#war crimes shen

[chaichai-draws]

Sometimes a family is a put out Earth Kingdom Captain and his three teenaged bullies

Go Team Steam! I’m running out of chapters in @lovelyelbowleech ‘s fic War Crimes…

[comradecowplant]

i've still been feeling bad about things not working out with the sad neighbor lady with the busted leg, even though SHE was the one who 180ed and pushed me away, but then i start thinking about all the shitty little -isms (mostly race) she said, some of which i confronted in the moment & some that i picked my battles over given the circumstances, and then i feel less bad :)

[whatwhywhowherewhen]

I feel like we're sleeping on the fact that, out of every crime Shen Jiu didn't commit, all the times it seemed he was out to get LBH the novel reveals he was in fact triple out to get LBH

Like instead of murdering a figurative War God his real crime was actually attemting and failing to murder a literal child at least 3 times

Like my goodness. I bet he would have pushed Lou Binghe regardless of demon heritage reveal or not. Too good an opportunity. Man was tossing and turning each night this "better me" continued to live

This is a 30-40 year old man talking about young teenagers:

"...the boy should long-since have died bleeding from every orifice with his major organs ruptured..."

And later:

"...so how come he could see [NYY and LBH] whispering in front of him every day!

Shen Qingqiu was overly suspicious, always feeling as if everyone was talking behind his back about how he was still incapable of forming a core, didn’t accept his position, wanted to sabotage him in secret, and so on and so forth."

This adult man literally believed his current favorite person, who is a little girl, was looking down on him and conspiring to ruin him whenever she giggled with a little boy he had purposefully set up to turn his own insides into a meat smoothie

How does MXTX come up with this stuff???? How is this real????

[ineffectualdemon]

Why do you think Yue Qingyuan doesn't go wild after Shen Qingqiu self detonates?

Why isn't he going to get back Shen Qingqiu's corpse?

Is it because he respects Shen Qingqiu's choice to sacrifice himself for his disciple?

Is it because he doesn't want to trigger an actual war?

Or is it because his Xiao Jiu has been dead for a long time already and he knows it?

I'm so curious because it's so at odds with Yue Qingyuan who walked into an obvious trap at the hope of getting Shen Jiu back

The Yue Qingyuan who pushed himself to the point of being stuck with a sword that drains his life force when he uses it

The Yue Qingyuan who clawed at walls of a cave to escape and ran away to save Shen Jiu when he could

The Yue Qingyuan who pulled away from a scene where Shen Jiu had murdered people to without a care of the crime

Why was Yue Qingyuan staying back at Cang Qiong while Liu Qingge fought for Shen Qingqiu's corpse?

[disgracefulthings]

Shen Qingqiu looking between Moshang and Wangxian

Shen Qingqiu, to Wangxian: I don't get it, what makes you so different?

Lan Wangji: We've committed less war crimes

Shang Qinghua, from a distance: My king, do you want to learn what a Columbian necktie is?

[viterbofangirllovestheuntamed]

So.

According to @demiace-wen-ning​‘s iconic post, every MXTX novel has:

A red/black, morally ambiguous, all-powerful bastard man

A fan wielder who is much more than meets the eye

And a fucking Jiang Cheng

Now we, as a collective fandom, have decided with our communal braincell that in SVSSS, the “fucking Jiang Cheng”™ character is Liu Qingge. And on the surface, this seems Right and Good:

HOWEVER! I posit that these aspects are only the most superficial and external aspects of the vast and multi-layered Dagwood sandwich that is fundamental “fucking Jiang Cheng”™yness. “fucking Jiang Cheng”™ has LAYERS. And for all that I love Liu Qingge, I love him in the same way I love the Sonic franchise’s Knuckles the Echidna:

This is emphatically NOT how I love Jiang Cheng. Furthermore, this is demonstrably NOT the sort of character that a fandom becomes viciously divisive about. This is the sort of character you either like or dislike and move on with your life because he is not deep and complex enough to Die On This Hill for defending. (This is a Feng Xin or Nie Mingjue sort of character.)

