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[binghespeerlesscucumber]

WQW: I’m telling you he’s not possessed!

QQQ: What are you talking about?! We can literally see a whole group of ghosts clinging to him with the bare eye!

WQW: I tested him with every sword, he’s not—

LQG: Well if he’s not possessed then what is this?

YQY: Don’t worry Xiao-Jiu, I’m sure we’ll figure out how to fix this….

SQQ: Do NOT call me—

MQF: Hey hey hey let’s all stay calm… please…

SQQ: I am calm.

MQF: Shen shixiong—

YQY: Xiao-Jiu—

QQQ: And what’s up with you, ah? You can barely keep your babbling mouth shut most of the time and all of a sudden you’re quiet as a mouse.

All eyes turned to Shang Qinghua. All of them carried expectant gazes like he could magically fix this bizarre situation. A very strange group of ghosts had made their way onto Cang Qiong Mountain. They were neither malicious nor resentful; actually they didn’t really do anything but stick to Shen Qingqiu. It was truly a strange sight to behold. They were almost entirely white in color, faces distorted or gone entirely, bodies far too small and dressed in the simplest of garments.

They looked like children who had died before they even understood the concepts of life and death and their identities. Well, they looked like that because that’s exactly what they were.

SQQ: You do know something don’t you? Spit it out already, you rat!

SQH: Ah— that— so I— Shen Shixiong, they’re harmless I promise!

YQY: Shang shidi, if you know how to resolve this…

SQH: Oh no. No no no. Let’s just— let’s just wait and see? They really are harmless so—

SQQ: What the hell is that supposed to mean? Just wait and see?

MQF: Shang shidi, please.

SQH: how about we don’t…

LQG, QQQ & SQQ: Shang Qinghua!

SQH: Okay, look. You won’t like what I know about them and it doesn’t really help to get rid of them anyway so how about we—

SQQ: Spit. It. Out.

SQH: Okay okay okay but you gotta promise to not kill me!

SQQ: …

SQH: Promise!

SQQ: Urgh I promise. Now talk.

SQH: Well, okay, so… I can’t— I don’t really remember what they’re called right now but… I have actually, unfortunately encountered them before. They really are harmless. These ghosts they… stem from children who died very young. Like really young. Usually in slow, brutal ways… torture, assault, those things…. All they really do is cling to each other for comfort and flow from place to place.

The room stayed quiet for a moment.

SQQ: And? Why are they sticking to me?

SQH: That— I— You really don’t want me to say it, Shixiong…

If a gaze could kill.

SQH: Allright, fine. Don’t blame me. Sometimes… they’ll consider living people one of their own and kling to them. Only difference being, the living person survived the kinds of things that killed them…

[sinnonym]

𝐸𝓋𝑒𝓃 𝓈𝑜𝓂𝑒𝓉𝒽𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝓌𝒾𝒸𝓀𝑒𝒹 𝒸𝒶𝓃 𝒸𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓉 𝒶 𝓅𝒾𝑒𝒸𝑒 𝑜𝒻 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝒽𝑒𝒶𝓋𝑒𝓃𝓈.

Just some Angel Chu Wanning and fallen angel?? Demon?? Mo Ran

I wanted to draw Ranwan and wings

[neithoftheveil]

Compare the passage above to the text below.

The similarity in wording caught my eye.

It’s not just the similarity in wording, though. It’s the fact Mu Qing insulting Xie Lian is a specific moment where someone close to Xie Lian told him to his face when he was super vulnerable, hey, I’ve seen you struggle and I don’t like this version of you at all. Then, 800 years later, we’ve got the conversation with Hua Cheng that shows how much that very specific moment hurt Xie Lian.

He’s a master of repression and openly admits to Hua Cheng (who he trusts more than anyone) that he’s scared of being vulnerable in front of others. He also says explicitly that Hua Cheng doesn’t deserve to be insulted to his face by someone he cares about just because he wasn’t perfect (because “that person saw [him] at [his] worst”). It’s just interesting to put the two moments side by side.

What’s my point? Idk. Maybe that I considered everything Xie Lian went through in the past as being a collective reason for his current day fear of letting people see the real him, but now I’m thinking about it not being one gigantic trauma tucked neatly in the back of his mind in a box labeled “The fall of Xianle - do not open,” but that it’s thousands and thousands of individual traumas in individual boxes, even 800 years later.

