the place where they meet in the middle.

[raddestrose]

i’m sorry WHAT just happened

[curlybinghe]

summarizing the binghe swap from either binghe's POV is so fucking funny

like, for bing-mei: you wake up next to some random lady, very pointedly not your shizun, and are immediately on edge because you do not swing that way and also you just recently got him back and would really appreciate if he would stop disappearing!!! you leave the rooms and this random lady in not-your bed only to find there are SIX FUCKING HUNDRED other random ladies in not-your house who seem to think they are married to you.

also, one of them is ning-shijie? which. ew? that's basically your sister. you decide that your brief foray into heterosexuality has been a very harrowing experience indeed and binghe would like to see his master please.

and for bing-ge: you get beat up and run into OH MY GOD THIS ASSHOLE AGAIN. you could have sworn you offed this dude. you are very sure, actually, that you offed this dude. but here he is, in possession of arms, and fussing over you like. like idk someone who cares or something. he aggressively gives you first aid, pills you like a fucking dog, reprimands you like a child and gives you a lil smooch all within the span of 15 minutes and you will need four to five business days to process this. wait, no you don't actually, you are a strong high value man and have six hundred wives who you are attracted to. shut the fuck up. you do not need or even want this new shen qingqiu a little. not at all. hes a beta male anyway. he probably has pronouns.

like we can all agree shen yuan's perspective was already pretty funny save the accidentally almost-fucking this guy who ripped your arm off last you saw him and hey! maybe that aggressive first aid also isn't something you would have done if you knew which binghe you were doing it to. but jesus thinking about the binghes' confused little racecar brains going 400mph on two very different roads never fails to make me cackle