Honestly what gets me about both versions of Binghe is the sheer level of entitlement.
I find it a delightful flaw in a villain, but a bit less so in a love interest, at least in his case (he ain't no Griffith).
It's part of why a lot of Shen Qingqiu come back fics rub me the wrong way, trying to make it he owes Binghe something. He doesn't.
Being very fucking blunt, what Luo Binghe suffers is pretty par for the course in the society we are shown. Bai Zhan disciples would probably call him a whiner and sadly be justified for it.
Hell, Shen Qingqiu and Yue Qingyuan's own suffering makes Binghe's pale in comparison, at least before the Abyss, which is his primary gripe in SVSSS.
Like, so you got made to do more chores and given a false manual, so what? The manual thing is especially overplayed imo, given that he's on the strategist peak, and it wouldn't be too surprising if that was a hazing thing even SJ had to deal with (makes sense, as a strategist needs to quickly parse out and eliminate false intel).
I honestly think Binghe is one of the most self-centered characters in the whole story, and he makes a fascinating contrast to not only Airplane, but characters I believe Airplane based on himself (SQQ and YQY in particular).
For all you can level at Shen Qingqiu, he wasn't stupid, and he certainly wasn't all that self-centered. He was more survival based if anything, and even then had a suicidal loyalty to Yue Qingyuan.
Speaking of Yue Qingyuan, I genuinely think he's what Binghe has convinced himself he is: the beleaguered hero suffering at the hands of a cruel world.
It isn't helped by him being one of like, four characters with a happy ending in SVSSS, either.
It's kinda why a story where the halo just flat out breaks early on would be fun to have, I think. Like, something about the seal destroys Binghe's potential to cultivate demonically and leaves his Heavenly Demon powers largely inert, thus the system just fucks off and we're left with this mediocre cultivator who isn't even singled out by MBJ.
Like, imagine a world where that happens and Shen Yuan is reversed out of there while Shen Qingqiu is tagged back in.
No Abyss, just an eternity of mediocrity under a Shizun who, with a fire lit under his ass, marries the sect leader and leaves Binghe in the dust.
I dunno, I just see all these fics punishing Shen Qingqiu for how he treated Binghe and it leaves a bad taste in my mouth and makes me go, "You know what, if Shen Qingqiu can get last unicorned and forced to live in a body he feels dying, why can't Binghe?"
Put that motherfucker in the drive-thru.
