#if no one will appreciate sqh then i will have to make them

[disgracefulthings]

My stories so far

Mobei-Jun: 'Says something nice about Shang Qinghua'

Shang Qinghua, crying: No one has ever said a nice thing to me

[sunderwight]

With moshang I think I'm equally fond of the possibilities/concepts where either Shang Qinghua is ludicrously attractive to demons in a broad sense (but doesn't realize it), or, where Shang Qinghua is just some weird little gremlin and everyone else cannot wrap their head around why THE Mobei Jun is so smug about seducing this man.

Or a combination, where no demon in their right mind would ordinarily look at Shang Qinghua and perceive a sex icon, but because such a high-ranking demon has clearly done so, they go "well there must be SOMETHING going on there" and then look closer and before they know it they're on the slippery slope to being horny about a guy who could help file their taxes or arrange to have their clan base's faulty plumbing fixed.

Basically it's all good. Demons en mass going "yeah yeah big scary dudes who punch good are a dime a fucking dozen around here, but do you know how hot someone who can skillfully use an abacus is?" vs demons going "the ice king is a respectable ruler but he has garbage taste in men, we all just smile and politely nod while he insists the weird rat guy he fixated on as a teenager is a catch" vs demons going "I really don't see the appeal -- wait he did what? he killed how many guys at once with 1 trick? he betrayed WHOMST? and lived?! and he knows how to get my door to stop making horrible squeaky noises?! okay yeah figures the king would marry him" but every option is a winner.

I'm also a big fan of both Shen Qingqiu and Shang Qinghua being not very attractive to demons in general, but it also being really common for demons to get super weird about first crushes and fixate hard on them, so in that sense they are completely normal choices for a couple of high-level demons to marry. Like the demon populace can appreciate the emperor actually landing his hot teacher and the king successfully marrying his teenage sweetheart. It's an idealized fantasy in terms of the scenarios, even if the actual guys are just weird humans. Nearly every average demon has lifelong daydreams about successfully seducing their first crush, so regardless of who those crushes turned out to be it's still a power move for LBH and MBJ to actually succeed.

Bonus if the fact that both SQQ and SQH are peak lords from the same sect leads to a bunch of demon kids developing crushes on the other remaining, unattached peak lords, and chaos ensuing. Especially for Liu Qingge. I think it would be funny for him to gain a flock of teenage demons with crushes, whom he keeps trying to fight off, only to discover that beating them up does NOT discourage them at all (actually makes the crushes worse). Or Yue Qingyuan getting mobbed like he's a pop star any time he makes a diplomatic visit to the demon realms. Sha Hualing deciding that she's just waiting for Liu Mingyan to become a peak lord before they make things official, since That's Obviously How It's Done, or Qi Qingqi doing a head count one day and realizing she suddenly has a bunch of unfamiliar "guest" disciples who sigh at her a lot and have funny-colored eyes...

[andhumanslovedstories]

chapter eleven of what feels like the most soap opera ass fic I've ever written and then just a bunch of thoughts about writing it, which contains vague spoilers for my plans:

The inception of the fic basically went like this:

haha lol i'd be fun if sqq got real mad at the state of education

what would need to happen in this fic that doesn't happen in canon to motivate him to do something about it

oh shit he didn't unlock OOC so he has to figure out how to be his coddling indulgent self (which he's in denial about) while also being shen jiu

But the thing that really made the story get so much bigger in scope was when I was reading a fic with yqy coming clean to sj, and sj being like, "GASP. I forgive you." And I was "I simply do not believe that this is how it would happen." And I would have moved on with my life, but then I thought, "but like how would it happen." And more importantly, how could this conversation happen within the canon timeline but still involve Shen Jiu, the person this information affects.

The OOC idea and the need for Shen Jiu to be present in this fight scene came together to be like "what if sqq got sj's memories so he could rules-lawyer his characterization more accurately, and ends up being furious on sj's behalf?"

(This, btw, is why I knew I had to get much fonder of YQY and get a much better understanding of his character. When a pillar of your fic idea is a character getting ripped into for his choices, it is sooooooo easy to for it to come off as the author yelling their personal opinions or for it to be completely flat character bashing. Neither are interesting to read or write! Hence the crash-course in YQY appreciation, so now he gets his own emotional arc too. Everyone gets a goddamn plotline.)

Meanwhile I was also thinking about the implications of downloading another person's life into your head. If you have their memories and their body, are you them? What makes you not them? I didn't know! I sort of just kept writing and posting with the assumption that I'd figure something out, which I've finally nailed down btw. That's a relief! Also kinda the fun of WIPs where you're building the railroad track as you're on the train. I end up fanficing my own fanfic. Once stuff is posted, that's the canon, and I look at it and think, "if this was a book I was reading, what is the way I would extrapolate what's there to make a new but coherent story?"

That's why my outline becomes pretty useless after a while. The big picture doesn't change too much--I know roughly where all the major characters are going to be emotionally by the end of the story--but I discover the path I'm going to take there. Which usually means adding stuff. Liu Qingge wasn't going to get a POV, and now every chapter I'm like "fuck am I building a throuple". Ming Fan will have waaaay more a story line than I originally conceived. Early on, I was like "eh I'm not going to go too far into the brothel stuff," and can you guess what is going to be coming up prominently in the next few chapters? God help me.

Actually, there's only one major part of the outline that I cut: Shang Qinghua. He was originally very prominent early on, but turns out having the literal Word of God in a story about slowly discovering backstory is difficult to reconcile. So sadly, he doesn't get a real role. If you're curious, the original plan for him was that SQQ would realize he's a transmigrator much earlier in the canon, but the System would be like [shen jiu would not tell shang qinghua he is a transmigrator. ooc] which would lead to this series of SQQ trying to figure out how he can communicate around this. SQQ at a peak meeting being like, "do you think these DEMONS are PROUD of having made their WAY to us IMMORTALS?" while SQH is like, "AM I HAVING A STROKE?"

What's some other stuff about this fic? I've got a lot of thoughts bottled up, in part because I'm kinda snobby tbh in how I post. I'm like "*pushes glasses up my nose* the author's takes on the story should not be unavoidably present when reading the text" so I don't like to use ao3's author's notes. It's ridiculous and not a standard I hold anyone else too, but whenever I find myself wanting to address something in the notes, I know I must feel insecure about that part of the story. So either fix it or don't draw attention to it. But this is fine, you have to come here for this. This is DVD commentary.

My favorite part of writing this fic has been balancing Shen Jiu's character. As I'm fleshing out his sad backstory, I've been wary of essentially woobifying him. Reducing him to just someone who greatly suffered is so boring and flat. He NEEDS to suck. Or more accurately, he needs to be a very imperfect victim. Exasperating at his mildest, despicable at his worst. (Truthfully, I do think I can and should make him worse. Luckily this story is nothing but flashbacks to him at his worst so there's plenty of opportunities.)

This whole mental breakdown section has been an interesting balancing act because it's explicitly about how bad Shen Jiu's life was and now how bad Shen Qingqiu's is. It's the point at which I had to decide how torturous his time at the Qiu manor had been (me and Shen Qingqiu really discovered that together). On a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the absolute worst saddest brutalist ideas I had for this era in his life, I'd say I settled on about a 7. Most of it is backstage in my head, but once I locked that down, I could start figuring out how much was bleeding through.

