Erionella - Nella

Imagine you're in high-school and you have a huge crush on a teacher and you realize you're gay and you ask "do you think all gay people are terrible..?" And he smiles and says "there's bad straight people and good straight people, so why would I think all gay people are bad?"

Then you're outed against your will and he tells you you're disgusting. You go "but you said you didn't hate them!" And he says but it's different for YOU and kicks you out of school

Then you return to your high-school after graduating from college to show him see I ended up being a good educated person! You hate him for being so cruel but also want him to give you another chance... then you realize the trophy case has your picture and everyone says "you didn't know?? When you left he was so sad he fell into depression and he'd come stand in the hallway and stare at this pathetic shrine he made for you"

You try to talk to him but he runs away from you. Clearly he doesn't want to associate with a gay person like you - is what you'd think, except he's hanging out with your FLAMING father!!!!?

Anyway that's svsss from binghes pov but instead of gay it's his demon heritage

tbh i dunno why so many sj apologists are anti-yqy. because like????? he is your mascot. he was the originator. the head honcho of excusing sj's levels of unmitigated villainy. look into my eyes and tell me that qi ge wouldn't blush and kick his feet if he saw xiao jiu commit murder. actually we don't NEED to imagine bc jiumei did just that and yue qi just grabbed his hand and ran, no thoughts head empty. arson? child abuse?? yue qi doesn't care. whatever makes xiao jiu happy <3

"All those empty rooms

We could have been anywhere, anywhere else

Instead, I made a bed with apathy

My heart knew the weight

Ten years worth of dust and neglect

We made our peace with weariness and let it be..."

(Song: The Moon will Sing by the Crane Wives)

Yue "I'm pretty sure I don't even have trauma?" Qingyuan and Shen "I made my trauma my entire personality" Qingqiu are both extremely traumatized.

I’m gonna be honest, I don’t think SJ would have ever been happy as a Peak Lord. The only reason he took the job was because of YQY and he thought he’d be able to protect himself better as someone of high status. He never had the right kind of mind or attitude for teaching and never had the social skills to get along with his peers. He’d have been much happier as a wandering cultivator but that wasn’t where YQY was so even then he’d have never been fully satisfied.

oh my god sorry for the late reply

i also think that sj got attached to having status and power because he knows that powerful people can get away with anything, since he knows what that's like thanks to Qiu Jianluo. He definitely didn't want to be on the receiving end of all that power and influence. I think that, even if he wasn't a good teacher, if he had able to deal with his inner demons (literally and metaphorically) he wouldn't have had so much trouble living in CQM. But he hated men to the point of being unable to sleep next to his peers, and when he became a peak lord he turned paranoid, thinking people wanted to undermine him and usurp his place, was envious of anyone with more potential or power than him. and like, not all of that was yqy's "fault", since we see in the qijiu extra's opening scene what he was like as a 12 years old. i love the parallels between qijiu as kids and qijiu as peak lords because the latter is basically a reenactment of their childhood dynamics: sj fighting with others, yqy the protector who always tried to smooth things over and let sj get away with anything, etc. then his dynamic with lbh and nyy is a reenactment of his life with the qius, this time with him as the one abusing his power. it sort of feels like there's something inescapable about their fates, and it goes to show how much work sj needs to achieve a modicum of peace, though of course if he was sure of yqy's love for him that would be a great start.

sorry for rambling. back on topic. why did sj became a peak lord?

“If I said that I wasn’t doing well at Qing Jing Peak, what would you do?” Shen Qingqiu asked, slow and measured. “Would you help me enter Qiong Ding Peak, just as you recommended me for Qing Jing?”

Yue Qingyuan gave it some thought, then said solemnly, “If that’s what you wanted.”

“Clearly I don’t want that,” Shen Qingqiu said with a resolute humph. “I want to be head disciple. Would you be willing to give me your position? Let me become the sect leader?” he asked, forceful and lofty. “For better or worse, Qing Jing Peak ranks second among the Twelve Peaks. I’d rather wait to succeed this one.”

it's clear he wants power and influence, and if he'd had the chance he would have gone for the sect leader post. can you imagine that??

In the past, Qiu Jianluo had forced Shen Jiu to learn how to read and write. Shen Jiu had been unwilling to learn, had detested it to the point of madness, yet now it was only through his abilities in reading and studying—through being smarter than his peers—that he’d been able to earn the Qing Jing Peak Lord’s favor. To make it even more laughable, of the thousands of possible names in this world, the peak lord had just happened to name him “Qingqiu.”

But no matter how laughable, no matter how it made him gnash his teeth, Shen Qingqiu still wanted that name, for this name represented that from now onward, a shining new life was his.

sj is ambitious. that's why i think he' wouldn't be happy with living like a common person. he also likes luxury so i guess he'd detest the life of a wandering cultivator because it would to much like living in the streets, where he spent most of his childhood. he likes quiet and staying inside. he liked the security of being at the top.

so i don't think it would be impossible for him to have a life more suited to him, that wasn't such a consequence of his traumas and how he copes with them, but like i said, it would take a lot of work and healing.

This kind of QiJiu fic is so special to me, ITS FUNNY AS HEELLLL

from https://archiveofourown.org/works/62298721?view_adult=true

When Is A Monster Not A Monster? by ParueCake (MiraEyeteeth) in AO3

my eyes my back my fingers my thighs my neck my ears my whole body were sacrificied for this piece. never will i ever do something like this again!!! surely!!!!!!! also watch me sneak in a pomegranate in each drawing i do XD

sorting this out before the dlc drops 👍

It's so hard to be in love with a ship that isn't canon, wasn't meant to be canon and will never be canon, but would've been so good if it was canon.

Tired and dejected from the large number of people around Shen Jiu :<