#Prince Xiao Jing

[undertheredhood]

AU where after dying, shen jiu wakes up in the past back when he was a slave to the qiu family and immediately gets fuck out of there and travels as far as he can away from both the qius and also the cang qiong mountain sect (in which all his former martial siblings have regained the memories of their past life in this au but that’s irrelevant because shen jiu intends to never see any of them ever again), until he finds himself in the kingdom of xianle and comes face to face with none other than qi rong, who is being his usual gremlin self.

[ifjenn]

・。・。・。・。・。・。・。・。・。・。・。

[rp-guzi]

what do you think about the people who ship your dad with lang qianqiu? Do you think they would be a good match or do you have someone else in mind who would be a good match for your father?

S-ship? Like... want them to get married? To each other?

( 〇 □〇）

I ... don't really get what stake those people have in the whole thing? But I wish them well???

I think what matters is that my dad and whatever other person he might marry would be happy. I don't have anyone in mind. As for Lang Qianqiu, there are some things in his favor and some kinda really big things working against him...

Pros:

He's a crown prince, and I think it takes someone who's royalty to fully understand my dad.

His sword is SO COOL!! I would love having it as a sword-in-law!

Imagine if they BOTH turned into daruma dolls??? AAAAA! It would be so cute I would perish on the spot! Maybe they could have dolls of them made for the top of their wedding cake! (｡•̀ᴗ•̀ ｡)✧

They are both very mad at Scrap Gege

Cons:

He's from Yong An (this is the biggest thing. I don't think my dad can ever look past this.)

He did boil my dad alive once

My dad tried to have him killed too (so I guess maybe they're even???) ∘ ∘ ∘ ( °ヮ° ) ?

He's a god, and my dad isn't really a fan of heaven.

[zhoudadudugongjin]

[gabrielokun]

[bitterflames]

yanyan my beloved

[ausana]

The Imperial Coroner - Episode 1

[faalthien]

@aninfiniteweirdo here you go, from forever ago.

[undermine-the-instinct]

You know that one mother daughter quote thats like

What if I become you?

What if you become more?

Yeah, that's totally Xie Lian and Qi Rong

[hadesisqueer]

zutara makes more sense than kataang though. zuko and katara are character foils. theyre the opposite and the same at the same time. they represent yin and yang

I'll say it a lot of times: I personally do not ship Zuko and Katara, but I actually have nothing against those who do. People can ship and dislike ships and that's okay, as long as they express their opinion with respect. Which is what I'm about to do, by the way.

1) Two characters being foils of each other doesn't necessarily mean they're meant to be connected in a romantic way. A big example: Adam Taurus and Yang Xiao Long, from RWBY. If you watch that show, you quickly realize those two are obvious character foils, very different but very similar at the same time, to the point they have practically the same super-power. However-- are they meant to be connected romantically? Um, no. In fact, one of the things that makes them foils of each other is that they're actually romantic rivals, with Adam being Blake Belladonna's ex-boyfriend and Yang being Blake's new love interest and girlfriend, and their relationships with her being parallels and the complete opposite. So, again: character foils ≠ romantic. Another example are Daenerys Targaryen and Cersei Lannister.

2) This is not about shipping on my behalf, but about me disagreeing about Zuko and Katara being yin and yang. While I agree that Katara and Zuko have many things in common and can be considered foils, I'd argue that if you're looking for someone who is completely different and yet the same as Katara down to the fact that they're both the same age, both second daughters with older brothers, both prodigies by their own right with very rare and dangerous abilities —lightning and bloodbending—, both deeply affected by their relationships with their mothers and their losses in complete different ways, both with character arcs that also parallel each other-- that is not Zuko. That is Azula. To me, Azula is Katara's actual, biggest character foil, down to their relationships with their brothers also being parallels of the other. Azula is also one of Zuko's character foils, too, obviously.

