#zy zy's original

[thatsleepymermaid]

There's a lot of fun things about my internship but introducing myself as "apprentice to the dragon keeper" might be my favorite part

[israelcastillophoto]

Coney Island on Cinestill bwxx

[zykamiliah]

Hey, sorry to bother you, but I've been seeing something in the fandom that kind of confuses me, so I'm leaving this ask to my favorite svsss blogs.

I've been trying to get more into Shen Jiu's character, as he is pretty interesting and arguably a fan favorite, and I've noticed that, so far of the fanfics I've read, he is more often than not depicted as a good teacher. A harsh one, but still good? Or not terrible?

One that likes teaching, is involved with his students, taking the little of what we've seen of Shen Yuan's teaching methods and just, giving them a twist, "improving" them even sometimes.

Often it ends up being a show of how Shen Yuan was clumsy, not that good of a teacher (or of a Shen Qingqiu) and I'm... Kind of confused by this trend? Like, is it rooted in canon? Obviously this is still more interesting to read than the "SJ is just a tsundere that never did anything wrong ever" thing, but it feels kind of similar.

I cannot imagine a character as genuinely bitter and angry as Shen Jiu enjoying being a teacher, having a nurturing bone in his body or even being hands on in the teaching of his disciples, several of which he literally bullied out of his peak. But maybe it's just me and I'm wrong?

Was Shen Jiu a good teacher?

I guess I'm just curious of where it comes from. I like Shen Yuan's character, and it often feels like people take Shen Jiu's to show how bad at everything SY is, even if it isn't consistent with SJ's character and often lack nuances, in my opinion.

(Or even if the story claims loving SY while also stripping him away of everything that makes him interesting other than his obliviousness, but that's a whole other thing.)

Sorry again, and I also apologize for the long ask, I'd just figured you or someone that follows you might have an answer.

(Also, I get that fandoms gotta fandom, and I'm not saying people shouldn't write it or anything, I may be a strickler for canon but I'm not the police. Write what you want. I just wonder where it comes from, as I figure that knowing its origins might help me in the future, but I promise I'm not trying to start discourse or anything, so I hope I've made my point clear enough without offending anyone.)

hello!! :DD

well sj being ooc in fics is a common thing by now. people tend to portray him softer than he's in canon, to the point it sometimes turns his whole character upside down. in extreme cases, you'll be dealing with a bitter, more tsundere version of sy with sj's backstory, which is secretly what many people want IMO lol often this people also perceive sy as an incompetent dumb nerd that only knows about monster lore and has no other skills or abilities aside from that-- essentially, they fall for the unreliable narrator's trap of believing every lie he tells about himself.

it's never outright stated, but sj didn't like children, so is fair to assume he didn't like teaching or caring for them either. taking into account qing jing peak's toxic atmosphere pre sy's transmigration, AND the fact that sj was paranoid about being overthrown since he hadn't developed a golden core even after becoming a peak lord and taking lbh in, I don't think he'd be interested in teaching anyone anything. in a lot of cultivation novels, disciples are just given manuals and left to self-study them (like he let lbh use the fake manual, expecting lbh would die from using it. haha. such a good teacher!). this could be the case. aside from that, I don't personally think sj would want to provide any kid guidance. and that's not mentioning how he allowed and enabled bullying, targeted talented disciples, and overall was more worried about his own cultivation and survival and reputation than other things or people.

so where this fanon sj comes from? I'm not sure, really, but I think some people just want a version of him that's palatable AND defensible, like my friend furby says, a declawed sj that's just a poor misunderstood meowmeow who deep inside is secretly good and nice. it's a thing that people who struggle with liking "villainous" or "morally bad" characters do: twisting the narrative around to justify this character's actions. It doesn't help that he's SO complicated, and people who have very black-and-white thinking struggle to place him in either side of the spectrum-- it's the problem mxtx outlined through sqh and sqq's voices

