#i am agreeing with you anon the majority of bingjiu is disappointing and ooc

[endlessburningdarkness]

well for me personally anon i find bingqiu and qiujiu boring because neither of the characters can really challenge each other. bingqiu is just toddler x parent to me because of how shen yuan has to manage luo binghe's emotions like a child, that's not an emotionally appealing dynamic to me bc its too much like a long suffering woman with a manchild partner. it's a gross dynamic tbh.

that the relationship is built on a lie is also off putting, luo binghe has no idea shen yuan exists, and continues to think he's shen qingqiu (jiu). shen yuan also chooses to keep the secret and from my reading doesn't seem to genuinely be attracted to or love luo binghe. qiujiu similarly has yue qi being unwilling to tell shen jiu the truth for the sake of his own emotional comfort, he comes across as cruel in that, prioritising his own emotions than both the truth and shen jiu's happiness.

this childish, juvenile behaviour doesn't appeal to me.

bingjiu on the other hand hate each other and are honest about it. they have an emotional honesty and connection that the others simply don't. personally i prefer honest hate over shallow love built on lies. as you yourself noted bingjiu have a parallel issue that is connected, they both faced the similar abuse and can relate to each other in way the other characters can't. if there's anyone that can understand how luo binghe felt in the woodshed after being beaten, its shen jiu and vice versa.

you can see the appeal in getting them to speak and engage about these similarities and perhaps resolve them, including all the toxic behaviour it would result in. i totally agree with you about people turning shen jiu into this toothless kitten who just gets battered is terrible and off-putting and more importantly, it's boring! it's the reason why i started writing my own fics where shen jiu is as vicious and cruel in canon and luo binghe isn't an overgrown toddler simp.

i want the clash and the toxicity and the challenge of getting these two characters who fucking loath each other to see each other and find common ground and understanding because the potential they have to really connect is incredibly compelling.

it's unfortunate that the majority of bingjiu is exactly as you said, just turning them into edgy bingqiu but that is generally what happens. even bingqiu in canon is a gentler version of the more toxic dynamic because that's not the story most people want. people want to have the dramatic "romantic" relationship, not the realistic toxic one which explores the the impact of abuse seriously. the majority of bingjiu puts me off as well as shen jiu is completely out of character, wanting to have kids, wanting to be fucked, hating himself more than he hates luo binghe and giving into luo binghe immediately for some reason.

despite the majority of bingjiu being like how you described there are many of us who like the toxicity and hate between them and are compelled by exploring their rich, complex and heavy dynamic in an honest and realistic way.

if you are compelled by the real bingjiu (and it seems you are) i welcome you to try out my fic in spite. an in character bingjiu that doesn't remove shen jiu's agency or hate or cruelty, or turn luo binghe into a one-dimensional villain type. i'd be very interested to hear your thoughts on that if you do try it.

at the end of the day we all have our own interpretations and preferences, and it's perfectly fine. it's also healthy to avoid things you don't like and not harassing people who do like it so well done for that!

i hope this response gives you a little bit of insight into why people like bingjiu and assure you that there are people who are compelled by the real characters in the books. not everyone wants to turn them into ooc dolls like the vast majority of fic. you are not alone in your frustration regarding that, i share it. again, why i write my own fics of bingjiu.

i like bingjiu in character, they're the best toxic4toxic couple who have to be dragged kicking and screaming just to talk without insulting each other. they have so much potential for hate, love and understanding that the other pairings really don't compare.

i cannot understand most ppl who like bingjiu (luo binghe x shen jiu).

theoretically, i can understand the appeal of them as toxic yaoi even if it doesn't appeal to me personally - adult bingge having a twistex psychosexual fixation on this figure of loathing from his childhood, yeah i understand - the ppl who i dont get are the ones who try to turn it into something sweepingly romantic like bingqiu. sy and sj are different characters. having binghe act a different way in a fic in order to stop original sqq hurting him is gross victim-blamey narratively, but it also just doesn't make sense to me; binghe is not important to shen jiu except as an object of envy and resentment for his seeming inability to fail in his cultivation despite everything. the one who needs to change his behaviour to start the healing and break the cycle for shen jiu is yue qi, not binghe. yue qi is the one who sj thought loved and cared for him when they were both at their lowest, only to believe later it wasn’t true because yqy refused to reveal that he was impulsive and failed him. by now he has given in to and is set in the deepdown belief that the entire rest of the world has beaten into him, that he is an unlovable monster hiding himself behind silk robes and fans - some extraneous prodigy disciple (who he only took in to ruin, to pay him back for getting the opportunity shen jiu didn't, to try and prove to himself that anyone would fall low when under a master with malicious intent) admiring that facade wouldn't matter to him.

and binghe didn't stay a 'white lotus' as a disciple the whole way through his disciplehood, indeed i think a big sum of that appearance was fawning behaviour to try and regain his master's favour, that slowly became the cover for more and more resentment in pidw proper. it was only after literally taking a hit of qi-crippling poison for him that shen qingqiu really managed to fully win binghe over in canon and make the wary hope of his master's attitude change into sincere total care for the man as a figure of love in his life. the original sqq would never have done such a thing, and binghe would never have grown to care enough for the resentful teacher trying to kill him to be willing to look past his abuse and excuse it because of a sob story.

i guess it's just another case of ppl using the characters as dolls to smoosh together rather than trying to base it at least somewhat on canon. i just usually see that in fandoms where the source text is really quite bad so it's only good as a toybox to take characters from. sv is rly good, the pathos for the characters laid out and indirectly implied in the novels and the extras is so compelling, and i can't understand not prefering to try to explore that rather than just making shen jiu into an entirely agencyless meowmeow rather than a man who is willing to choose to be seen as evil and act cruelly, over being without choice and weak and vulnerable (even in the end, he chooses to let himself be imprisoned, chooses to self-destruct before letting someone else force it on him), and bingge isn't just a mindless dog desperate for love /no matter what/. the world - and shen jiu - crushed his childish hope for a peaceful domestic life, now he will crush them and force them to kneel before him in turn (or try to in shen jiu's case). they have parallel issues because it's a self-reproducing cycle violence of ppl being crushed down and having nobody recognise what care they needed and be willing to give it to them.

i suppose it boils down to the fact that other often crack-ily cutesified fanon couples - take gongzhi, or jiuyuan - don't have nearly so complex, so rich a relationship in canon that is such a total antithesis to that treatment. at the end of the day of course i'm not gonna go near these ppls fics, fanarts and ruin their spaces because this is a discussion of fiction not a battlefield, i'm just stating an opinion based on the actual text (which i admittedly adore) and my interpretation of it as of my most recent reread

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