#unwell. genuinely actually unwell#love the composition. love the flatness of the horizon and the bareness of the environment. all focus on the one thing that must be done#and of course stratt in the foreground. face hidden. still clearly standing on the tracks just as grace is
i like to imagine flowery being the wingman who got yellow and blue together and immediately after they told him they were dating he was like “so happy for you guys! anyways now that you’re together, do you think you guys could help me bag a beautiful middle-aged, divorced, fat bear?”
we need to invent a way to explain how deep running and pervasive and subliminal racism and antiblackness is without immediately sounding like an insane conspiracy theorist
female characters are always lighter than male characters. strong characters are almost always dark. aggressive characters are almost always dark. peaceful and intelligent characters are almost always light. even amongst darker characters the lightest one is usually either the leader or the girls. dark is evil and light is good.
briefly pursuing a career in animation radicalized me on this. So many stories from the industry about how you have to start with your character design as dark as possible, because INEVITABLY you'll get "notes" from higher-ups asking you to make them lighter.
In a class about making a pitch bible my teacher once role-played as a shitty executive with a classmate, pressing them in intentionally abrasive ways about why they made their characters diverse. He emphasized that we had to learn to defend these things, because the racism in the industry is extremely deliberate.
Alright… I keep seeing Liu Qingge slander in fanfics and meta— especially with respect to Shen Jiu— and it’s starting to get on my nerves.
Liu Qingge did not hate Shen Jiu because of a misunderstanding on his part!
Liu Qingge did not assume he was a rich and arrogant young master (I have no idea where this idea came from), nor is there any indication he particularly cared about the brothel visits. He hated Shen Jiu because of his actual behaviors!
Shen Jiu treated him horribly after Liu Qingge beat him in Cang Qiong Mountain’s annual martial arts tournament:
Within Cang Qiong Mountain, the one he undoubtedly hated most was Liu Qingge.
Liu Qingge had achieved success in his youth; his talents were extraordinary, his spiritual energy vast, and his swordplay awe-inspiring. His family background was excellent, and both his parents were alive. Any one of these things would have been enough to make Shen Qingqiu gnash his teeth and toss and turn for three days and three nights, let alone all of them together in one person.
During Cang Qiong Mountain’s annual martial arts tournament, Shen Qingqiu’s opponent had been Liu Qingge. Naturally, the conclusion had been an overwhelming loss on his part.
There was no shame in losing to the future Bai Zhan Peak Lord, or perhaps one should say that this was how it should be. That it was normal.
But Shen Qingqiu would absolutely never think such things. What he saw wasn’t the bystanders’ amazement at how he’d valiantly held out for so long but Liu Qingge’s matter-of-fact arrogance as he held the point of Cheng Luan’s blade inches from his throat.
Qing Jing Peak prided itself on being the gentleman’s peak, and Shen Qingqiu took to playing a gentleman like a fish to water. Yet Liu Qingge was always able to make his rage boil to the surface, to the point that he didn’t bother wasting energy playing nice with his sect sibling.
The thing Shen Qingqiu most often said to Liu Qingge was: “Liu Qingge, I’ll definitely kill you one day!”
SVSSS Volume 4 Chapter 24 Part 4
As Shen Qingqiu had turned a deaf ear to his every plea, Yue Qingyuan found it difficult to speak further. After all, he couldn’t straight-up tell him something like: If you hadn’t used every means to ambush Liu Qingge after the meet in order to teach him a lesson, the two of you wouldn’t fly into a rage at the slightest contact now, nor would you loathe the mere sight of each other.
SVSSS Volume 4 Chapter 24 Part 4
A lot of fanfics have Liu Qingge regularly dragging Shen Jiu out of brothels, but in actuality the only time he confronted Shen Jiu at one was due to Shen Jiu giving a different Bai Zhan disciple a severe beating:
Though conflict often erupted between Shen Qingqiu and Bai Zhan Peak, the conflict this time was truly overblown. A Bai Zhan Peak disciple had gone to this small, remote town for a task, where he had just happened to see a familiar person enter the largest brothel in the area, the Warm Red Pavilion. From top to bottom, Bai Zhan Peak felt the same as Liu Qingge: none of them harbored any goodwill toward Shen Qingqiu. Therefore the disciple had obviously refused to let this chance pass by; he’d directly followed Shen Qingqiu into the brothel, then mocked him for being a hypocrite and actually entering this sort of place, saying that he’d lost face for their entire sect.
After a couple of undiplomatic words, Shen Qingqiu had beaten him severely, leaving him with serious injuries. When this disciple returned to Bai Zhan Peak, he’d run into Liu Qingge. After questioning him, Liu Qingge had been steaming with rage, he had promptly rushed over on his sword for payback, ready to hit Shen Qingqiu back for every blow.
SVSSS Volume 4 Chapter 24 Part 4
So Liu Qingge only interrupted him at the Warm Red Pavilion to get payback on behalf of another Bai Zhan disciple. The text doesn’t mention him making a single comment about the brothel visit itself.
———
The only misunderstanding between the two occurred after their mutual hatred was well established:
In the chaos of battle, Liu Qingge and Shen Qingqiu accidentally pressed their backs together, and their faces simultaneously contorted with looks of revulsion. Shen Qingqiu had already shot out a spiritual blast, which brushed by Liu Qingge’s shoulder as it passed. Liu Qingge, angered, immediately retaliated with a blow.
Great. The entirety of their combat forces were now ignoring the enemy in order to fight amongst themselves.
“Are you blind?” Shen Qingqiu yelled. “What are you hitting?!”
Liu Qingge wasn’t any more polite. “Who hit first? Who went blind first?!”
Shang Qinghua lay on the ground, eyes still rolled back. He had clearly seen when, moments ago, a faint white shadow peeked out from behind Liu Qingge. Shen Qingqiu’s attack had passed Liu Qingge’s shoulder to disperse it.
As he watched, the blows his peers rained down on each other grew fiercer and fiercer, their eyes going red with bloodlust. Forgetting to play dead, he sat up and called weakly, “You guys, don’t fight. Liu-shidi, you misunderstood; in fact, Shen-shixiong was just—”
Shen Qingqiu flung out his hand, and several deep, deep cracks were smashed into the wall by Shang Qinghua’s head. Dust and pebbles streamed down.
“If you’re going to die, then die completely,” Shen Qingqiu said icily. “Don’t change your mind halfway.”
Without another word, Shang Qinghua collapsed and went back to contentedly playing dead.
SVSSS Volume 4 Chapter 26 Part 3
That sounded about right. He had gone to all that trouble to do a good thing, but the result hadn’t met his expectations. But if that was the problem, then he should just go and explain himself to Liu Qingge—just admit he was trying to help him out! But Shen Qingqiu wouldn’t do it.
If you won’t do it, just let me help you explain, thought Shang Qinghua. But Shen Qingqiu wouldn’t compromise his own pride. Maybe he was too embarrassed. People really shouldn’t twist themselves into knots—that’s just self-torture.
SVSSS Volume 4 Chapter 26 Part 3
Shen Jiu absolutely could have explained this misunderstanding, or let Shang Qinghua do so, but he wouldn’t do it!
Liu Qingge does not need to learn not to make assumptions. Shen Yuan was nice to him precisely once and he was perfectly willing to reevaluate their relationship.
areudirty
turnnoffyourmind
dailybridgerton
jacobvanloon
blakekathryn
dededos
andulkaphoto
tangentwithtanner
germansingergirl