Anyway, it's been fun writing the angstfest of the last few chapters, but oh my god am I ready for a tone shift. There's usually jokes in my works, even the saddest bits, but jokes relieve tension which is the opposite of what I was going for. I didn't want any humor in the YQY conversation, then you have to keep not joking for a while to get the point across. There's still a lot of planned emotional shit, but I'm happy to not be wallowing for a while.

AND GOD AS MY WITNESS THIS STORY WILL NOT BE LONGER THAN 20 CHAPTERS. MAYBE IT'LL EVEN BE LESS!! IT IS DEFINITELY NOT GOING TO BE A WHOLE CANON REWRITE. PROBABLY!! IF TIANLANG JUN HAS ANY SIGNIFICANT SCREEN TIME, PLEASE KNOW THAT I HAVE FAILED.

[anachronismstellar]

SQH x YQY 👀 I wanna see your take so bad

Hmmmm Tbh what I imagine is something like-

---

They were both working quietly, the meeting long finished, the only sounds the tec tec tec of Shang Qinghua's abacus as the peak lord moved the wooden pieces up and down, pausing from time to time to take notes.

Having just finished a report, Yue Qingyuan couldn't help but turn his eyes to his shidi, noticing his focused expression as Shang Qinghua mumbled numbers upon numbers under his breath. It never failed to impress him how fast the other was able to add ridiculously high numbers, or how Shang-shidi seemed to look at one artifact and know how much it was worth.

Another thing that Yue Qingyuan could appreciate was his efficiency. No matter how much the other peak lords brushed off his forms and failed to hand them on time, Shang Qinghua seemed to know everything that had been used or collected from their missions, as if he had eyes and ears everywhere. It made Yue Qingyuan grateful for his Shidi loyalty, otherwise they would be in a huge amount of trouble.

"Whatever it is that is making Zhangmen-Shixiong stare this much instead of asking, the answer is no, we have just finished with the annual budget, we can't change it," Shang Qinghua said without taking his eyes from the paper in front of him, making Yue Qingyuan chuckle.

"I was just admiring Shang-shidi's skill. You have very nimble fingers," he complimented as he put his own brush down. A small pause would do them good, they had been working for hours now. He was about to stand up to start the tea when Shang Qinghua snorted, a "You should see what else they could," low enough for Yue Qingyuan to realize he wasn't supposed to hear that, but loud enough for him to not have misheard.

The following pause was loud by itself, like the quiet before the thunder.

"I should go," Shang-shidi started to gather all the paper he had just written down, ruining many reports with smeared ink, color crawing up his neck until his whole face was beet red.

"Shang-"

"I just remembered I had a meeting with uh Shen- With Liu-shidi! Yes! And it wouldn't be good to leave him waiting so-"

While Shang Qinghua rushed to grab everything, Yue Qingyuan got closer, gently taking the papers from his hands, holding back his amusement. It wouldn't be kind to laugh at his shidi, even though his flustering was a bit funny.

Yue Qingyuan had a sense of humor, his job just made it hard to demonstrate it.

"Shang-shidi is fine, just got me off guard, that's all. I didn't know shidi had such... Inclinations."

"I mean, with all due respect Zhangmen-Shixiong, you're very handsome man, and you were kinda staring at me like that, then you made that comment, it's hard to not think you were, y'know, making a move, but I'll shut up now, we can pretend this never happened, and-"

Yue Qingyuan's felt his own face getting warmer. It had been a while since someone had been so honest with him, it felt refreshing.

He thought of judging eyes over a painted fan, his heart skipping a beat as he swallowed dry.

"What if I don't wanna pretend?" He heard himself say, and then it was his turn to blush as Shang Qinghua eyebrows rose all the way up to his hairline, warm brown eyes blown wide with surprise.

"Uh- I-"

"I apologize, Shang-shidi, this one didn't mean to make you uncomfortable," he whispered as he went to take a step back. They're both stressed and it was getting late, maybe they should wrap it up for the day-

Bitten nails softly scrapped his cheek as the scent of ink filled his senses. He turned his face towards Shang Qinghua, surprised by warm lips against his as a strong hand pulled him closer to an embrace. For many seconds, it had been a chaste press of mouths until he dared to bite down Shang Qinghua's lower lip, chasing the taste of jasmine tea they had been drinking earlier, the heat crawling down from his face all the way to his chest. Shang Qinghua's warmth an addicting feeling as the An Ding Peak lord worked on his robes, opening them with an impressive speed.

And then, hours later, with both of them panting, sweat cooling down their skin, Yue Qingyuan laughed as he kissed Shang-shidi's hand.

"Nimble fingers indeed."

[nibbelraz]

SQH + An Ding Idea

-An Ding runs similar to a sort of college campus, everyone writes about An Ding basically doing everything for the whole peak.

(Architecture, Accounting, Business, Operations, Textiles, etc. etc.)

There's no way every disciple can learn all of the things An Ding does, and be able to perform them to a high quality.

So, perhaps SQH is the one who starts it because he realizes how kind of fucked the An Ding mechanics are. (Or system helped out, or possibly SQH god powers because that little guy is real busy and instituting all of these plans would take a whole long time)

But An Ding ends up running like some sort of campus, with a bunch of disciples specializing in different areas. Younger disciples take all of the essential classes, and then pick one or multiple areas of study/specialization. And they get real good at them, because specialization and not covering a million jobs at once means quality goes up. And I think SQH would just take in kids at the masses, just gathering up pretty much any kid with no place to go even if they have no real cultivation potential. Because running An Ding means they need a large number of disciples. He has a recruiting system or something, so there's a little girl in the street who fashioned her rags into a slightly cuter skirt. And an An Ding person is like 'hey, you like fashion? Textiles? You can do that for as long as you want if you join An Ding.' room, board, safety all for people who enjoy these sorts of trades to be able to specialize them and produce all the things the sects need. Street kids who are good with numbers or good with carpentry get taken into An Ding, no cultivation potential needed just kids who have passions but no way to enjoy them in their current situations.

This would also mean so much less outsourcing for the peak, much easier to work in house if it can be set up correctly.

Do the An Ding kids still get pushed around and shit on by other peaks, yeah for sure none of those peaks ever appreciate all the work An Ding does. But these kids are fine anyways because as soon as they get back on An Ding their solid, their doing what they enjoy and what they're good at. Who cares if some buff bai zhan kid teases them for being An Ding, they get to go to woodshop after this and the hall master is teaching embellishments and decor carving!

(one of the req. Classes would be a year long 'how to deal with Bai Zhan' training)

OH MAN OHHHH MAN I LOVE THIS IDEA SO MUCH??? OHHHHH THIS IS GOOD YES YES A THOUSAND PERCENT

Qinghua running the peak that has each category to specialize in is great. They handle literally everything for course they need more man power and of COURSE THEY NEED PEOPLE TO LEARN SOME THINGS THAT ARE VERY SPECIFIC INSTEAD OF A THOUSAND THINGS AT ONCE ohhh OH I love the does that he takes in just anyone

I wonder if he takes in whoever doesn't make it from the other peaks. "Trust me you don't want to be at Bai Zhan peak. You actually get to do what you like here" also I feel like there has to be a group that does the heavy lifting from all the stuff they get so there IS a group that are ready to fight anyone who picks on the other An Ding kids

This means An Ding must have the most disciples of course its HUGE, imagine if he doesn't tell the other peak lords

He's just like "fuck it what are they going to do? Tell me I can't when efficiency has SKYROCKETED AFTER MY SYSTEM!"