It’s not “I failed and everyone (collective) hated me.” It’s “I failed and someone I trusted looked me dead in the eye and told me they couldn’t stand me being a disappointment.” It’s not “I messed up and everyone (collective) turned their backs on me.” It’s “I messed up and a group of people I hoped were my allies humiliated me and betrayed my confidence, then my friend took their side.” It’s not “I was at rock bottom and everyone (collective) stopped believing in me.” It’s “I was at rock bottom and my best friend lost total faith in me and packed his things without an argument.” It’s not “I was useless and abandoned by everyone (collective).” It’s “I was useless and my parents hanged themselves outside my bedroom while I slept and didn’t even say goodbye because they thought I’d be better off without an added burden.”

Sometimes I forget that specific moments bother Xie Lian centuries later, not the whole. It’s not a giant wound. It’s a thousand cuts. As much as he claims his trauma can be foggy, I think there are many things he remembers with perfect clarity, and Hua Cheng is the one person he’s honest with about that. Hua Cheng trusted him with something valuable (I failed and I’m afraid the person I love might reject me because of it), so Xie Lian trusts him with something equally valuable (I failed and I wish I hadn’t been rejected—I wish someone had told me what I’m telling you: seeing someone’s “everything” is a unique bond that should be treasured, not thrown away). Which makes it all the more special to me that Hua Cheng returns those words later on: what matters is you—not the state of you.

.

I understand your everything. Your courage, your despair. Your kindness, your pain. Your resentment, your hate. Your wisdom, your foolishness.

.

I am forever your most devoted believer.

.

I will never leave you.

[mxtxfanatic]

I don't understand what the character arc for LWJ and WWX is, especially LWJ. If there's an arc, there should be a flaw that is addressed? How is that both of these characters are meant to be seen as ideals?

“If there's an arc, there should be a flaw that is addressed?” Well there’s your problem right there: a character doesn’t need to have a flaw that their arc addresses. Not all character arcs are about resolving said character’s flaws. Wei Wuxian’s and Lan Wangji’s character arcs are about us, the readers, discovering the truth about their past, morals, and actions so that we may see that they’ve always been the good guys on the same page, whereas everyone else has the opposite trajectory where we see how they’ve been the real villains the whole time. That’s why Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji are the ideals. Here, read the Positive Steadfast Arcs section:

The 4 Basic Types of Character Arcs (with Examples & Variations)

A character arc is how a character grows or changes through a story. There are 4 basic types: change positively, remain steadfast …

[red-garden]

Wonder what Bingge would do if he found out the man who handcrafted his suffering didn’t even like him the best.

[crushedmarigolden]

It's even funnier because the character created specifically to torture him doesn't even hate him the worst aswell

[sunderwight]

And the villain who is most obsessed with him is mostly projecting his prior obsession with Binghe's mother onto him, so that isn't really about him either.

[wifebeam5]

Me while reading the novels: Hm, I don’t think I like Luo Binghe that much. He's a bit of a red flag, isn’t he? I think I ship Shen Qingqiu and Liu Qingge a lot though!

Also me: *crying at almost every single Luo Binghe scene, whispering "my beautiful baby boy who can do no wrong," everytime he speaks, me gasping in offense and clutching my pearls when I scroll past Shen Qingqiu/Liu Qingge fanfic, me swooning at every Luo Binghe fanart, me buying Luo Binghe/Shen Qingqiu merch, me never missing a chance to kiss the forehead of my Luo Binghe plushie*

And this is how I realized that I'm maybe more like Shen Qingqiu than I realized 💀 since I didn't realize I loved Luo Binghe so much until I responded with a three-paragraph rant along with examples after I saw a hate comment about my precious baby— which, how dare they!! 😤

[ineffectualdemon]

Whenever I see people (not you OP) bash Binghe I can't help but internally clutch my pearls and go: *gasp* "Shen Qingqiu said that's illegal!" 😡

[nyoomerr]

Mayhaps a letter writing AU would be nice? I think the idea of Bingge getting into a political marriage when he’s in his 800 wives arc wouldn’t be surprising, but what would be is that his new wife is from a culture that DEMANDS that husband and wives exchange 100 letters before they’re to be wed in

So they do and their letters slowly turn from formal to intimate as Shen Yuan charms Luo Bingge just being himself haha XO

this unfortunately has very little actual letters, but it does have quite a bit of sy suffering the consequences of a letter he sent!

