#posting this and dipping. oooooooo sqx with stomach rolls you reign supreme.

[deiscension]

I think about SQX's physical traits and how they changed as she aged not only as indications of her growing into herself as a person, but how safe, stable, and happy she feels as well. This can be applied to all verses/AUs, just swap out canon event mentions for what I've written in place of them. The long and short of it is I believe in stick-thin short-stack Qingxuan --> tall and limber and curvaceous but not just in the hourglass way, in the 'gained weight and wears it with pride' way. #Pudgy tummy SQX advocate.

Chubby wubby tubby baby Qingxuan grows into chubby wubby tubby toddler Qingxuan. Any physical ailments that were caused by the initial fever of The Reverend’s curse are either hardly there at all or nonexistent. Adorable round cheeks. Laughs at anything and everything. What more is there for me to say really.

The baby fat does it’s best to cling to her past early childhood but once she starts approaching the double digits it’s all but disappeared. Her relatives depleting most of Shi siblings’ inheritance implies living well past their means up until each of their untimely demises at the behest of the curse, so it’s not from lack of good food so much as genetics.

Pre-teen and teenage years SQX is about as lanky as you can get. All elbows and knees. Bird legs and stick arms. Mostly genetics again, but now there’s the added anxiety of being hunted down by The Reverend. Food was available enough as implied by her trying to take a food box to SWD while he was up in the mountains, though I’m left to wonder what quality and kind— the necessary staples obviously, but inheritance being depleted + what they do have being painstakingly split between provisions and paying to cultivate under a master + little to no income (I HIGHLY doubt SWD would’ve even suffered the thought of SQX doing any sort of payable work, all things from her age (around 11 when they initially ran away iirc, and any work a no-name teenager could get likely wouldn't be safe work) to his pride considered) = getting by alright but in a rather pitiable way. Wouldn’t do amazing things for a teen’s appetite I imagine. Nonetheless she’s still healthy, even if reedy in build. Kind of kid who would try to hold herself with pristine grace, yet end up stomping and tromping about. Aging into full teenage years she would fill out some but not by too terribly much. Descriptors would likely have changed from “lanky” to “slender”, “awkward” to “willowy”.

Her Middle Court days are when she gets some meat on her bones in terms of musculature and fat. I base my headcanons off a mix of donghua visuals + novel descriptions and my own applied fancies. While she did indeed live a lavish life as soon as her brother brought her into the Middle Court, it wasn’t necessarily a wholly idle one. She was described as “the bellwether of the Middle Court.” Out and about, doing this and that. Softened arms and legs would shape up despite her not needing them to— she’s always been the type to do what wasn’t asked of her, to go gallivanting about and push her freedom to its limits. Eventually it would show in her physical build. But she’s not known as The Young Lord Pouring Wine for nothing. Her perfectly flat stomach softens, hips no longer all sharp edges, cheeks round once again.

As a goddess, she doesn’t change much about her build. Everything feels perfect. Hourglass figure accentuated with more curve rather than cinched at the ribs and waist, arms and legs sitting pretty on the line of elegantly toned and full. There’s a little thrill of joy for her every time she moves a certain way and a fold of fat nestles along her waistline, feels the weight of her well-endowed chest pressing snugly against her hanfu, notices the way her inner robes sometimes cling to the curve of hip or thigh or stomach. Her body is most like home regardless of form when it meets her standards and not what's expected of her— it’s a hallmark of safety and happiness, and though she doesn’t quite understand it, the perceived femininity she craves.

Bonus -- post BW arc, she's back to being a reed; gaunt and hollow from shock and the demands of being a no-name beggar and wanderer. There's no trace of that elegant, lavish Wind Master. But it is still her, and she has learned to love the body that was always meant for her. That's not to say she doesn't miss how safety and abundance settled on her frame in ways she would dream of as a longing, terror-stricken child. She's making peace with the fact it never belonged to her, and it was a blessing unearned that she was afforded the privilege as Lady Qingxuan rather than just Feng. Ask her if she's still pretty, she'll say yes with a wink.