So what makes for a “fucking Jiang Cheng”™ character? What are the quintessential “fucking Jiang Cheng”™ characteristics that result in a complex and divisive character? I propose:

ambiguous/unexplained actions

refusal to explain motives

canon selfless actions missed or negatively interpreted

socially over-conscious while still socially detested

harsh and contemptuous outward behavior

honestly, naturally is an asshole, but holds back just enough to get away with it

hard-working but overshadowed by upstart prodigy

childhood trauma that fundamentally affected behavioral patterns

aggressively focused on their cultivation and consequent social status

secretly heartbroken about a perceived betrayal regarding the protagonist

yay, war crimes!

These attributes all describe Jiang Cheng. All but the last one describe Mu Qing, with the second-to-last applying in a way where HE is perceived as the betrayer. None of these attributes describe Liu Qingge. But you know who they DO describe in SVSSS?

Shen Jiu.

The ORIGINAL Shen Qingqiu.

An undeniable asshole who nevertheless gets punished for every good deed he ever did, who clawed and scraped his way to the top of the cultivation world and ensured he stayed there no matter how many bridges he had to burn or enemies he had to make along the way, who acts like a bitter tsundere to the person who matters most to him because said person broke their promise and never explained why, whose childhood was a never-ending parade of trauma and abuse that molded him into a harsh and suspicious individual, who (though we don’t find out until the extras) shows no sexual interest in anyone, whose own path to cultivation was so difficult and traumatic that they could not stop themselves from jealously lashing out at the heaven-blessed prodigy standing right next to them.

Shen Jiu is the TRUE “fucking Jiang Cheng”™ of SVSSS, and I cordially invite any haters to bring it on because this is My Hill and I am ready to fight for it.

[badass-queer-couples-battle]

Don't you think it's funny cause actual canon gay characters in BL manga will say "I love you" but only the shounen bromance can spew out some of the most romantic shit akin to a 19th century poet writing a letter expressing his surpressed love for his lover 😭.....

Genuniely can't tell if it's bait or not, but I'm going to treat this ask seriously anyway.

Here, have some examples of beautiful and poetic expressions of love in BL media!

I'm going to start with my favourite murder husbands, Wen Kexing and Zhou Zishu from Word of Honor/Faraway Wanderers!

This happens in episode nine, less than one third into the story- it's that early, they've known each other for like a week and are already able to tell they're meant to be. They've made their decision to be together, and over the course of the story:

They defend each other multiple times and fight side by side in multiple episodes, sometimes protecting their adopted kid/mentee Chengling as well

Zhou Zishu is willing to go against the whole martial arts society for his boyfriend. With zero hesistation, might I add.

They both know the other has done horrible things (lots of murder on both sides here) and that's not only okay, it's a big part of why they're soulmates and get each other so well!

Zhou Zishu is slowly dying (poisoned nails in his chest, long story) and Wen Kexing can and will risk his life to save him. Don't worry, they get a happy ending both in the show and the novel even if the show's last episode is behind a paywall and Netflix didn't even include it for some reason?

But enough about them, let's move on to the immortal fantasy genre boyfriends Hua Cheng and Xie Lian from Heaven Official's Blessing!

Please note how Hua Cheng is ready to accept Xie Lian in whatever state he's currently in- as a god, a fallen outcast, even grieving and angry and at his absolute lowest. He's stood by Xie Lian in his worst moments, even if at the time Xie Lian had no idea it was him.

Hua Cheng has loved Xie Lian for 800 years, ever since he was a boy Xie Lian saved from falling to his death during a procession.

Xie Lian became a god, then fell due to horrible circumstances, almost committed a war crime against another nation that destroyed his country, spend 800 years wandering the mortal realm as a poor cultivator with his powers greatly reduced, and eventually ascended to become a god again. Throughout it all, Hua Cheng loved him and did his best to help him and then find him.

They're both adorable and the definition of a power couple once they're reunited- no spoilers, but they eventually fight an incredibly powerful god side by side and win & the last scene in the story is them reuniting for good since there's no more obstacles to their immortal love.