Yes YES i would read a fic with this premise so FAST I absolutely love this idea

Wonder what the whole "campus" of kids think when Mobei Jun starts popping in randomly

[oh-no-its-bird]

Also, the detail of Houhua!SQH checking out the expensive earrings because the color reminded him of MBJ is heartbreaking. Kinda hope MBJ got isekai'd w/ him

I ACTUALLY THOUGHT ABOUT IF MBJ HAD GOTTEN ISEKAI'D WITH HIM AND I KIND OF REALLY WANT HIM TO BE!! I think it'd be normal reincarnation for him, he doesn't remember their past life, which just makes things more painful for Houhua actually.

Houhua is falling over himself trying to see if he remembers him but is getting nothing !! Sorry Houhua <3

I think he'd be from another village and they wouldn't bump into each other till way later down the line. Im thinking specifically like. Him reincarnating into the same clan as Haku actually. Don't they have some sort of bloodline limit that revolves around ice? I need that. Desperately.

Maybe in a parallel to SVSSS, MBJ here wants to become Kiri's Kage? Idk how thatd work, but like putting that on the table. But like him being a rogue nin, possibly not knowing that Haku survived the culling of their clan (omg he finally has a family he can have an actual positive relationship with! He just,, needs to find him first)

Houhua is straight up ready to drop everything he's been working at in Konoha to go to his kings side but MBJ does not remember his ass and would not know how to appreciate it correctly

I want them to meet and like, obviously MBJ is warry of this Konoha shinobi, but Houhua is incredibly uncharacteristically eager to help him out (which alarms and confuses whatever teammates hes with at the time) and ends up going out of his way to help him somehow

MBJ is left thinking he's a fucking idiot, real Konoha "friendship is magic" breed, and is incredibly confused by the kindness he was shown by him but kind of ends up chalking it up to just. "fucking konoha weirdos and their reputation for being soft"

(Meanwhile Houhua's teammates are giving him HELLA side eye rn, who are you and what happened to their cowardly, Uchiha "we must always choose our own interests over others, especially outside the village walls" Houhua)

(,,,they absoloutley think Houhua has a hopeless crush on the nukenin. Nothing Houhua does or says from this point on will change this assumption.)

(To be fair, they aren't,,, wrong?)

Some time later one of his teammates gives Houhua a cut out of MBJ from a bingo book, meaning it as a joke to tease Houhua, and the cut out ends up meaning much more to Houhua than anyone might have guessed.

(Even later, when they met again, Houhua ends up dropping the little picture where MBJ sees and MBJ is deeply confused by it)

Anyways what would MBJ go by here? I changed SQH's name to better fit the setting plus to draw a clear line between Shang Quinghua and Uchiha Houhua

Tbh I feel like just "Jun" works pretty well? I feel like it's also similar enough Haku's short n sweet name to be able to squint and wave a vague hand at them being related, like, on a surface level, idk, does that make sense?

ANYWHO YEAH !!! Houhua and Jun my beloveds <3

[horsegirlwarcrimes]

what’s ur fav pairing involving sqh and please elaborate in as much detail as humanly possible 🙏🏽🙏🏽 personally im all for js abt anyone / sqh because i believe he’s just a guy and yet..every relationship he has is meaningful to me

omg a great question 👀👀👀

i have to admit i am a basic moshang lover at heart, they are just the perfect combo of angst/genuine emotions/beautiful themes and very funny that i love. shang qinghua is mr. boop and also mobei-jun's god and the jaken to his sesshomaru. mobei jun is his blorbo and his abuser and his annoying boss. they have a 20-30 year age difference. they dont even get together at the end of the moshang extras they just continue to have a weird boss/employee relationship and someday get their shit together off-screen. its everything to me

when writing moshang, i think the best things for me are the available tension of mobei jun's treatment of shang qinghua, contrasted against the genuine softness i think mobei jun feels for him and shang qinghua's deeply ingrained self worth issues. its just such a delicious cocktail for both drama and sweetness! and for some reason when together, they give me that very solid 'married couple who can basically psychically communicate' vibe, compared to bingqiu's messy freudian college girl energy (also beloved to me)

THAT SAID. i do think there are other very fun or funny pairings for sqh that i would love to see more of tbh.

A) SQH/YQY. this is mostly just because i love @tossawary's hey, share the weight a little, which is so cute and honestly mostly comes down to 'two great tastes that taste great together' for me. not my fav for either of them but deserves honorable mention for being the main non-moshang sqh pairing with a fic i love

B) SQH/LQG. i think that shang qinghua gets him. he COULD fix him, by which in this case i mean use his mildly conniving nature, excellent planning skills, and sneakiness to improve liu qingge's quality of life through trickery. and i think that shang qinghua could really benefit from a loving and devoted partner who doesn't have that much more emotional intelligence than him, but who would make him eat full meals, sleep, and get some fresh air.

C) SQH/TLJ - SQH/TLJ/SXY - SQH/SXY... its just so funny. i think they could be enchanted by his weird little man swag. his mildly evil heart and his big brown eyes. and i think he'd find them mildly unsettling which is also funny

D) MQF/SQH. i have never seen or written any content for this but i kind of want it very badly now that ive thought of it. sqh can get rare and weird information for him, mqf would be 'i can fix him' for sqh's crippling anxiety and tendency to get injured by demons, they are both workaholics... this would be a magical combo

i do sometimes read cumplane and think they can be very fun and/or cute, but its not really a fav sqh pairing of mine, nor is sqh/og!sqq, altho ik those are probably the other two most popular pairings for him. i just think he should be w someone who appreciates how smart he is and idk that either of them do that for me... they, in turn, seem to me like guys who want to be the smart one in a relationship 😂

anyways i really took 'in as much detail as possible' and ran with it so i hope this answers your question hahaha. many thoughts about this man that live in my brain 😌

[rarepears]

This is the Shen Jiu marries an Arabian prince and gets super into astronomy anon, but I just thought of like.

So, the Arabs do a lot as merchants. Which would probably put them mainly in contact with Shang Qinghua.

It makes me wonder if transmigrator!SQH ended up negotiating a contract with the besotted prince and went "I CAN GET MY POOR LITTLE MEOW MEOW OUT OF HERE AND STOP FEELING LIKE SHIT OVER HOW HIS STORY ENDED!!!!" and proceeded to immediately do everything in his power to make that marriage happen because while he has zero confidence that dropping Shen Jiu in the lap of someone who adores him unconditionally will fix him now or ever, it definitely can't make things worse, and will in fact go a very long way to preventing things getting worse.

Also makes me think of SQH eventually being like the only one Shen Jiu kept in contact with, because yes he's annoying and pitiful, but when he was pulling the "marry Shen Jiu to besotted foreign royalty" bandwagon, it wasn't because he wanted to get rid of him, it was because Shang Qinghua wanted Shen Jiu to be around people who liked and would appreciate him, rather than stuck rotting in Harem Drama Hell. Maybe initially they only kept in contact for trade agreement reasons (which was ostensibly the purpose of this marriage) but SQH always made sure to a) bring some of Shen Jiu's favorites from home, b) genuinely make sure he was okay, and c) check and make sure that his husband was still besotted. Maybe Shen Jiu discovered SQH had a "smuggle my scariest shixiong to......... Eh I'll figure it out" plan in the event of Shen Jiu being mistreated? Or one of his least favorite courtiers says something snide and before Shen Jiu can get a word out Shang Qinghua says something that makes the man cry with fear. Idk how they get to the point of "spiritually you are siblings" but I am having visions of Shang Qinghua and Shen Jiu drinking anachronistic coffee (bc this is Airplane's novel ofc it is) over tanghulu and red bean paste buns and not mentioning the peak lords even once. Just chatting about trade and SJ running the kingdom with his husband and fabric and cool knives. Possibly with a side of Shen Yuan being a prince (adoption? Magic? Who knows) and SQH being his favorite uncle.

