Ok It’s Real, My Phone Is Defo Listening In On Me

au with disciple shen yuan and shizun luo binghe is a classic but i need it with luo binghe going through the worst depressive episode known to man when shen yuan transmigrates. he sees this intimidating otherworldly figure he's read about and realizes that his shizun is just a complete mess who's been isolating himself and getting more and more irritable and miserable and depressed. he decides to make it his goal to try and coax him out of the bamboo house because no one ever really sees luo binghe anymore outside of when he travels for peak lord meetings.

in my head everything else is the same except for shen yuan and luo binghe switching roles entirely. shen yuan is a half-demon antagonist meant to be defeated by luo binghe after being pushed down the abyss and returning to get revenge but shen yuan just tells himself over and over that if he gets on luo binghe's good side surely everything will be okay? because the system won't let him leave cang qiong mountain and wander the world as a rogue cultivator and he knows that the immortal alliance conference if where everything is going to fall apart. so he's convinced himself that he just needs to game the plot by fixing shen qingqiu's reputation and his relationship and things will be fine. surely!!

and, like, it gets off to a rocky start. luo binghe throws him out of the bamboo house for about two weeks straight before finally snapping at him and asking what his deal is, to which shen yuan lets him know that the other disciples just haven't seen him in so long and they've all been worried and shen yuan just wants to make sure he's okay. and shen yuan knows he's playing the scum villain disciple but he isn't aware of the fact that this sounds so out of character coming from shen qingqiu that it snaps luo binghe out of this dissociative state he's been in for the past few months.

all of a sudden shen yuan's a sort of pet project for luo binghe. his shizun keeps inviting him into the bamboo house and probing him for seemingly benign answers to random questions, getting to know him, etc. and shen yuan thinks that wow his plan is working so well all the other disciples are saying this is the most they've seen him in the past few years. showing up to classes and everything! (of course, they're only shen yuan's classes)

eventually the investigation on luo binghe's part calms down and he hasn't figured out the truth of the matter but shen qingqiu is, all of a sudden, so much more interesting and alluring than he was when he first dragged himself up to qing jing peak a few years ago!

and what starts as a morbid obsession with a puzzle piece that seems out of place slowly moulds into like. genuine fondness on luo binghe's part. because even after the appropriate amount of time where shen yuan could go back to his regular routine and forget about needling luo binghe without seeming rude, he sticks with him anyway! always pulling him away from paperwork after hours to remind him to eat, offering to brush his hair, painting him fan's and landscapes under the guise of practice for class.

(of course, shen yuan's just! fanboying a tad! luo binghe was probably his favourite protagonist he's ever read about, only downside being the unfortunate novel he happened to be written into with the world's most unnecessary harem)

but yes. luo binghe goes through the five stages of grief before becoming inexplicably obsessed with his cute disciple and shen yuan is more than happy to dote on his favourite protagonist under the guise of getting on his good side.

there are still bumps in the road. luo binghe is stubborn and unwilling to look past the somewhat simple view of the world he's constructed in his head of demons being evil. he knows cultivators aren't all angels but the former is common sense, obviously. and he has a temper that flares in a way that makes shen yuan's body flinch in a well-practiced way. shen yuan has his bouts of intense anxiety and depression and brief near-psychosis at remembering the fact that he will have to lose all this if his crackpot half-plan doesn't work. and even if it does he'll still have to go down the abyss and he's just not ready for it, he doesn't think he'll ever be ready, not when his shizun won't be there with his kind eyes and steady form of comfort and command keeping him safe and anchored to the world. but the world keeps turning and so they both keep going until the day comes.

it's a shitshow. shen yuan's seal gets removed and luo binghe watches the demonic energy pour out of him, so numb it feels like he's been stuck in a winter snowstorm for an hour. shen yuan is pleading, desperate, forgetting half the words he tried scripting years in advance because he's at the edge of a cliff to hell and the one person he hoped would believe in him enough not to push him down there is staring at him like he's a stranger. and disciples are still screaming in the distance and the earth is quaking and the system is screaming at him while shen yuan's resolve crumbles and he starts to come to the conclusion that luo binghe will kill him here. he will. and luo binghe is just trying to breathe while he watches his kind and clever, mischievous disciple break down into tears in a way he has never seen before in his life. it sends icicles through his heart. and shen yuan is pleading but when luo binghe comes forward, sword in hand, he can't stop himself from grabbing the blade with his bare palms out of some sort of desperation. hoping and praying that just holding onto the metal means luo binghe won't try to cut his head off.

