The Thing You Have To Understand About Shen Yuan As A Person Is That He's Not An Idiot But He's Also

The thing you have to understand about shen yuan as a person is that he's not an idiot but he's also too kind for his own good. He's the type of person who will see a violent monster imprisoned because it killed hundreds of people and think, "aww it's locked up how sad :("

He's the type of person who will free the monster, but think "I'm not stupid enough to try to pet it and end up dying myself, though!" not realizing the monster has sworn its life to protecting him for his kindness.

He's the kind of person who always changes others lives for the better and never expects anything in return. He's the kind of person who will expect his kindness to come back to bite him in the ass, but choose to be a loving person anyway

Ik he gossips w/ airplane but he needs to gossip more with his husband. binghe would get so worked up about it too if he could stop staring at his beautiful ranting wife for long enough to absorb any information

also im sorry for my terrible phone camera i really haven't gotten the hang of taking pictures of my traditional art yet lmao. if anybody has tips id appreciate them ^^ //

Bonus Binghe before his man came back for him:

quick art of my wife >_<

[ID: Scum Villain fanart of Shen Qingqiu covering his mouth with a fan and blushing, expression thoughtful. End ID]

ID by @princess-of-purple-prose

Still thinking about how Shen Qingqiu was really thinking "I can easily fake my death by actually dying and rebooting in a spare body because everyone will be glad I'm gone and not miss me at all" and is shocked that all the people he spent years building close relationships with, relationships that he valued and cared about deeply, were actually really really fucking traumatised and upset by his death

My dude is not okay in the slightest

Headcanon that Shen Yuan was hotter than Shen Qingqiu, actually.

Like yeah SQQ being a cultivator gave him a boost to enough attributes + being in a stallion novel where everyone is either unrealistic hot or dog's butt ugly got the Shen Qingqiu body extra points, and he wasn't bad looking to begin with. Plus not being ill is vastly more important to the new Shen Qingqiu than those extra hotness points (Without a Cure notwithstanding). But part of the reason why he's kind of like, meh, at least I'm not hideous or anything, is because Shen Yuan's original body was a knock out.

I also like him as chronically ill, and, as many people know, beauty standards and sustained suffering are not as incompatible as they should be. Shen Yuan was conventionally attractive in part because conventional beauty standards seem to want everyone slowly dying all the time. But even setting that aside, the man had flawless bone structure, an appealing figure, captivating eyes, and the kind of voice that stopped people in their tracks.

All of which was a contributing factor to his antisocial lifestyle, actually. Despite the fact that Shen Yuan does enjoy company and requires a certain baseline of social enrichment for his enclosure, his internalized homophobia and closeting did not play well with overtures from interested parties (regardless of gender). The only way to minimize the odds of him being asked out on dates was to essentially become a shut-in, especially since even Shen Yuan can only make so many excuses before he himself starts to notice that he's going to a lot of effort to avoid specifically that avenue of socialization. Far better to just remove himself from any risk of it, and then vocally lament that oh no he's just too much of a nerd to get anywhere with women!

Anyway this largely doesn't matter much outside of sheer comedy potential for any situation where SY gets his old body/life back. Like imagine a reveal scenario where the System is going to transport them back to their old lives.

Shang Qinghua: well bro I guess this is gonna be the ultimate test of love, right?

Shen Yuan: what do you mean?

Shang Qinghua: our husbands are gonna see what we looked like back before we were glorious cultivators! they're going to have to track us down in our mundane, kinda shitty pre-transmigration lives! it's gonna be at least a little embarrassing, right?

Shen Yuan: *gets his old body back*

Shang Qinghua, normal human with average looks: ...

Shen Yuan, exemplary 11/10: ?

Shang Qinghua: what. the fuck?? bro what the fuck why are you hot???

Shen Yuan: don't make it weird

Shang Qinghua: make it weird??? why were you sitting at home reading my shitty novel when you could have been out there building your own harem???

Shen Yuan: stop exaggerating

Shang Qinghua: oh my god you've always been like this. this is it, isn't it? it wasn't even brain damage from the transmigration or something--

Shen Yuan: hey

Shang Qinghua: --you've just always been completely unaware, haven't you? every time I wrote a beautiful woman who didn't know her own appeal you'd be jumping down my throat--

Shen Yuan: because that's a stupid trope--!

Shang Qinghua: --JUMPING DOWN MY THROAT EXACTLY LIKE THAT but this whole time THIS WHOLE TIME it wasn't even a glow-up issue, you've just been that, personified, yourself--

Shen Yuan: look I know I'm not ugly but I'm not I'm hardly that good-looking

Shang Qinghua: YOU ARE NEVER ALLOWED TO CRITICIZE THAT TROPE AGAIN! oh my god. how many broken hearts did you leave behind when you died?!

Shen Yuan: none, I wasn't even seeing anyone--

Shang Qinghua: yeah full offense but I am nottt taking your word for that. I bet you had a harem you didn't know about in this lifetime too. I bet you had a fan club, like an anime prince

Shen Yuan: *mumbling*

Shang Qinghua: what was that?

Shen Yuan: I said... only in high school...

Shang Qinghua: oh my god

Shen Yuan: it wasn't a big deal!

Shang Qinghua: *frantically trying to see if he can find any trace of it on the internet now*

Shen Qingqiu, who had the most terrible,no good,very bad day possible in the holy mausoleum, described as "nothing but a heap of wounds and blood" by Binghe: start to cry when Binghe yells at him.

Also Shen Qingqiu: How unsightly.