SVSSS My Beloved😭

qijiu as farmers bc my heart still goes out to them!!

How to tell if you're in a historical Chinese drama:

(Inspired by this classic!)

Someone offends you unforgivably by calling you by your actual name.

You are preparing for a bloody battle in the rain. Your boots are made of exquisitely embroidered silk duchesse.

Everyone you know is god-tier beautiful. You ignore this.

Significant tea is being poured.

Your soulmate tells you in plain words that they love you. You comically misunderstand what they said, and will keep doing so, because the plot is not over yet.

The only thing more elaborate than the villain's cunning plan is the engineering of your man-bun.

Duels are scored like gymnastics routines. To beat your opponent, try a triple-twisting double tucked salto.

You have been married for thirty years. You have never seen your spouse's wrist.

Sometimes peasants and servants are killed horribly in front of you. It's a normal part of life. The other peasants will presumably take care of the practicalities, such as burial and being upset.

Any injury, including a broken nail, makes you vomit blood.

The year is 400 AD. French tips have been invented.

You're on a moon bridge and you are yearning.

shit posts n the like

thanks @airplanecrashingdown for sending me some of these LMAO

"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)

OH MY GOD

SJ talking mad shit about his husband online but as soon as someone agrees he's like "I'm outside your house rn pull up"

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.

Close enough, welcome back Bingqiu

Qi-ge has always been the center of Shen Jiu's world

He was what kept Shen Jiu going

His light in the dark

And seeing his Qi-ge whole and hale, after having not come back as promised, shattered his world

And Qi-ge's silence prevented it from ever healing. So the shattered pieces of his life spin and cut and hurt

And his instinct is that this perceived rejection is his fault. Because he is "rotten from the start".

He must be

Because he wished Qi-ge had died rather than abandon him

That's why there is always tension and quarrels

Because when Yue Qingyuan gets too close Shen Jiu gets angry

"How dare Qi-ge act like he cares! It's too little too late! Stop lying to my face!"

But if Yue Qingyuan pulls away Shen Jiu gets angry

"How dare Qi-ge abandon me again! Hasn't he run away enough!? Is he ashamed of me!?"

As long as Yue Qingyuan is silent the pain will continue

But Yue Qingyuan has reasons for not telling

For one, what he went through was as traumatic as what Shen Jiu went through. There are still blood stains from where he beat his head in the caves, desperate to get back to the center of his world.

He has to be ready to speak his truth

Secondly, he thinks it's a poor excuse. In his mind he should have tried harder, left earlier, done something different somehow and kept his promise. All his reasons, now matter how valid we see it, are weak and pathetic in his eyes

To tell Shen Jiu the truth would feel to Yue Qingyuan like he was making excuses for failing. He feels it would be insulting to Shen Jiu to even imply he has legitimate reasons for failing because he doesn't feel it was legitimate

So even though simply talking would heal the rift it's not as easy a fix as it seems

But unless they do Shen Jiu will continue to be shattered glass orbiting Yue Qingyuan

Oh, sorry, I accidentally posted two same pictures