.......I wonder if SQH warns Shen Jiu that Binghe is coming/keeps him updated on demonic happenings.

.................wasn't OG Rat Qinghua supposed to get murdered by MBJ for betraying him.

Oh no.

NOW I am going down rabbit holes of Moshang typical violent misunderstandings and lack of communication, except this time SQH is the adoptive younger brother of an Arabian queen, and oh God the court intrigue and politics and drama you could pull with that. Esp if Shen Jiu eventually just. Yoinks SQH. "If this ice king wants to keep you around then he's welcome to start fucking acting like it."

And ofc Shen Jiu's husband won't say shit besides "oh we gotta welcome my brother in law appropriately! Make sure he has clothes and nice rooms etc etc" because he's also familiar with the little merchant/logistics lord who is absolutely wide eyed fluffy hamster levels of ADORABLE (bc I firmly believe SQH is the cutest little thing second to nothing but White Lotus Binghe, and also oblivious to this) and correctly thinks that having SQH's spymaster/logistics capabilities working for them is a good thing.

So SQH gets a break, gets to wear some super pretty clothes, gets to never have to worry about freezing to death, or getting injured accidentally or otherwise, etc etc. The courtiers, especially the scientifically inclined ones, adore him, partly bc he's cheating using modern knowledge. But he tells such wonderful stories! And he runs things so efficiently!

The Queen is sharp and brilliant, beautiful and vicious when provoked. His younger brother is just as intelligent, but is absolutely adorable, skilled at organization and he tells the *best* stories.

(please I just want Shang Qinghua to get so much of the appreciation he craves that he doesn't even know what to do with it)

MBJ and LBH are both sulking in the demon realm bc Shen Jiu is forcing them to think about what they've done and use their words.

......ok now I want "disillusioned but naive" Binghe and "learned but foolish" Shen Yuan to get a romance. They both learn that life and the world isn't what they thought it was together. Shen Jiu is furious but Binghe has taken every bit of his running a kingdom advice to heart and is truly genuinely doing everything right. Finding out the beast refuses to so much as hold hands with A-Yuan until Shen Jiu has approved of him would, once upon a time, have caused him to double down on disapproval. Now- with his doting husband who looks thoughtfully at the pair and says, with the look on his face that means he's thinking of their own relationship, "maybe we should give him the chance to disappoint us first. Something tells me he's not going to,"- Shen Jiu sighs heavily and sets about making a true good faith attempt to finding out if Binghe and a-Yuan are suited to each other.

(the main reason he does so is because his a-Yuan loves monsters, and Binghe will be able to take him to see as many as he wants while still being single mindedly focused on keeping him safe.)

YES YES YES!

EVERYTHING IS A BIG FUCKING RED YES!

SOMEONE MAKE THIS INTO A 100K FIC BECAUSE THIS IS PERFECTION!

[More in #Shen Jiu is forced into an arranged marriage to an Arabian Prince AU]

[vodkassassin]

Vodkassassin,

No tengo algo por preguntar, solamente quería hacerte un agradecimiento.

No he logrado a sacarme SQH de la cabeza, simplemente adoro su personaje. No es de sorprender entonces, que como cualquier ser que encuentra un algo que logra causar su felicidad, haya buscado la forma de prolongar su presencia en mi vida. Es ahí donde te encontré, en el plano abstracto donde se busca la felicidad: AO3.

Tus visiones creativas y la forma en la que las expresas. Son únicas, son tuyas, y aún así decidiste compartirlas con cualquier persona para que disfrute a su antojo.

Pocas cosas me han traído el confort, tranquilidad y seguridad (¿son sinónimos? supongo que podría buscarlo en Google, pero meh) que me dan tus historias. Este último año ha sido interesante en el departamento emocional y tus historias han sido de gran ayuda en sostenerme.

¡Gracias por compartir parte de tu mente, alma y corazón!

Te deseo lo mejor en tu carrera, familia y vida, esperando que llegues a sentir al menos una fracción de la paz que tú me has compartido.

Translation:

I don't have anything to ask, I just wanted to thank you.

I haven't been able to get SQH out of my head, I just adore his character. It's not surprising then, that like any being who finds something that manages to bring happiness, I have sought a way to prolong his presence in my life. That's where I found you, in the abstract plane where happiness is sought: AO3.

Your creative visions and the way you express them. They are unique, they are yours, and yet you decided to share them with anyone to enjoy at will.

Few things have brought me the comfort, tranquility and security (are they synonyms? I suppose I could google it, but meh) that your stories give me. This last year has been interesting in the emotional department and your stories have been a great help in sustaining me.

Thank you for sharing part of your mind, soul and heart! I wish you the best in your career, family and life, hoping that you come to feel at least a fraction of the peace that you have shared with me.

Anon,

🥹🥺💖🙏🏻

I can't thank you enough for taking the time to tell me all of this. Nothing makes an author like me happier than hearing how my work has affected/been enjoyed by my readers. I appreciate your words so much!

I find a lot of joy in sharing with others my love and interest and musings regarding the characters and stories which I find so fascinating. One of my favorite parts of sharing my writing is getting to hear the thoughts of the people on the other side of it, who also share an appreciation for the subjects I am writing about. So this ask was such a welcome gift for me.

I hope that my writing can continue to provide you all of these things and more in the future.

Wishing you continued peace, Anon!

Gracias!!

💖 Vod

[symphonyofsilence]

Fanfics ideas, cause you love MXTX works. MDZS characters will be besties with who (in your opinions) if they were in other universe, with characters from TGCF & SVSSS ? Please pick at least 3 characters from each series. Hope my questions are not confusing.....

Nie Huaisang would have been a big fan of Liu Mingiyan and Liu Mingyian would have appreciated NHS's collection of... educational books so she could write more exciting and diverse Smuts. Shang Qinghua would have found his way in and NHS & he would definitely get along very well. Shi Qingxuan & NHS would get along like a house on fire. (Though SQX would not get a word of what was said among NHS, LMY, & SQH he would enjoy the vibes & be happy to be there) And WWX naturally would belong to this group and bring JC with him. I don't know, maybe SQX, much like how happy he was to find a Ming-Xiong, and mess with General Nanyang would have been happy to meet Jiang Cheng, whether Jiang-Xiong felt the same or not? Or maybe not? Like... he apparently hadn't tried to make friends with Fengqing so maybe he wouldn't try to make friends with JC either (even if he did I think it wouldn't have been an especially deep relationship between them. It would be more like NHS's and JC's) WWX, SQX, and SQH would drag in LWJ, HX, & Mobei-Jun with them. Those three would absolutely say nothing and make no friends. Mobei-Jun (despite WWX and SQX's many attempts) and LWJ (despite SQX's many attempts) would stare in a dead inside way and He Xuan would eat. (Shen Qingqiu would have loved to join them but Liu Mingiyan would turn strangely quiet against NHS's questions when SQQ was around, so...)

I'd love to see Xue Yang, Qi Rong, and Sha Hualing interact! I believe They would get along very well. I'd love to see them take care of Guzi together, too! (Guzi would end up taking care of them.)