Let's move on to my favourite Japanese BL, Our Dining Table (also available as a series that came out semi-recently, but the examples below are from the manga.)

Yutaka is a lonely salesman who meets Minoru, a restaurant worker and his much younger brother Tane grieving the death of their mother.

Yutaka and Minoru hit it off by bonding through food they cook and share. The series is incredibly heartwarming, and as seen above Yutaka becomes a much happier person thanks to both his new relationship and big brother-like bond with little Tane.

As a little bonus, the whole found family together!

This post can't be complete without Golden Stage (or Golden Terrace, as the English official translation calls it).

Fu Shen and Yan Xiaohan aren't even in love at this point! This is at the beginning of the story, when their marriage has just been arranged by the emperor and they're still bitter rivals.

Yan Xiaohan is already protective of his future husband- later on, he also builds him a mansion meant to accommodate his disability (nerve damage in both legs, which requires a wheelchair and/or crutches). They're both incredibly powerful military generals, and the emperor was an idiot thinking an arranged marriage would humiliate them.

Of course they fall in love, of course they're a power couple, of course they send each other letters through trained geese when they're separated during the war, of course they run to each other as fast as they can across a wide cold river when they're finally reunited! Of course they're important to me!

....Aaand how about some Wangxian to wrap up this post? They need no introduction, an absolutely wonderful and complex relationship in a complex fantasy/intrigue story available in several forms - the books, the animated series (as seen above), the live action series, the audio drama, there's so much!

Some of their most beautiful moments:

Lan Wangji writing a song for Wei Wuxian and naming it Wangxian. Years after it's composed, Wei Wuxian plays it and LWJ is able to recognise him even in a different body.

LWJ begs WWX to come with him to Cloud Recesses, to safety, after WWX makes himself an enemy of the whole cultivation world for protecting innocent people.

They confront the final villain together, and work together to expose his crimes. This is also when their final love confession happens, and it's hilarious- in front of everyone's salad, WWX declares he also wanted to sleep with LWJ.

Despite censorship, the animated series was still able to allude to their wedding, showing them in red wedding robes (unfortunately can't find a gif rn)

Respectfully, if you genuinely think BL doesn't have beautiful love confessions and displays of romance, you need to find better BL.

[ink-blot-thoughts]

Shen Qingqiu: Binghe is babey and has done nothing wrong in his life, ever.

Luo Binghe, actively committing war crimes: Shizun 🥺🥹😍

[captainkirkk]

✩ WEEKLY FIC ROUND-UP ✩

All the fics I’ve read and really enjoyed in the past week-ish. Reminder: This list features any and all ratings and themes. Please look at tags and warnings on ao3 before reading.

DC

my dearly departed by redrobin1989

Kon heard the stories about how Tim had fallen apart after he died. He couldn’t imagine what Tim had gone through, what he’d been feeling. Even now, with the shoe now on the other foot, Conner doesn’t know how to cope. Especially when he needs to keep his boyfriend’s collapsing family together.

Exit Strategy by smilebackwards

Batman needs a Robin and Batman has a Robin. Tim is just extraneous now, vestigial. He’s a bandage over a healed wound. He doesn’t know what he’s hanging on to.

Or: Tim didn’t expect his exit strategy from the Batfamily to involve quite so much bonding time with Damian over Wayne Enterprises bureaucracy.

the capillaries in my eyes are bursting by Scarlet_Ribbons

Bruce grunts, standing up. “Jenkins said the same. What about what you weren’t told?”

And without dissembling, Jason says, “I think they fucked that kid up, B.”

[Jack and Janet die. As things get weirder and weirder, it feels like Tim might be at the center of the unfolding conspiracy.]

Stranger Things

and i know that you don’t, but if i ask you if you love me— by fakecharliebrown

Once, only a few weeks before his parents decide he’s too old to be tucked into bed at night, Steve grabs his mother by the wrist and asks, “Does Father love me?”

“Of course he does,” she says immediately, smoothing the blanket where it rests over his chest.

Steve blinks up at her. “Then how come he never says it?”