---

Shen Yuan hadn’t been particularly thrilled to find himself transmigrated into Wife 274, but it also had been far from the worst character he could have found himself as. 

For one thing, he was practically guaranteed to keep his life by nature of being a wife, and he even got to keep his name due to what the System had called ‘weak original character presence.’ He also got to conveniently inherit all the finely honed skills of an heir to a semi-powerful demonic clan, which was extremely fucking cool even if the power levels of his abilities did seem to be intrinsically linked to how delicate and graceful he could make himself appear as he used them.

By far the best part, though, was that Wife 274 had been one of Airplane’s failed experiments with a vastly different sort of erotica than most of PIDW had fallen under. 

Wife 274’s family was reclusive and strict; to them, it was a great honor to even consider allowing the emperor of the combined realms to marry their daughter, let alone see her. In order to earn that right, Luo Binghe was required to exchange tasteful letters with his wife-to-be for a full three years. 

Of course, these letters had quickly turned racy, but it turned out that even PIDW’s audience didn’t much care for a wife whose gimmick was essentially ye olde sexting. With such a lukewarm reaction, Airplane ended up shelving her story before it officially concluded in order to pursue an especially disrespectful arc with an octo-mer wife, and Wife 274 was never seen again.

For Shen Yuan, this was practically the best ending he could hope for. Guaranteed to keep his life due to the title of ‘wife’ but never having to actually fulfill any, er, wifely duties? It was a win-win! The only thing that would have made it better was if he could actually see Luo Binghe, but that would defeat the entire purpose of Shen Yuan’s character, so it was a loss he’d have to suffer.

…Or so he thought.

“Lord Luo,” Shen Yuan greets, pretending valiantly that he isn’t shaking from the combined nerves and excitement of finally laying eyes on the man this world revolves around. “Have I done something to… displease you?”

Luo Binghe, looming over Shen Yuan in all his panty-dropping glory, grins with sharp teeth.

“Why would you think something like that?”

Why indeed! Shen Yuan had played his role diligently - he’d penned out countless letters that he’d expected to go straight into a bin somewhere never to actually reach Luo Binghe’s eyes. He’d even started writing (tastefully!) about some theoretical adult activities that Luo Binghe might partake in with a wife, just so that he would be staying true to the original character’s sexting gimmick!

The original character had never met Luo Binghe, though, and Luo Binghe is very much currently meeting Shen Yuan.

“Well,” Shen Yuan says delicately, “you aren’t supposed to be here.”

“Is that so? I wasn’t aware,” Luo Binghe lies. 

Behind him, several defeated guards lie dying in pools of their own blood, having failed to stop Luo Binghe from entering Shen Yuan’s chambers. One of them gasps out an apology to Shen Yuan, even, which makes Shen Yuan feel a bit awkward for not even remembering the guy’s name.

“We’ve hardly exchanged letters for a year,” Shen Yuan explains to Luo Binghe. 

‘Exchanged’ is a very generous way of describing Shen Yuan sending five letters for every one that Luo Binghe sends, but really, Shen Yuan was impressed Luo Binghe had even sent that many to him.

“That’s right,” Luo Binghe says, his eyes glinting. “It was supposed to be longer than that, wasn’t it?”

“Yes. Three years -”

“Just long enough for the war between the Sha and Fu clans to start, right?” Luo Binghe interrupts, and Shen Yuan’s blood runs cold.

That… is not information that Luo Binghe is supposed to have. 

“In one year, I’ll find a precious artifact that I’ll use to cure a child that isn’t yet born,” Luo Binghe continues. “And some months after that, Mobei Jun will kill that rat of a spy he’s been keeping around. Does that all sound right, little wife?”

Shen Yuan takes a half step backwards, but Luo Binghe simply mirrors him and then some, drawing close enough to Shen Yuan that he can count the small beads embroidered into Luo Binghe’s collar. 

“I - I wouldn’t know,” Shen Yuan stammers. His tongue feels too big for his mouth, and he hardly even knows what he’s doing anymore, like his body had been put on autopilot as his brain flatlines. 