3) Zuko's biggest character foil in the show is Aang. The Avatar and the Fire Prince who later becomes Fire Lord, a direct parallel to Roku and Sozin who started as friends and ended as enemies while they started as enemies and ended up friends. The boy who fights with positive jing, and the boy who prefers negative jing. The boy who was scared of his destiny and ran away, and the boy who was desperate to find his destiny and wanted to run towards it, wrongly believing it was capturing Aang. The Avatar whose destiny is redeeming Roku as the Avatar and stop the war, and the Fire Prince whose destiny is helping the Avatar and redeem himself and the Fire Nation. Aang, who thought he had to choose between being the Avatar and his beliefs as an Air Nomad and realizing he could actually have both, and Zuko who thought he had to capture the Avatar to achieve his destiny as the Fire Lord and later realizing his destiny was actually helping the Avatar and also being the Fire Lord. The cinematography of the show itself shows their parallelisms MANY times, the most obvious one being Aang being represented by the red dragon and Zuko by the blue dragon-- which are a reference to yin and yang. Because ships aside and all, it's not Zuko and Katara, but Zuko and Aang who are the representation of yin and yang in Avatar the Last Airbender.

[undertheredhood]

Doctor Elise Qi Rong AU

in which shortly after dying in canon (i know that since his ashes weren’t destroyed that he’s probably still alive but please bear with me), qi rong finds himself reincarnated in the modern world and decides that in this life he's going to become someone that guzi would proudly call his father (nevermind the fact that the kid loves him just the way he is), and decides that in order for that to happen, he’s going to become a doctor and save lives and he ends up becoming a super accomplished surgeon with an extremely high success rate.

unfortunately while on his way home from a hospital shift, he ends up getting hit by a truck (you know i had to include truck-kun in this au!) and when he wakes up, he’s in his bedroom back when he was still prince xiao jing of xianle.

the good news is that he can be reunited with guzi again, the bad news is that he’s going to have to wait 800 years before the reunion can happen.

so because he can't really do anything but wait, qi rong decides that he's going to continue his work as a doctor and he ends up accidentally single-handedly revolutionizing ancient china's world of medicine along the way.

[ifjenn]

[rp-guzi]

Lord guzi, does your father talk about his parents at all? I mean, he is such a good father to you so he must’ve had a good father too

*sits down next to you*

I probably shouldn't talk too much about it since it's his private life. It might be better to ask him. Keep this between just us, alright?

But... no. My dad believes that men from Yong An are all vicious monsters on the inside. His father was from Yong An. Make of that what you will.

ᵐʸ ᵒʷⁿ ᵉˣᵖᵉʳᶦᵉⁿᶜᵉ ᵈᵒᵉˢⁿ'ᵗ ᵉˣᵃᶜᵗˡʸ ᶜᵒⁿᵗʳᵃᵈᶦᶜᵗ ᵗʰᵃᵗ

His mother was a good person, I think, but died when he was young. His Auntie the Xian Le Queen at least treated him nicely sometimes, but she never really prioritized him. We went to visit her body shortly after he became my dad. He told her how hurt he was about running into his cousin again.

And then he showed up and we hid and... well, the story of the rest of what happened is common gossip, so you probably know. My dad acted like he didn't care about the Queen's body in front of Scrap Gege. I didn't know him well at the time but looking back I can tell he was just putting on a tough face. He didn't know she was going to fall apart like that. He felt bad about what happened.

He didn't have anyone growing up that cared about him the way he cares about me.

I may not have been there for him when he was little and needed someone, when he was Prince Xiao Jing, but he has me now. I'm here. I care about him.

[zhoudadudugongjin]

[convenientalias]

SVSS Fic Rec List

I figured I'd make a fic rec list for the Scum Villain fics I've been reading lately, since that's been a large portion of my recent fic reading. It's 90% Luo Binghe/Shen Yuan, I am a simple woman. (I'm calling SQQ Shen Yuan for this list and original!SQQ Shen Jiu, to avoid confusion.)

Multichapter Fics:

Run For Cover--Modern setting, Shen Yuan summons a dangerous demon. Quite a bit of attempted murder!!! 56k.