(Then Sha Hualing and Xuan Ji would inevitably cross paths and have a nice girl in-bathroom talk wherein Sha Hualing would try to knock some sense into Xuan Ji and tell her to know your worth, girl and it would result in Xuan Ji going you know what?! Maybe you're right maybe I SHOULD let go. To which Sha Hualing would answer WHAT?! NO WAY! KICK HIS A$$!!)

One lotus root pork soup from Jiang Yanli would work wonders for Shen Jiu (who needs an older sister). And I think JYL, since she apparently likes to surround herself with tsunderes would be fond of him, too. Shen Jiu might have crossed paths with fellow street rat A-Qing. The hissing cats would bond and form the deepest, and strongest frenemy relationship and stick together. Then Shen Jiu would inevitably end up meeting Xiao Xingchen. This group would fix him. Before breaking him even worse because of the whole...you know,... Yi City Arc. Then he'd be adopted by Yushi Huang or Baoshan Senren. Maybe Yushi Huang could promote A-Qing to godhood. their combination with Pei Su, Ban Yue, and Pei Ming could have been interesting.

Teenage Mu Qing-gege would also probably know A-Qing, Shen Jiu, and Yue Qinguuan. and occasionally give them food and keep an eye on them. This combo-minus YQY- might have also occasionally bitched about others with each other. (So the god adopting Shen Jiu and promoting A-Qing to godhood could be MQ, too)

Jiang Yanli would flourish if she could join Yushi Huang and have a peaceful positive maternal figure who cherished her talents and calm demeanor. JYL, Ban Yue, and Pei Xu would have helped each other. she would also enjoy interacting with SQX, and Xie Lian. and SQX would like her very much. She might have also had a soft spot for Mu Qing and looked out for him and what he didn't say.

Wei Wuxian and Hua Cheng would get into passive-aggressive rivalry in talent, sass, fashion, batshit theories and ideals, and sass. they would greatly enjoy their rivalry though. Maybe through Hua Cheng, WWX would meet He Xuan, too, and enjoy annoying him. He might form a very forced, very one-sided friendship with He Xuan, Which after a while of WWX imposing himself on him, HX might or might not come to miss in WWX's absence.

Ling Wen and Jin Guangyao would have a pleasant talk over tea about how incompetent everyone else is and how they have to do everything around here. Then slowly, they'd be joined by Yin Yu, Zhuzhi-lang, and Shang Qinghua. And then This talk would then turn into a union.

Wen Qing and Mu Qing would meet each other while healing others and they'd start to be mean judgemental bitches together. They have kind hearts. They save everyone's lives, but they also shoot death glares at everyone & bitch about everyone while doing it.

Wen Qing might have also befriended Ling Wen. She might have been recruited by Qi Qinqi.

Lan Xichen, Yue Qingyuan, Yushi Huang, and Xie Lian could drink tea together and have a pleasant conversation without an actual word that would lead to any personal knowledge about them being exchanged. Though any two combinations of this group could have a vague and not very revealing but definitely insightful conversation with each other.

I know Liu Qingge, Jiang Cheng, and Mu Qing are a popular combo of hissing cats. But these 3 could stay together in one room for centuries and do not utter a word to each other or make any other attempt at human connection. Xie Lian though, a certified bitch- specialist might want to befriend Jiang Cheng, Shen Jiu, and Liu Qingge.

Literally anyone could befriend Shen Qingqiu (Shen Yuan, obviously) . Especially the cloud recesses trio, especially Jiang Cheng. Jin Zixuan would have benefitted greatly from befriending SQQ. (Or maybe not. Who knows.)

Xie Lian and Xiao Xingchen would have a very pleasant short chat. A-qing and Xue Yang would also love the other Daozhang. This would result in A-Qing wanting to protect the Daozhang from mean strangers and Xue Yang wanting to torment Daozhang as a sign of his gratitude for his exemplary manners towards Xue Yang. Luckily XL wouldn't stick around this long.

The Juniors would look up to Liu Qingge and would love to be his disciples. (Especially JL who feels life LQG kinda has a similar attitude to his Jiujiu and reminds him of his jiujiu) they would get into- hopefully- friendly rivalries with Shen Qingqiu's disciples, especially Ning Yingying and Ming Fan. In time those two would join the Junior group as well.

Jin Ling would follow Feng Xin around because AN ARCHERY GOD! And since the juniors stick together, so would the three others. And since Fengqing are always together, the two southern gods would acquire a band of ducklings.

Qi Qingqi would immediately recruit Mianmian. Pei Ming would try to hit on Qi Qingqi and immediately realize his mistake. They'd eventually befriend each other and Qi Qingqi would gain a place among The Three Tumors. That would lead to Qi Qingqi meeting Ban Yue and recruiting her, too.

After Ling Wen recruited Jin Guangyao as a god to help her do paperwork, JGY would find a solid place for himself in The Three Tumors, too.

(Mostly SVSSS/TGCF interactions:

Tianlang-Jun, with his interest in polyamorous dramas, would follow 3Zun dramas intensely. Pei Ming would get curious about what he's observing like a soap opera and join him in watching that trashfire. they'd have a great time eating popcorn and doing commentaries together, and then Tianlang-Jun would pull an uno-reverse on Pei Ming by giving him advice on how to court Yushi Huang.

Jian Lan has big maternal instincts, and Luo Binghe is above all, a baby. So Jian Lan would become LBH's new ghost mama and Shen Qingqiu would get along splendidly with his new ghost mother-in-law.)

[kyogre-blue]

In a big rush, I've caught up to RDCH manhwa, up to chapter 92.

There's a lot that happened. As always, the pace is breakneck, haha. Anyway, there's a few points I wanted to note.

First, I appreciate the respect for just punching someone in the face. This is why I respect SQH the most as Lostbelt King, because at the end of LB3, they go to punch it out with Chaldea. Here, in chapter 85, Hugo punches it out with Taurus and it's great. And then, Libra also eventually resorts to just directly punching Lee Geon, which is hilarious.

Speaking of Libra, she's done a bang up job as a villain. Very funny that she stripped at the end to the same level as Lee Geon. Even her top! In general, I feel like... this manhwa really has a foot fetish. The guys always lose their shirts, sure, but they also lose everything below the knee too, only keeping their hulk modesty shorts. But you also get Yooha losing her boots, while her jeans are otherwise fine, so it feels like they just really wanted to get her barefoot lol (Speaking of Yooha, I wonder if they're going to circle back to the evil god in her arms, or if this is it and it'll be considered that she's gotten control of it.)

Speaking of Hugo, the first couple chapters after the manhwa restarted were quite rough, since it was more flashbacks of Suffering(tm). Hugo really lives a different genre than everyone else sometimes, rip. I do like how he goes wild against Taurus. He and Lee Geon are very similar sometimes. They can have a similar mean sense of humor, and occasionally Hugo enjoys battle in a similar way.

There were also some moments for Yooha, Steven, Kevin... feels like a fairly okay support cast, which I like. Though of course, Lee Geon is the only useful one, haha

That said, the big ending for the Libra arc felt pretty cohesive. I can't really complain about the direction.

There are several interesting points that were elucidated. First, Lee Geon's moral compass is sometimes a bit hard to pin down, but he pretty directly states what he is opposed to: disregarding "the safety of others." Everything else is whatever, but people shouldn't be put in danger meaninglessly.