He’s - he’s a wife, right? He shouldn’t be able to die, right??

So why is Luo Binghe looking at him like he wants to eat him?!

“Really?” Luo Binghe asks, advancing yet another step closer to Shen Yuan. “Then, how about I ask a question - little wife, do you remember what you wrote in your last letter to me?”

“Uh, well, erhm,” Shen Yuan says intelligently, his ears turning a bit pink despite his own nerves. “It was hardly fit to say aloud…”

“Then perhaps you’d like to read it?”

Saying so, Luo Binghe pulls a folded set of papers from his sleeve. Shen Yuan doesn’t remember writing quite that much in his last letter to Luo Binghe, but he had gotten a bit carried away with a metaphor about Luo Binghe’s pretty red eyes, so maybe that was really it…?

Tentatively, Shen Yuan reaches out to take the papers. 

It is not the last letter he’d sent to Luo Binghe. It isn’t any sort of letter at all, in fact. 

Instead, it’s the catalogue of important PIDW events that Shen Yuan had written down after first transmigrating, determined to keep it all stored away somewhere safe in case he ever had to reference something. He hadn’t been completely stupid - he’d written the most important parts in English - but it wasn’t something that was ever meant to leave his own hands.

“I sent you this?” Shen Yuan asks, sounding a bit like he’d been punched in the gut. “And you… read it?”

“It took some time,” Luo Binghe says, his eyes lingering on the English lettering. “Luckily, Mobei Jun recognized some of the characters from the silly yellow books his rat pretends he doesn’t write.”

Shang Qinghua writes secret porn in English?! Shen Yuan thinks, near hysterical. Aloud, he says, “Ah. How… lucky…”

“Very,” Luo Binghe says, taking the papers back. 

For a single moment, Shen Yuan considers trying to keep them, but in the end he values his life too much. Luo Binghe had already read it, anyway.

“The first event that was written here just happened last week,” Luo Binghe says casually, as if only describing the weather and not an assassination attempt. “The second happened yesterday.”

“The third might not happen,” Shen Yuan tries weakly. “Or - or any of the ones after that.”

“But if it does,” Luo Binghe says, looking at Shen Yuan as if he were something to be chewed up and swallowed in one bite, “then I think my wife ought to be somewhere where I can see, don’t you?”

…Ah, shit. Shen Yuan… has really doomed himself this time!!

[disgracefulthings]

Shang Qinghua: My king, everyone has been acting weird today

Mobei-Jun: How so?

Shang Qinghua: All the demons have been calling me 'my queen' and 'consort Shang', are they making fun of me?

Mobei-Jun: What did you expect? Of course they would call you that after we married

Shang Qinghua: WHAT?? WHEN DID WE MARRY????

Mobei-Jun: Yesterday? Did you forget about the ceremony?

Shang Qinghua: YOU SAID I WAS GETTING PROMOTED!

Mobei-Jun: Yes, I promoted you to my wife

[justafanaticalhuman]

[slouph]

HELP!! I transmitigated into my own novel and developed Complex Feelings for the SCUM VILLIAN!!! 

[waitineedaname]

crazy how much mxtx fucking knocked it out of the park with Luo Binghe. her first book, and he's perfect. my bpd princess who has committed every crime and has also done nothing wrong. he's incredibly cool and badass and is a pathetic crybaby. he's genuinely terrifying at times and also has the vibes of a sopping wet puppy abandoned in the rain. he's the most beautiful man alive and yet no one wants him except his husband who has been completely insane about him since before they even met. he took care of his shizun's corpse for five years and didn't correct anybody when they thought he was fucking it, when the reality was he was tenderly embracing it nonsexually to feed it qi, which is somehow weirder. he tried to blow this whole place up because he thought he would always be rejected. he's the narrative's favorite and this is not a good thing. he's bad at kissing and worse at sex and his dick is cartoonishly large. I Love Him.

[othersharkss]

Sage showed me this text post the other day and of course I had to draw bingyuan about it. Don’t worry Binghe, your efforts will be rewarded someday! Just not today.

Did you see the fic updated yesterday?