She purses her lips. “He shouldn’t have to, sweetheart. You should just know.”

(It isn’t until years down the line that Steve realizes she’d somehow turned that into being his fault.)

or; Steve Harrington through the years, on loving and being loved.

Percy Jackson

percy jackson and the scrutiny of his coworkers by pqrker

Jim turned back to the tank and looked at Marcie the seal, who was now staring at the spot his coworker had been standing just moments before with that same strange look of reverence in her eyes.

Percy Jackson truly was the oddest person Jim Elpool had ever worked with.

Or: 5 times percy's coworkers were confounded by his fish magic, plus 1 time they try to figure it out.

Star Wars

Bounty by smilebackwards

"You took a puck for Luke Skywalker?”

Din looks up at the tenseness in Cara’s voice.

“Yes?” The puck for Skywalker had been passed over by half a dozen hunters, surprising considering the price on his head, but Din had assumed that was because his last known location was Coruscant. The Core is a dangerous place to hunt bounties.

“If I didn’t consider you a friend,” Cara says, with a tone that sounds like she’s reconsidering it, “I’d shoot you where you stand for admitting that."

SVSSS

What Is Seen by CaveteDracones

....is not [always] the real truth.

Truth-compelling artifacts in the hands of an enemy to one side, SYSTEM-mandated silence on the other, and Shen Qingqiu caught between the two. Is it too late to go back to the Water Prison?

and judgment is just like a cup that we share by Kieron_ODuibhir

The blob finished rotating into place in a way that wasn’t quite compatible with geometry as Shen Qingqiu understood it, and cleared a throat it didn’t seem to have.

“Greetings,” it said, somehow clearly addressing him in particular more than the room as a whole despite its total lack of features other than blueness and translucency. “I’m here on behalf of the Hyper-Celestial Peace and Order Enforcement Bureau. Crime scene secure, proceeding to interviews. Beginning with Subject One: You are Shen Qingqiu, formerly Shen Yuan, also known as Peerless Cucumber?"

[stardust-falling]

I think that an important thing to remember is that Shen Yuan is not against Binghe War Crimes.

[whitakerrr]

SUMMARY:

Imprisoned on Zhao’s war ship, Sokka and Zuko have to work together to survive. They are not very enthusiastic about this prospect.

And they argue.

A lot.

Greatest Zukka series I’ve ever laid eyes on, but beware, while it’s never explicitly gratuitous, these boys are in for a ROUGH time. Very dark subject matter, handled with delicate precision and equally impressive characterization. I’ll be honest, I don’t usually get super invested in OC’s, but I love these guys just as much as the main cast. Especially Shen <3 <3 Heed the tags, and be sure to read War Crimes first. The sequel, War Games is much longer and still blossoming, but every word is well worth it. I cannot WAIT to see what happens next. Thunderous round of applause for @lovelyelbowleech

[myths-tournaments]

Awful Characters Round 1 Part 2 (1/8)

Propaganda under the cut!

ROSE QUARTZ

Okay so. She did mess up? A LOT. Greatest hits: leaving people who are programmed to be incapable of disobeying her in endless loops of waiting for her to come back or fantasizing about them having a happy ending together, maintaining a lie that left one character with compromised agency and thousands of others trapped in a broken mental state for thousands of years, various war crimes, attempts to wipe out life on a planet in a colonization effort. BUT she made attempts to stop the colonization after realizing it was doing damage and most of her other Crimes were snowballed from her attempts to stop it. HOWEVER people act like she never changed and never tried to atone, which she really really did, and really realized there were things she could never make up for! And OH BOY did you ever get hated and called an abuse apologist/colonization apologist/LITERAL NAZI for liking this character or pointing out she tried to make things right! No one hates Rose/Pink more than Rose/Pink, and no one hates her fans more than twitter/tumblr.

SHEN JIU

YES he abused a child and killed an entire manor of people, but it was probably only one child and allegedly the people sucked. Surely this is not behavior deserving of being turned into a human stick or having your body possessed by a weeb. I love him because sometimes mean people are fun and also who can resist a good redemption tale (he deserves one).