ch.14 house arrest

ch.19 shen jiu

really, the fandom has just proved mxtx's point xD

anyway, there's a lot of misconceptions about sj. there are some pretty wild theories around. some fans also treat his abuse as The Worst Abuse in comparison to the Child Abuse he did, because of the (unconfirmed) hints that sj was sexually assaulted by qiu jianluo, as if SA is the worst kind of abuse and child abuse falls back on the tier-list ¯_(ツ)_/¯ because obviously anything that involves sex in inherently worse, apparently

in other cases, people are simply more familiar with the fanon version of the characters, and that's who they portray in their writing. after all, many people read the novel once and then go on to read dozen of fics; it's normal the fanon sticks more on the brain than canon (not judging! it happens to me as well lol) and those fanon versions are more popular because, as i said, this version of sj is more morally palatable (and bland and less fun ┐(︶▽︶)┌)

thank you for the ask!! :DDDD ❤️❤️❤️ i love receiving asks~

[justsnowy19]

[zaideaben]

local bisexual is in WAY over his head with this one

[bvannn]

Starry Eyed Boy

[heliosandtheminecraftians]

[ -@cryptid-artha

Sorry it took so long to get to this ask, I honestly kept forgetting about it because of IRL stuff!

I love your Wardens, Artha, the cub is such a cute bitey little shit. 🤣]

[caramelcomics]

Today's warmup OC - Zy. He's supposed to be a failed super solider experiment. He died from not being super solider-y enough lol The details were not super important at the time. The sketch doesn't show his cool heterochromia, one dark blue eye and one red. I mostly made this character out of jealousy at the time, so I'm okay if he just hangs in my OC vault lmao

[zystarsun]

hi! i'm officially opening commissions😊prices and details in post! DM me or email me @ zystarsun.art@gmail.com if you're interested!

reblogs and likes appreciated c:

[zybynarx]

DAY 30: Real Gone (Sheryl Crow)

This is my character for the Sentinel Comic RPG that I am currently playing with some friends! His name is Luis Melendez, A.K.A. Destello. He has the ability to manipulate/use wind and electricity to his advantage. Long ago his family was cursed, but somewhere along the line one of his ancestors decided to make a profit out of their bad situation. So now his family works pretty similar to La Familia Madrigal (Encanto).

He's a doof, and I love him. ❤️

[thatsleepymermaid]

Oh to be an iguana in a zoo. Getting free vet care, nutritionist approved meals every day, and jumping on the unsuspecting intern's head when they give me my daily worms.

[israelcastillophoto]

New York City, 2024

[zykamiliah]

There's a line from a Mili song that I feel encapsulates a lot of QiJiu. It's "You were right, the ones who gravitate towards self-sacrifice are the most, are the most selfish ghosts" from Dancing Ghost's Ball Jointed Darling. I think that SJ and YQY both want the other to live, even if it's without them. The difference is that SJ will lie to himself about that because he'd much prefer to keep YQY with him then not. YQY on the other hand is so used to taking on the weight of other's that he doesn't really see himself as having a use if he's not stuck being a pillar for others. He knows SJ wouldn't be happy carrying the weight with him so he keeps taking on more and more of SJ's actions as his own guilt in a twisted way of protecting him. SJ want's them to be equals and YQY want's to be SJ's shield no matter what it costs himself. SJ doesn't have the emotional knowledge to be able to actually accurately describe his own feelings I think, he's in such a base sense of paranoia that he can't trust anything that YQY or anyone else does for him. Sorry for the ramble, I just feel like both the lack of communication between them and WWX & JC is more complicated then other's think and it's not a matter of morality. They are all really complicated characters and I feel like reducing them to villain and hero doesn't do the story any favors.

setting aside the differences between qijiu and wwc and jc's relationship, i agree with you on this.

i think a big takeaway from mxtx's novels is that most characters can't be defined by binaries (with some exceptions): they are people making choices. sometimes those choices hurt people, and that's what you learn first: the bad choices. then mxtx shows you were the characters come from, and you can sympathize with them, yet still there is a point where the characters, regardless of their backstory, consciously take a path of hurting others (and themselves, inevitably) that's what actually condemned them. but the thing is, you can point to any moment of that backstory and say "see, if this had been different, maybe they wouldn't made that choice". they're tragic characters because their circumstances were unfortunate, and those circumstances doomed them to make terrible choices; then, at the same time, those were their conscious choices. they had agency.