and it doesn't even matter in the end because luo binghe barely gets a word out before the ground crumbles beneath shen yuan's feet and luo binghe flinches forward, reaching out for him only to push him backwards into the gorge because of the sword that still solidly held by shen yuan, slicing through his skin.

and shen yuan falls. and luo binghe watches. and when liu qingge and yue qingyuan find him after the dust has settled, he looks too much like he did all those years ago, eyes blank and his prized disciple's spirit sword held in his hands, limp. alone again, after a taste of a life that could have been brighter.

i know the most popular version of stories where shen yuan is a disciple under shen qingqiu are the ones where he looks identical to him, but i remember seeing someone once a few years ago raise the idea of if shen yuan looked identical to yue qingyuan, instead, and it's stuck in my head ever since

because, like, i think there would be a world of difference between a shen qingqiu forced to look at a younger version of himself and one that's forced to look at a younger version of his qi-ge, especially considering that shen yuan in this au would still be studying on qing jing peak. shen qingqiu in my eyes is someone who holds onto the past so severely while also being absolutely unwilling to acknowledge that it ever happened. think of his never-ending grudge with yue qingyuan that he refuses to confront, only ever avoiding the sect leader and refusing to talk about the actual issue at the root of it all.

with shen yuan on his peak, taking yue qingyuan's young face, it would suddenly be much harder for him to avoid the reminder of his past when it's staring him in the face and wandering around his peak all the time. in my eyes i think that shen qingqiu would oscillate between pretending shen yuan wasn't even there and being overly severe with him when yue qingyuan needles him one too many times at a peak lord meeting, testing his patience until shen qingqiu retreated back to his home to find the reminder of his frustration on his peak. again.

i also think that there's a world where shen qingqiu's very very rare moments of like. very subtle and quiet softness would come out around this iteration of shen yuan. but it's very rare. like, once within the span of two years type of rare. where maybe shen qingqiu remembers long since passed times of huddling for warmth with qi-ge under scraps of a ragged blanket at night and instead of bitter anger he just feels grief at their relationship tearing itself to pieces the way it did.

now, when it comes to yue qingyuan interacting with shen yuan, i think it would be far different from versions of disciple shen yuan fics where he looks like shen jiu. because in these, yue qingyuan is facing a conjuration of himself rather than the friend he left behind, and it's much harder to take pity on and find comfort in the image of his past self — someone i think he's incredibly critical of — when it feels more like looking his mistakes in the face than seeing a student.

which is unfair to the point that it can be argued to be out of character, but i think the way that guilt weighs so heavily on yue qingyuan would lead to it manifesting outside his endless needling of shen qingqiu and unwavering following of him. because those are, objectively, pretty neutral ways to deal with those feelings, but we never really see the uglier side of it all. because i think it would rebel against his image as a calm and collected sect leader. we do know, however, that he got pushed to the point once that he nearly tore himself apart in the ling xi caves, so is it reallyyyy out of the realm of possibility that when he sees a face that is so clearly a reminder of those times that he gives them the cold shoulder?

and imagine shen yuan's reaction to it all! barely a preteen, too young for his adult mind to catch up and feeling like he's thirteen all over again instead of the twenty-something year old he died as. he hears about this kind and partial sect leader through word of mouth and from reading the novel and expects at least one adult to rely on through all the inevitable hardships just to get brushed off and ignored. turned away so politely it's almost like ice. wanting to talk to someone about getting hazed by qing jing / bai zhan but knowing somehow that like. yue qingyuan knows, he's just not particularly motivated to do much because it's not technically his business, it's qing jing peak's. retreating back home just for shen qingqiu to snap at him more than any of his other students combined some days and treat him like a ghost that doesn't exist other days, no matter what rules he breaks or what he does to get his attention.

i just think it would be interesting!! i wonder very much how shen yuan could help to bridge the gap between yue qingyuan and shen qingqiu after being thrown in the mix like that. i feel it'd be out of character to say that shen qingqiu and yue qingyuan would immediately decide they needed to sort this out and get to the bottom of the mess surrounding their childhoods but i think shen yuan there as a fresh reminder to keep it ever on their minds would eventually push one of the two to the point of needing to say something about it after decades of dancing around the elephant in the room so delicately.