If Marriage Was an Olympic Sport--Shen Yuan gets wifeplotted into a marriage hunt. Binghe, fresh out of the abyss, joins the fun. 34k.

Tarnished Gold--Binghe schemes against Gongyi-Xiao!Shen Yuan, and tries not to catch feelings. Immensely slow burn but I was living for it. 118k.

Heartbreak and Other Foreplay--Modern setting, Luo Binghe mistakes Shen Yuan for Shen Jiu and seduces him with revenge in mind. The misunderstanding doesn't last too long but it does cause some chaos. Also, this AU still has cultivation (and, notably, dual cultivation). 108k.

raised by winter winds--Shen Yuan transmigrates into a random Qing Jing disciple and becomes Shen Jiu's head disciple (their relationship is a complicated mess). When Luo Binghe arrives, he asks if he can take Luo Binghe as a pet. 35k.

you are who you love--Shen Yuan gets selective amnesia and forgets about Binghe post-canon. Binghe must seduce him in order to cure said amnesia the same way PIDW cures everything. 38k.

Tongfang--Shen Yuan transmigrates into a sickly young master who canonically is supposed to be a murder victim. Binghe is loaned out by Cang Qiong to work there seasonally. 24k.

Oneshots Or Short Enough I'm Pretending They're Oneshots:

Imposter Syndrome--Shen Yuan, Luo Binghe, Shang Qinghua, Liu Qingge, and Yue Qingyuan run into a doppelganger situation (Dungeon Meshi style, apparently, but easy to understand if you haven't watched Dungeon Meshi--I haven't). 11k.

petal and vine--Plant!Shen Yuan with amnesia, after Huayue City. 5k.

right from the start, i gave you my heart--Jinlan City confrontations grow more complicated when Shen Yuan gets pollened by an obedience curse flower. 11k.

I Want You To Be Happier--Shen Yuan gets full blown amnesia in Jinlan City. Binghe claims they're married and runs away with him. 12k.

Medical Diplomacy--Post-Abyss Binghe finagles an arranged marriage with Shen Yuan, leveraging that he can cure Without a Cure. 12k.

Consanguine--Prince!Shen Yuan and now-Emperor!Luo Binghe (they're siblings... sort of) are reunited after some misunderstandings of the past.

suno to zaraa ye phoolon ki vaadi--Plant!Shang Qinghua after Shang Qinghua gets killed, but he starts out as a tiny small child due to some miscalculations. Rare Mobei-jun/Shang Qinghua fic on this list!! 9k.

Cold Hands, Warm Heart--Unable to use spiritual power and stranded in the middle of nowhere, Mobei-jun has to watch while Shang Qinghua gets worsening hypothermia. The h/c is incredible. 16k. Once again MobeiShang!!! 16k.

Plastromancy--Shen Yuan is the Other Shizun in a sort of a Coraline AU. 16k.

I'd be interested in seeing recs from anyone else :D<3

[prince-liest]

was recently talking to a friend about qi rong which then lead to me going on a reread of my favorite qi rong fic EVER, and now I’m in my feels about him, his relationship with his family, and his relationship with xie lian and guzi.

I just love qi rong a lot. to be clear, he’s a horrible little gremlin and that is a lot of WHY I love him - but I also think that fundamentally qi rong is a character who is super traumatized but does not receive sympathy for that trauma because he is not traumatized in a “palatable” way which is a trend that starts when he is young and just never ends, canonically, at any point in his life

right from the bat: the first 5 years of his life, he's being physically and emotionally abused, he's cast out to live in a shed, his mom is forgotten by her family. by the time she finally escapes his abusive father and goes back to the palace, her elopement with him has been swept under the rug and most people don't actually know what happened - and are then weirded out by her and qi rong, causing all the children and even most adults around qi rong to basically refuse to interact with him. so he's abused and hated, then isolated to the point where nobody talks to him, nobody plays with him. the one time he thinks he succeeded at attempting to make some friends, it turns out that they tricked him into writing a death wish for himself and his mother on his lantern.