[hootyhoowoo]

Commission for @ehrenyu ! ✨ who asked for Liu Qingge 🗡️

-

Thank you for commissioning me! <33

[aofikofi]

we talk abt the cloning stuff all the time but lets discuss tims slightly healthier coping mechanism

[roguefandoms]

Jun Wu had to hide behind a burning mecha made out of the literal Heavens, his seat of power poisoned with his own corruption, and Xie Lian managed to fell him with a statue bearing his own face, built from the cage of lies and deceit Jun Wu created for himself centuries before, and we still can't convince some people that Xie Lian was right the whole time

[roguefandoms]

XIE LIAN'S FAITH IN OTHER PEOPLE BECAME HIS LITERAL SWORD. EVERYONE THAT HE SAVED FROM THE HEAVENLY CAPITOL. CAME TOGETHER. TO HELP HIM DEFEAT JUN WU.

He saved a whole city from the human face disease Jun Wu unleashed by asking people for help. And they did it. Without compensation. They got nothing in return. Xie Lian specifically states that he cannot compensate them. They agree because they had nothing else going on. It was so so explicitly clear that Xie Lian was right from day one, and his father, the advisors, Mu Qing, Mei Nianqing, and Bai Wuxiang were wrong about him and his naivety the whole time.

[cokalee]

But you should know, that I die slow

[mamawasatesttube]

slowly picking away at a sequel to "a day in the life", where tim's nosy colleagues get to meet tim's beautiful wifehusband...

“You guys are really cute,” Melody says, grinning wryly. “It’s like Tim becomes a whole new person around you, Conner. He’s always so confident at work, I never knew he’d be so…”

Tim arches an eyebrow at her, acerbic. “So what, exactly?”

“Dorky,” Juana offers. Melody laughs.

Conner also laughs. He takes a slow sip of his coffee, swallows, and glances sidelong at Tim. “Oh, yeah, this dude? Megadork of all time. I’m talking, like, if dorkiness was a size factor, he’d be a blue whale.”

Tim scoffs. “Okay, says the guy who can’t go more than ten minutes without quoting Captain Kirk—”

“You wanna know something?” Conner ignores Tim’s interruption, eyes gleaming with mischief. “One time, when we were dating, I told him, ‘hey, baby, is there a mirror in your pants? ‘Cuz I can see myself in them!’ And you know what this guy, this absolutely incredible little freakster of mine, did?”

Tim groans and hides his face in his free hand. “You don’t have to tell this story…”

“No, I do, baby,” Conner says, patting his knee. “I have to.”

“What did he do?” Melody asks curiously. Surely it’s something funnier than just groaning at the bad pickup line.

Tim groans again. His cheeks are red, Melody notes with delight. “Nothing. It’s nothing, and you don’t need to know—”

“He gave me this weird look,” Conner says gleefully, “and then stood up and started taking off his pants. And I was like, ‘whoa! I didn’t think that was gonna work that well!’ and he looked at me all funny again and said, ‘You definitely wear pants a few sizes bigger than mine, but, like, you’re welcome to try them on if you want, dude.’”

Melody has to clap a hand over her mouth so the laughter bubbling up in her chest doesn’t come out as a shriek. “Tim, oh my god!”

Tim lets out another disgruntled noise, hiding his face even further into his hand. He bows his head so his hair flops forward over his eyes. “I thought you meant you liked the style of them and wanted a pair like them, and I was just trying to be helpful, and—”

Conner pats Tim’s head like he would a dog, grinning. “I know, I know, you always try to get me anything I want and you’re very cute for it. Also, you’re a clown, and I reserve the right to laugh at you ‘til death do us part.”

[feels-of-an-asexual-anemone]

Does anyone else get emotional thinking about how LWJ and WWX were not a couple when WWX died, and in fact rarely saw each other and had very little involvement in each other's lives?

So when LWJ spent 13 years alone, he wasn't mourning the loss of a lover or a change to his daily life, he was just. Mourning a good man? Mourning that WWX didn't exist somewhere in the world. Regretting his own lack of action and living every day knowing that the rules he believed in, the society he was a part of, would destroy a light as bright as WWX's in fear. In jealousy.

Just. I know LWJ was in love with him, so of course WWX's death was devastating. But I think it's so important to LWJ's narrative that he didn't know WWX would ever return his feelings. He had no idea that they would be married some day. So in his grief he really wasn't mourning their future together, he was pure and simple mourning WWX's loss to the world. And that hits me hard