(In my fanfic concept development, this would mean... you can tell he loses it if he puts innocent people in danger. But for additional consideration, Lee Geon is not at all shy about going to down on anyone who crosses him and directly threatens murder in the novel. So you could say him losing it would come from the direction of starting to see innocent people as having wronged him. Hehehe)

Second, there's an interesting... hm, undercurrent? that is introduced here. Steven says that he is willing to sacrifice "everything Leo has accumulated" because otherwise humanity will lose "everything they've accumulated" in bold text. At the same time, Libra tries to claim that this world belongs to the divine gods, while "Baron Helmet" said the same for the unknown civilization when they invaded. There's this concept of accumulating resources or taking them by force.

Third, they also bring up several times that "the weak don't even get the right to choose" and "only the strong get to ask questions," which... is certainly in line with a battle series, but... yeah. Yooha does angle Leo's ideal of the strong survive as "the strong have a duty to protect the weak," and in a sense, all the weak people "choose" Lee Geon, which you can interpret as flashback Steven being wrong. But still... it's all good to say that Ophiuchus respects those who are willing to put everything on the line to become stronger, but most people simply do not have the necessary potential or opportunity. All they can do is choose who to pray to, but this assumes that there is a good choice to begin with. It's all a kind of concept that I don't really like, though I won't say that it's incoherent or anything.

Anyway, all that said, the last chapter for now is really something. Ah, Lee Geon making that face, damn... We finally see him get a bit stripped down emotionally. Yes, give me that backstory to add to my Lee Geon microwave spinning.

[analviel]

No hate, I do appreciate them since I learn new things, but I'm also baffled by people who try to fit SVSSS as.... historically accurate.

I'm.... not even sure how that works. Since xianxia itself is fantasy - wuxia would make sense of course.

For my part I just slap on that it's in a distant past, where the earth is mostly pangea shaped, with one culture from real world cropping up here and another here, and they just..... mix. Interact.

Like, for the sake of the genre itself I'd say it's mostly chinese, mostly chinese writing system, which is easy enough since as it so happens, it's the root of a number of other writing systems. Literally just think ATLA, the way they mixed real life culture with fantasy and not let that hold them back.

Oh hey convenient space to put my 'headcanon races if they were transmigrated in our modern era'. SJ and SQH I'd put as chinese, YQY and QQQ korean, LQG japanese, and MQF vietnamese, WQW thai, mostly because I have this AU I play with where they are reincarnated in modern world but have faint recollection of their old lives as CQMS Peak Lords (this would be after the happenings in my universe AU where SJ, rather than dying of heartbreak after seeing Xuan Su sword shards escapes instead this and yes, spoiler alert they stil die bcs I'm all for the whole 'if I can't ascend with you all then I guess let's just all die'), and I keep playing with this scene of SJ living in a compound with YQY (imagine SJ waking up going 'Qi-ge, Qi-ge, gege I want breakfast' and YQY humming indulgently while cooking on the stove💗💗💗💗💘💘💘 (I mean not really relevant AS MUCH but just note I imagine them as brothers brothers here) and they have it for rent at first but when they meet the other PL and realize the truth of their memories, they have it reserved only for their martial siblings. And live together like a group of really chill friends that are low key keeping a pulse on the underground cultivation world that is concealed from the public

Yes, SJ does annoy LQG for rent even if it's not yet time to pay. He just likes being annoying okay, let him be annoying.

..... My posts are losing any sense of order these days. Like I know I should stay at least on one topic on one post but whatever.

[ben-wisehart]

hi! do you ever feel like the bingqiu fandom is binghe biased? like a lot of the time its giving.. “wow binghe is our little precious bun who deserves the world and more! ..oh and stinky neet loser sqq is so blessed to have him lul” it feels unfair towards sqq :( it makes me sad hes no ones fave but thats okay like whatever right? but even when its bingqiu hes treated like an afterthought. like we have binghe fans criticising sqq for not doing more, sj fans are frankly delusional, sqh fans think hes “too mean” to their precious hamster, liushen fans only like him bc hes a good hole/dick for lqg (obligatory “not all men” lol) idk i only follow a handful of svsss twt accs because no one seems to like him, he feels either tolerated or treated as a gag character lol 🥹

i just dislike a lot of fanon bingqiu i think? i read all the books before hopping on twitter and i see some absolute rancid takes on there like the woobification of Shaun(tm) qinghua and jiumei.. which is easy enough to avoid tbf so whatever floats their boat idc. but when i follow bingqiu accs, it feels like OC x OC rather than ~bingqiu~ if that makes sense? like i LOVE the manipulative crybaby domtop x flustered thin face subby pillow princess they have going on!! and fanon bingqiu is just.. not it? and obv id never send hate or anything (i just block and keep it moving) but it makes it kinda sucky when the fandom is already teeny tiny and a large chunk of the fandom isnt what i envisioned/expected i guess which is so odd! when they essentially erase canon!! if it’s like some queerbaity ship or whatever, people can characterise them however they want but its like CANON how they act/are in bed/etc and its all taken away!!! idk im probably just whining sorry 😭

(i included all my thoughts here sorry for the spam!!)

hey, thanks for stopping by!! I definitely know what you mean with regards to SQQ, but I will assure you that there are very much still plenty of dedicated "sqq mains" out there. My sphere of influence on twitter is heavily biased toward people for whom sqq is their favourite character, so maybe I'm not getting a representative sample of the fandom overall, but he's definitely a very well loved character and has more than his fair share of people who do him justice in their writing and for whom he's their primary blorbo!! I remember posting this on reddit a while back and more than half of the responses (though admittedly a small sample size) had him as their fave. So, I don't think he's without appreciation!

But with that said, I do get where you’re coming from. I’m not gonna talk about readers who take his actions in bad faith and actively dislike him (HOW??), but as you’ve said, even among people who do like him, we don’t always understand him as well as we could. Most fans do get on some level that he’s an unreliable narrator, but it’s still very common for people to take him at face value and completely miss his depth. He’s a funny little guy with amusing narration, but he’s also kind and selfless, and he’s also smart and witty, and obnoxious and annoying, and frankly pretty insensitive, and deeply, deeply traumatised—and a million other things! He has layers.

I think all popular characters in fandom will inevitably start getting boiled down to a few key traits. And as somebody who’s been writing fic for 15 years, it’s really hard not to let your own biases colour your portrayal? I absolutely do it with SQQ!! I focus on his kinder, warmer aspects and downplay his flaws, I’ll readily admit that. We all get drawn to a favourite character for a certain trait, and that trait becomes the grit around which our interpretations form. If you’re somebody that likes silly characters, you’re going to write SQQ and dial his silliness up to eleven. If you like kind characters, you’ll write SQQ with emphasis on his kindness. None of these traits are OOC in and of themselves, but if you start to only read fanfic and don’t revisit the source material, you can get lost in what’s popular and forget all the depth that actually made them interesting in the first place. And once you’ve grown attached to a particular version of the characters in your head, it can be really hard to let go of it. I don’t really know where I’m going with this, but I'll add that I think protagonists are just particularly prone to this happening because they're usually the one the audience relates to most.

Idk if any of that really addresses the stuff you were talking about. You mentioned dom top Binghe/pillow princess sqq and to be honest I’m kind of reluctant to talk about this in depth because I’ve received negative comments in the past for supposedly being anti-bottom Binghe, when all I’ve ever said on this matter is that I think it’s a bit weird to insist that “I’m scared of hurting you so I might as well let you do it” is proof that Binghe is canonically a bottom. The fact that someone found that statement so threatening to their view of the characters that they would go to my ao3 page, click on the first fic they saw that happened to feature bottom SQQ and leave their holier-than-thou anonymous opinion there is just bizarre to me.