and all the while, he's watching xie lian and the adulation he receives, not understanding why xie lian gets those things and he does not. everyone always says he looks like xie lian. he’s even called xiao jing, like he’s a mirror of the crown prince. what’s the difference?

and then xie lian himself is the only person aside from his own mother to be genuinely kind to qi rong. qi rong is desperately lonely, envious and fixated on the cousin that nobody will stop comparing him to, and then said cousin is the only person to reach out to him with kindness. of course he wants to attach himself to xie lian and emulate him.

unfortunately for both of them, then his mother dies - not just randomly, but specifically in defense of xie lian’s mother, and having extracted a promise for xie lian’s parents to care for qi rong. however, things don’t actually change at that point. sure, they take him in and buy him whatever he wants, but as far as love and care are concerned, xie lian is really the only potential source of those things left for qi rong. xie lian is also a teenager with a lot of pressure on his shoulders and a lack of understanding of difficult situations. of course he doesn’t know how to raise his traumatized, misbehaving cousin! and nobody else bothers to. it’s deeply unfair for xie lian to be used as the singular tool to discipline and direct qi rong, and that directly contributes to their extremely soured relationship.

now that qi rong’s mother is dead, there is nobody left around that actually wants him or is willing to put effort into properly raising him. when a kid turns out as wild as qi rong - that's not just random happenstance, that happens because they weren't parented right (or at all). he acts out in increasingly insane ways for the attention everyone hates to give him - anyone's, but especially xie lian's, which sucks for xie lian because it should have been his parents providing qi rong with an authority figure and source of love, not xie lian's teenage self. and people respond by waving him off, giving him whatever he wants just to make him go away, and ignoring him, because he has a deeply off-putting personality.

and it causes everyone around qi rong to resent him in this vicious cycle that escalates his behavior because he doesn't know what else to do - until eventually even xie lian, the one person that he really looked up to, hates him too.

obviously qi rong is an awful person by the point we reach in canon, but I also think that if he had received regular hugs as a child and maybe some actual parenting from someone who didn’t beat him, instead of just being given a bunch of money and being told to fuck off

specifically because he was weird and traumatized and unlikeable

things would have turned out very different for him. because he very clearly tries - that’s one thing that’s very clear in the flashbacks and even continues to modern canon: qi rong really tries to get love and attention, and when that doesn’t work, he just escalates to “any attention, bad attention, attention that proves I’m worth something, proves wrong all the people saying the supposedly-amazing cousin that took away my only source of kindness when he started hating me, is so much better than me”. he starts out an awkward, off-putting kid and ends up the night-touring green lantern. of course he holds enough resentment to end up a calamity. his cannibalism shtick doesn’t even read as genuine to me, it just seems like he picked out “what’s the worst, most attention-grabbing thing I can possibly be to pre-emptively justify everyone’s disgust in me” and landed on that.

(see also: I think it’s hysterical that he has very strong opinions and abilities as pertains to gourmet cooking, and then just uses them to lure in victims so that he can have his meal of Raw Unseasoned Human Flesh. you can’t tell me he’s doing it for anything other than the bit at this point.)

and that’s also why I think his weirdly wholesome relationship with guzi also makes a lot of sense. qi rong is a shockingly decent father to him (eventually), probably in part because he overidentifies with guzi also being abused by his father, but also, because guzi is literally just a kid and therefore is not someone that yet has the capacity to have all these preconceptions about qi rong, nor for qi rong to read into his words and be insulted, because. that's just a kid. there’s nothing to read into.

I think his treatment of guzi (eventually) shows that he's capable of being at least kind of decent (or at least functional), he's just never been in a circumstance where his trauma and relationships let it happen. his material life was always supplied for, but his emotional and familial environment in xianle was invariably toxic for him.

anyway, I think qi rong needs a shower and a hug, in that order, and then to be forced to learn to interact with people who don't immediately assume the worst of him. thanks for coming to my TED talk, I know it was long as hell.