you can see all that play out in qijiu and their messy, complicated relationship. one can understand why they made those choices, even if we disagree with them. even the most selfless action can turn selfish and vice versa. you can love someone and hurt them. you can love someone and lash out at them because there's unhappiness and anger inside you. and the worldview of people with self-worth issues tends to twist to fit those believes.

i think you mention something that's actually really important and that neither side of qijiu have the emotional knowledge to express themselves in another way; i'd add that they never had a chance to learn how to do it, and specially sj, who had two major bad influences in his life that he ended up emulating, consciously or not. i'd also add that in the "dog eats dog" world that's pidw, sj, someone who grew up in the streets, must have the belief of "survival of the fitness", and because his experiences, appearing weak or letting others step over him (from his point of view) feels like a threat to him. he's paranoid about losing, because losing means his way of surviving is threatened. in that context, someone that puts themselves in danger to protect him or back him becomes precious. sj may be power-hungry, petty, jealous, mean, aggressive and vitriolic, but he is steadfastly loyal to the ONLY person that has shown to care for him selfless and unconditionally; and he'll be like that in return. but after what he perceives as a betrayal, his feelings for yqy are complicated. he resents him but loves him, thus he doesn't know where he stands and the only thing he's sure about is that yqy feels guilty and indebted and he'll push and push to see how much yqy is willing to take for this debt he has to him.

i also think that yqy should have been harder on sj irt what sj did as a peak lord. more that trying to coax him, he should have put he foot down about what sj did to lbh and not just passively and sadly allow it to happen, no matter that sj had the authority over qjp. because of his guilt and his love and his pity for sj, he allowed what he shouldn't. even out of love and pity bad choices are made. he had a better grasp on what's right or wrong and that something like abusing disciples would eventually bite sj in the ass (Karma), so it wasn't as he didn't know. and this type of relationship is something that happens in real life, particularly in parent-child relationships where the parent pities the child to the point that they let the child do whatever they want and just apologize in their stead. in the long run it ends up hurting the child more.

but even yqy choices i can understand, because i know where yqy comes from. and i think that's the point: just understanding the big spectrum of human experience that can be expressed through this characters, understanding the characters and seeing things from their point of view. if mxtx didn't want us to see that, she would have done like airplane and just chop off the backstories.

i ended up rambling too haha :3

[justsnowy19]

still in love with Senyka's style. I even think i revealed some secrets

[queer-advice-hotline]

Calling All Queers!

This is a blog for all your queer questions, advice, vents, and more! I know it isn’t the typical “our _ experience” blog, but @our-queer-experience and @our-transmasculine-experience and others like that have been super inspiring! I’m here to take your calls and help in any way I can!

Disclaimer: I am not a professional in anything, and any advice I can offer is based off personal experience or knowledge, take everything I say at your own discretion. Please do not come to me in place of professionals should you need serious help.

If it isn’t clear: hate and exclusion are not tolerated here. If you have anything bad to say about anyone's identity or life, don’t.

My name is Synn, and my pronouns are nie/nier and zy/zyr/zyrs

Edit: tagging system explained under the cut, as I realise it can be confusing

1-800-queer- Tagged on ask posts

queer advice hotliine- Tagged on everything

for i have synned- Original posts, personal information, unrelated things

advice calls- Asks where I give advice

question calls- For when I'm asked a question

vent calls- When I'm not giving advice, just for vents

gender calls, mspec calls, aspec calls, romantic orientation calls, sexuality calls, name calls, etc- Tells the specific nature of the advice I'm giving or question I'm answering

you've reached the operator- When a post contains links to outside resources

long distance calls- Long posts

voice mail- Reblogs

the phone number post- the one post with phone numbers to suicide/crisis hotline and other immediate resources. added under its own tag for ease of location, should you need it

[bvannn]

Inktober 22: Falling Out of a Tree