To be honest tho, it tends to be Binghe characterisation that puts me off moreso than Shen Qingqiu. The only SQQ characterisation that truly bothers me is when people write him as willing to hurt Binghe, or willing to do anything with underage Binghe, but there is a LOT of Binghe stuff that I’m sensitive too. Idk if you read this thread of mine but like, even my friends whom I love make “Binghe stalking/imprisoning/"atticwifing" SQQ” jokes and these bother me way more than any random stranger saying SQQ would get off on spanking Binghe.

And like, it’s kind of hard because objectively, Binghe is a very dark character, so it doesn't feel particularly OOC to say he would do those things, but it's about framing. It bothers me when the emphasis is on how fucked up he is and not how hard he's trying, because it implies a level of futility that I just don’t think is there in canon. To me the beauty of him is in how much doing right by SQQ doesn't come naturally to him, but he ultimately decides to do it anyway because he wants SQQ to be happy. (I feel it needs to be said that I don't mean this in a judgy "if you write dark Binghe you don't understand him and are a bad person" way. Just that I myself can't handle that, and I strongly disagree if you think it's where Bingqiu's relationship is headed).

but idk, I've found my corner and I'm very happy here. I actually don't read fic as often as you'd think, mostly because I am sooooo picky, so I totally get where you're coming from :) but the fandom is still decently sized and very diverse, so there are always going to be at least a few people who share your feelings, if you can find them!

[the-owl-tree]

About Tigerheartstar, he did literally threaten RiverClan lives unless they surrendered. He held Duskfur down and asked her how many of her clanmates lives it was worth giving up until RiverClan submitted to him. At the gathering Icewing was the only RiverClan cat to say that RiverClan is doing well, but she’s his favored cat, he’s made her leader and she doesn’t oppose his takeover as much as the other RiverClan cats. Also he is being written super consistently this guy has just always been like this, look at SqH, TS and in Raging Storm just as the more prominent examples. He’s a fascinating and very consistent character but not one I like on a personal level but respect from a writing standpoint. He always believes he is in the right, and he will always justify whatever actions he does. He’s not necessarily a good person but he fully believes he is. How they’re writing him in this arc is extremely consistent with his previous characterisation and I have absolutely no problem believing this is the kind of thing he would do. No matter how good his intentions may have been he did forcefully take away the independence of an entire clan. You don’t go with almost all your warriors to RiverClan at the crack of dawn if you don’t expect a fight.

will not argue on squilf's hope or raging storm as i've not read the first one and i barely remember avos' second half, i am sorry....my memory is garbage :(

there's no real point where tigerheartstar explicitly threatens their lives, the only real mention of that is from duskfur (you know. the one who instigated the fight). she put her clanmates in danger by starting that fight, i've already pointed out that frostpaw was about to get mothwing to talk to him.

here's the fight, i think it's intentionally left vague (and to further the stupid fucking "tigerheartstar like tigerstar? oh nooo!" conflict they insist on keeping up) whether or not he'd actually kill her. i get where you're coming from though but i'd say duskfur's "i'd rather die than receive help" is annoying so therefore im afraid i have to support tigerheartstar here.

considering they uh attacked him, i think him bringing his clan was a smart choice. tigerheartstar and his clan was the most affected when tc started to go off the rails, makes sense to me he'd want to prepare (especially since the clans love to fight each other. him bring his warriors feels like a smart choice considering the entire nature of their society but that's less canon and more me thoughts).

then in the preview, he does exactly what he promised them and leaves.

he's not there to take over, he's there to help, and while i absolutely agree that people can disagree about exactly how helpful he was, i think it's unfair to treat him as the sole reason the whole thing went down so violently (or, in much poorer taste when discussing cat books, refer to it as "colonization" or "imperialism" words have meaning).

as for icewing, i will save thoughts on that until the book comes out. i want to see her in action as a temp leader before getting ahead of myself, i get your point with her though!

i think you're right that he may not totally be in the right with his actions but i stand by my point. riverclan attacked first and tigerheartstar left as soon as he helped. considering the fact that he spent the last arc having to pick up thunderclan's pieces and this arc lost a kit because of riverclan's mismanagement, i think his actions are understandable imo. Still, the arc is early and we have yet to see what'll happen.

ty for the ask, i appreciate your thoughts!! im so sorry if this is rambly and there are errors or it is incomprehensible at points. im sleepy.

[midnyghtmadnes]

Thoughts

So... I finished SVSSS. Gonna just stream out my thoughts. Will be long cause I wanna cover all my final opinions. Then I’ll shut up about it lol.

So, all in all, the novel was enjoyable and fun. Definitely can't say I have the same emotional investment in the characters as I do in MDZS though, except SY, he's my favorite.

To start, I guess this is where fanfics will come into play, but I want more SY and Airplane interactions. They're the only two that can truly understand the other's situation and I think that’d make for a lot of interesting and fun interactions. Though at the same time it's also funny how they have that understanding but their current relationship is basically just like, not a love-hate relationship. But a.. somewhat camaraderie I'll help ya out maybe if you need it-but I also don't particularly like you, relationship. Still, I am falling onto the Cucumberplane wagon (not in a shippy way though).

As for MBJ and Airplane.. I just wish the novel went into the status of their relationship after everything that happened. SQH was constantly stressed out by him and seemed to have had his share of beatings from MBJ. I saw shipping stuff with them as I was reading it and I was like.. ehhhh? At that point the only connection I knew was that MBJ was the one who was supposed to kill him, so I was like ?? Where did that come from. By the end of the extras, I wanna say I'm on board with it lol, but I just wish we saw more.

Tianlang-Jun and Zhuzhi-Lang... :( I love them and am really sad for them. And yes, I do constantly forget that ZZL killed Gongyi Xiao (who I liked a lot), but come on. He's snek Wen Ning and you can't tell me otherwise. I also actually like Shen Jiu's character. Which is kinda funny thinking about it, cause for example I know many ppl find JGY to be a sympathetic villain, and while I can understand, I still hate him lol. But SJ, who feels very similar to JGY in some ways, I find him really interesting and want to explore him more (that's what fanfics are for ayyy). Funny how all the antagonists of this story caught my eye lol. I didn't care for any of the villains in MDZS in terms of nuance (not that they were poorly written, but they just weren't the Type™ I fall for). But SV managed to get me to want to know more about all of them.

Bingqiu final assessment.... complete indifference. It wasn't as terrible as it could've been, and the extras did make it better, but idk. I flipped flopped a lot as I was reading regarding whether I was okay with it. The 50s chapters, no. Then it got better. Then chapter 80 happened and I was just.... it was genuinely painful getting through that chapter lol. I was constantly pausing and just.. collecting myself. Then the extras and I was like, hmmm it seems.. ok I guess. But I still think it's not the healthiest relationship. You can’t tell me his spiel in chapter 79 isn’t still a total guilt trip. Xin Mo exacerbates his negative emotions, it doesn’t make them up. He’s also constantly jealous even in the extras, making comments of suspicion on the slightest things and just wanting SQQ’s attention for himself. His whole world revolves around SY, and that’s just not a healthy thing for any relationship. It’s undeniably obsessive, and while I don’t see LBH acting on his jealousy, I think that’s only because “it’d make Shizun sad” and not because it goes against his morality. I think LBM is just as capable of doing messed up stuff (murder, torture, etc.) as LBG.