[paper-is-paper]

(Big Spoilers for DOTF)

Sooo I sat down and read the entirety of Daughter of a Thousand Faces over the course of a few days. Since the series is on indefinite hiatus, I wanted to note down some plot threads that have yet to be resolved or addressed in season 1.

This series has taken over my brain and I don't know what to do with all these thoughts swimming in my brain. (elaborated thoughts below the cut and are numbered)

What is Swallowtail? is he a demon? a cultivator? or maybe secret third option (butterfly maybe)?

Why is Swallowtail so protective of Yuhua to the point where he's been ensuring that any potential suitors have been having "accidents"?

Why did Chu Tian choose to save Yuhua? He could have let her die and then boom no more blood pact, he's free to do whatever he wants with no restrictions. (1)

What's the butterfly lady (Hong Yang) going to do with Yuhua's severed finger?

What happens to the Ox Lady (Qing Yu)? Will she join Chu Tian? or will this be a moment of growth for Chu Tian? (2)

What is up with Shen Yitian? (3) and what happened to the rest of the true cultivators?

What does Leng Feng being a dragon prince mean for the careful balance between our main cast? How will he react to the fact that Yuhua killed one of his older brothers and now wears his face upon impromptu fox demon?

What did Leng Feng want to asks Yuhua?

Will Yuhua and Chu Tian resolve their conflict after the death of the fox demon? (I feel like the answer to this is obvious)

What is the ichor that some of the demons have been drinking? Who is the "master" behind its distribution? Where are they getting it from? (4)

Who has been sending the creepy letters to the A-Qing, A-Ying, and Co.?

What will become of Kai's Grandma? and will she ever find out that the real Kai is dead?

What role does Shen Chun have in the future?

Have Yuling and Yuhua come to a mutual understanding or is their relationship still antagonistic?

What are the details of Yuhua's mother's crimes? How might they tie with other elements of the plot?

What does war with the Bull Clan mean for our motley crew?

How will everyone react to Chu Tian and Yuhua's relationship?

(1) In the behind the scenes in chapter 42, Velinxi mentions that whether Chu Tian cares about Yuhua is debatable. I personally lean heavily towards the explanation that he does care about Yuhua, but I also think it's not impossible that it's an act or that he keeps her alive and trains her for more long-term goals. Either way, I fully agree the guy is definitely a bad influence.

(2) Chu Tian is convinced that Qiao Yu will eventually call for him and maybe join him. My prediction is that something will happen to her village that will then make her turn to Chu Tian for help or out of desperation. The other (less likely) alternative is that Chu Tian is wrong and Qiao Yu's continued rejection of him till her death shakes him so much that it sparks a growth in character growth for him. I also think that it could be a mix of both.

(3) This guy is hella sus. As @canary0 points out:

"...[Yuhua's] dad has to know, right? He knew what the only thing down there was. He had to have known what the only thing down there was. He had to have known what the only way to get back up and out would be."

I think that Shen Yitian is embodying the phrase "keep your friends close but your enemies closer" by asking Yuhua to stay closer to the family when she emerges from the well at the beginning of the series.

(4) I have a few ideas about this ichor, and I think it's related to Chu Tian in one way or another. It's the wrong color to be just Chu Tian's blood because his is red, but the glowing yellow eyes with slit pupils is a little too much of a coincidence to not be a deliberate creative choice.

Okay I have a lot more to talk about, but I want to cut this one off here otherwise we will be here forever. Please add some more questions if I missed anything, I absolutely adore this series and I can't wait to see a continuation of this story. In the meantime, I can chew on the mysteries of season 1.

[ohnowthatsfowl]

Hello! I just wanna say how much I love Mwamei and her overall concept w/Shen. I love her story and progress w/our nasty birb😂

It’s always fun to see something new or posts abt her and Shen!

(WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA <- tears of joy. x this by 10 and you get my reaction. Also infodump ahead.)

Its giving me the "i can fix him" vibes but its really just the soothsayer finding Shen a way out of war crimes because i feel like she genuinely cares for him like a son.