shrug. i think it's such a fun concept. i will write it soon. #trust

fuck it. shout out to "high functioning" neurodivergents

the ones who can mask easily, the ones who can get social cues, the ones who have managed to go most of their life not even knowing they were ND because they didn't present as the stereotypical ND person.

the ones who can pay attention in class, understand social etiquette, who understand societial expectations

the ones who don't feel neurodivergent enough bc they don't struggle in the same ways/areas a lot of NDs do, or they can't relate to other NDs' experiences because they always understood these things easily

the ones with high empathy, the ones who DO get the joke, the ones who are constantly told that they can't possibly be neurodivergent because they don't act like what you'd expect a neurodivergent person to act like.

you are neurodivergent enough. you are valid, and so are your experiences. not struggling as much as others do in some places doesn't mean you dont struggle at all. your condition and diagnosis is valid. your symptoms are valid. YOU ARE VALID. not checking all the supposed boxes doesn't mean you aren't neurodivergent. you are enough. you are valid. you are loved. you are valued. you matter. you belong in neurodivergent spaces, you deserve to use whatever resources are available to you, you are allowed to take up space in these communities. and i am so, so proud of you.

feel free to, and actually, i encourage you to reblog this with your experiences. we belong in this community as much as anyone else. please also tag this w/ any neurodivergent conditions i may have forgotten 💙

since this is getting lots of notes I'd like to add, even if you're undiagnosed or maybe self diagnosed, for whatever reason, (i.e. can't get access to a diagnosis, not being taken seriously, or just not wanting an official diagnosis, etc.) this still applies to you. actually especially to you folks. don't think for a second you're not valid just bc you don't have the paperwork or whatever to say it

I have this fic idea where a young Shang Qinghua loses his memories. Like there’s a glitch and the system goes down and so does everything that he remembered from his past life with it. Like, if he didn’t have the system he’d basically be dead—instead the system went offline.

But!

It happens while he’s in the Northern Palace, and so Mobei Jun witnesses it.

Maybe SQH is poisoned or something. Like, he risked himself for MBJ’s life or whatever. So MBJ feels responsible for him.

SQH wakes up after this attack with no memories and sees MBJ sitting by his bedside and asks him some questions about what happened and etc. MBJ says something that sparks in SQH’s mind and he instantly latches onto the idea that they’re married.

And MBJ doesn’t correct him. After all, his spy is compromised. There’s nowhere safer for SQH than by MBJ’s side.

And when I say they’re young, I mean barely 21. They’re new to adulthood but have known each other for, like, 7 or so years now.

Anyway, fast forward a few weeks and they’re at one of SQH’s safe houses, for reasons SQH doesn’t 100% understand, but he knows it’s to keep him safe. His in-laws are a big bag of dicks and he loves being away from the freezing temperatures for a little bit.

So he goes on a walk one of these days—alone, because his alleged-husband had business to deal with.

Being (fake) married to MBJ is great. He’s a gentleman and obviously cares about SQH a lot. The only thing is that they haven’t been…intimate. They haven’t even kissed! MBJ says he refuses to take advantage and is waiting for SQH’s memories back. It’s annoying. And SQH is coming up with a plan to seduce MBJ when he stumbles across the Luo River and…incidentally…a new born in a basket that’s washed up to shore.

With no system to tell him otherwise, SQH takes the baby home. Names him Shang Binghe and is instantly enamored. He hires an old washer woman from a nearby town to help him. MBJ was not expecting to come back to his fake husband adopting a baby. Especially not a half-demon. (And…wasn’t there a rumor about a heavenly demon and a senior disciple having a tragic romance?) (MBJ did not sign up for this.)

During all of this SQH’s martial family are searching for him, because he’d gone on a diplomatic mission and then…never returned. Which was odd considering how serious SQH was about becoming a Peak Lord.

Meanwhile SQH and MBJ have been playing house with baby LBH and they’re actually happy.

A year later the system comes back online.

I READ THE NOTE

Most-used word in each US state.

Reblog if you’re grateful for your commenters <3

One time I dreamed about butterflies

There is a possibility that I am. I take almost no chances.

a mummy who broke out of his sarcophagus wrote this

Chai tea bag + lil but of brown sugar + apple cider packet + 16 oz. mug of hot but not quite boiling water

it will not Fix You but like. maybe. maybe.

Let it continue on into this endless abyss