I am feeling extremely poorly after a horrid night of no sleep where my only saving grace was reading Shen Jiu centric fics.
It is interesting to me how his character is never really appearing in SVSSS but he definitely is haunting the narrative due to Shen Yuan being stuffed in his body.
I'll also preface my rant by saying that abuse is never OK and we do not condone it alright???? And trauma is definitely not an excuse, and the cycle of abuse is bad.
I find his backstory and character extremely compelling and the more I've been thinking of him, the more I would have loved for him to reach a happy ending.
He definitely did not deserve his fate.
Sure he's a child abuser, he's mean and caustic and likes insulting people like it's an Olympic sport, but. I'm still of the mind he needed actual support, an actual safe space he could go to without being shamed, and a ridiculous amount of therapy.
The man is traumatized. Jiumei never felt safe on Cang Qiong, the other peak lords were complete gossip mongering hypocrites, he never felt respected or valued, he suffered from depression, self loathing, ptsd, probably had a lot of suicidal ideation that got worse, was triggered so often that it's not even funny.
He may have been an unpleasant person, and he should not have been a peak lord, but I feel deep sympathy and compassion for him and can relate because... Well... I'm sure a lot of us actually can because the world is a messed up place... and I kinda of just want to take him, bundle him up like a burrito in a soft blanket, pet his hair, give him chocolate and ice cream and smother him in affection, listen to him and give him advice, have deep conversations about anything and everything interesting because that man is for sure a well of knowledge...
Not to forget that he probably has that way of speaking that is extremely elegant, which I love, and I do love witty people with a passion, as well as creative and elegant insults, which is very important to me because I hate cursing with a deep passion (and why is it shocking to people when someone refuses to use curse words, uh? Why is it weird or childish to use other expressions to emote frustrations and anger???? Makes no sense to me).
Also I am of the mind that the Qing generation did not deserve someone as intelligent and cunning as him.