I also just feel like there's something that just doesn't connect between SY in the whole novel, and SY in the extras. By chapter 78 he still did not seem particularly reciprocative of LBH's advances. And even within the extras he's very no-touchy and anti-PDA. He tends to refuse LBH’s requests for intimate moments (until the crocodile tears guilt him into doing what LBH wants) and overall is easily embarrassed, like he's not confident in this relationship. I think at the least more lines of buildup should’ve been added, particularly in moments where it was just the two of them.

And you know what also kinda bugs me about it? I dislike how much the story pushed on that SY was confidently straight since birth. If you want to convince me that the initially ‘straight’/uninterested character ends up falling for another guy, just don’t push it so hard in my face contradicting that. Wei Ying flirted with girls, cool yeah. But the novel never gave the impression he was completely closed off to the idea. With how WY is written, I can totally see him being bi. But SY is more like, well I somehow ended up raising the ML as gay but hey that’s not so bad I guess, at the last minute. I can't say I ship LiuShen either, but I can definitely see the appeal when the canon alternative may easily not float your boat. Nothing beats Wangxian in my heart though 💕

As I expected, am sad with how the relationship with Cang Qiong Mountain ended up. I mean I guess it wasn't necessarily on bad terms, but basically his other disciples are left without their shizun and the sect's whole familial relationship is scattered. I guess it's because I appreciate Wangxian staying in the Cloud Recesses, having this space of theirs and the Jingshi that they can call home. I read the fanfics that have LWJ making WY a lotus pond out front and just their beautiful domestic post-canon life. I love that they can go out night hunting with the juniors. They can go out and travel, just the two of them, when they want. They could retire one day if they wanted. But they'll also always have a family to come back to. LQR begrudgingly accepting WY in time. The bread and butter that is Yunmeng bros reconciliation. Bingqiu.. doesn't really have anything like that. For instance, Liu Qingge and LBH are on terms that I don't feel could ever be recuperated the way WWX and JC could. I don't think Bingqiu could ever stay at CQM in complete comfort. So that's just a little sad.

Also is it just me who, when reading, would always imagine TLJ with short hair, even tho nobody ever has short hair in these novels lol.

Anyway lol, I think that about covers everything I can think of. If you got this far, you the real one ✌🏼

[cat-in-a-basement]

Main Character Opinion Piece

Ah, opinions. That old chestnut. I do want to get back to sharing thoughts on this cursed series but sometimes lack Motivation (trademark pending). So here’s a list below of the main characters in the main book series and how I would rank them. 

Note: aVoS and DotC are excluded because I have not read them yet. I don’t want to give thoughts on something I have limited knowledge of.

Hollyleaf: 9/10. The perfect storm of everything I like combined with a dynamic story and complex character. She's not perfectly consistent and I recognize those faults but no other warriors character captivates me in how strong a presence she has. 

Squirrelflight: 8.5/10. What I like about her is her growth from annoying apprentice to headstrong warrior. I love she doesn't filter her thoughts and she'll break rules and the societal norm to do what's right. She's selfless, compassionate and complex, and really, really needs a break.

Ivypool: 8/10. I do believe rereading my opinion on Ivypool might lower since she's underutilized in OotS. But more so I love the idea of Ivypool, what she could have been. And that concept colors my perception of her in an ideal world where that happened.

Rootspring: 7/10. Rootspring is very good, until he isn't. Like Feathertail he's very likeable when he's taking on an active role as Rootpaw, but when he becomes a warrior he loses some of the dynamic-ness and personality he had as an apprentice. Come TPoNS, he's become a window reacting without any flair of the personality he once had.

Dovewing: 6.5/10. I used to dislike Dovewing, finding her hard to read about in OotS because she acted like a child (as children are want to do). While now I've grown to appreciate her more, she doesn't leave a big impact on me. I don't have a lot of investment in her character, and so I am indifferent to her in the books.

Jayfeather: 6.5/10. Jayfeather I have complex feelings about, because while I do think he's a good character, I for the life of me cannot make myself like him as a person (er, cat). I have settled on indifference towards him because he has settled into his role as gruff medicine cat and I just sort of mentally check out.

Firestar: 5/10. Firestar...is a warm bowl of soup. Not bad, not amazing, but it fills the belly. I don't gravitate towards him as a character because he's a very safe, very mild character who acts as the typical hero in a young adult/children's novel. I can't say I hate him, but I don't particularly care for him either.

Bristlefrost: 4.5/10. Bristlefrost being so low here is a crime I'll never forgive. She started out so strong, with sound character development, hopes, dreams, ambitions. But it unraveled so quickly, with some of the worst character regression I have ever seen. We need to be going up, not down!

Leafpool: 4/10. Leafpool never started out strong for me, but I actively began to dislike her after how she treated her apprentice/son, and especially after her actions in Leafpool's Wish. She's selfish and bitter all without the intrigue that would bring. I find it hard to accept what the books say as her being a gentle and kind figure when she doesn't act like it in my books.

Lionblaze: 3/10. Lionblaze in PoT was angry hot head guy. Okay, not as good as his siblings but not offensive. Lionblaze in OoTS does nothing but mope over Cinderheart or act as a window. Boring, lazy. Where did his personality go? It's like an incline where he somehow keeps getting worse. By TBC he's at the worst he's ever been and even with his shitty behavior he is continually rewarded for it. You want to get on BC's bad side? Be terrible with no intricacy and get rewarded for it.

Shadowsight: 3/10. Of the three PoVs for TBC, Shadowpaw had been the weakest for me. But it became apparent the writers really wanted him to suffer, even is the injury was literally falling off a cliff. What is so infuriating about Shadowsight is he actively warps the story so he can be painted in a sympathetic light and he does not grow, he does not learn, we're expected to watch him suffer and go 'yep that's a character.' It's especially awful he warps other characters around him for the sake of his suffering.

Bramblestar: How did we get from sweet, brave, dynamic Bramblepaw...to this. As Bramblepaw he was good, very good. He had a great arc denouncing his father and teaching Firestar to not judge him for his father's crimes. Bramblepaw is a 7/10. 

But Brambleclaw completely regressed in character to suddenly need his father's approval, and was a moron who didn't listen to Squirrelflight’s concerns 'hey, uh, your brother is kind of evil', and — oh, found it difficult to decide whether or not to kill his leader and commit treason. Firestar should have not made him deputy. I imagine Bramblepaw wouldn't want to be deputy after that if he was still that same character. But no, he gets rewarded for his character regression and idiocy. 2/10.

Bramblestar? He went from idiot rewarded for bad ideas to emotionally abusive partner. His cold shoulder to Squirrel in OotS is manipulative, his actions in SqH are disgusting and gaslighting, and to top it off, the narrative treats him as a good and kindly high king when he clearly has not earned it at all! GOD, I hate Bramblestar. 1/10.

Stormfur: 1/10. By all rights, Stormfur shouldn’t be considered a main character here. But he is so very bad I felt it was my civil duty to include him. If there's one thing worse than being actively shitty, it's doing nothing at all. Stormfur is a dead fish and even then the dead fish probably has more personality. He's the lowest because I cannot think of a single good thing about his character or story. He's bland and boring, does absolutely nothing and gets rewarded for it.