Thus the soothsayer decides to comunicate more with Mwamei and such so they fall in love/get attached to each other. Which is successful and lets Shen live.

HC: after the movie, Mwamei, Shen, and the soothsayer (who i want to name) go to build a farm which they do successfully due to Shen being a past noble. Its the closest you can get to running china if you rule the food supply. (I learned that from a true crime podcast where the same thing happened with baby formula. TLDR on the baby formula: People who supply the milk put chemicals in which caused babies to get kidney stones, but the company was basically the controller of poor families with young children.)

Its one of thoes massive farms and Mwamei manages to dig up the blueprints for the ancestral home out of the wreckage (With the help of her new wolves) so they live in basically a better version of the ancestral home.

Idk how long the gap is between 3+4 but I'm just gonna say somewhere there eggs happened which is how they show up in 4. Their a target for my version of the chameleon because of their spiritual power (a blessing from grandma soothsayer).

(INHALE) sorry about that.

[ranilla-bean]

(feeling a little like a middle schooler sending chain mail) Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Let’s spread the self-love❤

awwww thanks for the chain mail tho!! here we go:

in flammam flammas (sokka/zuko, M, 94,828): a postcanon fic about zuko at age 25, moving past trauma as he rebuilds his support network (which includes a hot swt bf and very cute baby dragon). basically all my postwar fire nation headcanons, but it's also the first longfic i ever wrote and i'm so proud of it!

nip it in the bud (sokka/zuko, E, 15,450): zuko gets ritual nipple piercings, sokka incurs genuine brain damage over them. this is a horny, irreverent fic and i had SO much fun dreaming up word crimes to commit

lan eye for the bland guy (lan wangji/wei wuxian, G, 3,236): crackfic in which lwj abducts wwx for a free facial and they fall in hashtag instalove. a bit of an oldie and YEAH, wangxian; rereading still makes me crack tf up

galactic repairman (sokka/zuko, T, 5,410): zuko's a runaway from his home planet, and sokka fixes his craft when it breaks down. oh, and they're stuck together for like a month bc of intergalactic travel times! i loved playing with the world in this one, which is based on chinese astronomy—the story itself is based on a cantopop song

close your eyes and reinvent me (fu shen/yan xiaohan, T, 5,914): modern au in which fs and yxh terrorise (and are terrorised in return by) the staff at the hotpot restaurant where they work. this one's niiiiiche, but i loved writing the characters and i tried out some new stuff in terms of technique/voice that i enjoyed

+1 in true fic writer style

i'm currently updating the iconoclast (sokka/suki/zuko, E, wip) and it's shaping up to be one of my favourites!

we're in an AU that's "historical to the world of atla", the fire nation has a civil war instead of world war, and our victorious fire lord needs a new bodyguard. enter sokka and suki, who have to duke it out with their competitors for the job. but just what kinda guy is this fire lord: a former slave, a god in flesh, a man who usurped his own father...

[lovelyelbowleech]

What are five of your most favorite scenes you've ever written in your fics?

A difficult question! But these are the ones that come to mind first (in no particular order):

1. The fight with Chen in chapter 11 of War Games, from Hakoda’s POV. I knew what I wanted it to be, and had no idea how I was going to achieve it. And I was panicking because as that chapter got closer, my notes just said: I don’t knooooow. Help.

So I’m glad it worked out not too different from my original vague plan when I actually wrote it.

2. Azula musing on her and Zuko’s childhood with the baby birds in chapter 8. This just sort of wrote itself, and I liked the end result.

3. Kazuma and Azula meeting in chapter 28 was just fun to write. I think I wrote it in one sitting.

4. The scene way back in chapter 3 of War Crimes when Zuko and Sokka argue with Zhao and are mutually offended they are on the same side.

5. Zuko rescuing Shen and Suki in chapter 16. And Shen’s annoyed realisation he’s the Blue Spirit.

Bonus: A sex scene that hasn't actually been written yet, but provides me with a lot of entertainment. Not because its sexy, but because its ridiculous and involves both participants laughing so much the actual having sex part becomes almost impossible.

Thank you for the ask!