One of the saddest things about Shen Jiu's backstory is the fact he doesn't immediately assume Yue Qingyuan abandoned him. It would've been sad enough if he just accepted that Yue Qingyuan would leave him at the first opportunity that arises, but instead Shen Jiu has faith in him. Faith that Yue Qingyuan would never abandon him. He thinks of different reasons why Yue Qingyuan hadn't yet returned. 'Maybe he's injured, maybe he's been trapped, or maybe he's dead even!'

Shen Jiu even resigns himself to finding Yue Qingyuan's 'dead' body and burying him himself, regardless of the fact that he might be getting into more danger. It's only after Shen Jiu had long since escaped the Qiu Household and was under the control of the Wu Yanzi, the demonic Cultivator who taught him, and they meet Yue Qingyuan at the Immortal Alliance Conference did Shen Jiu realise that Yue Qingyuan 'abandoned' him.

We see this in the dialogue that leads up to Shen Jiu accepting that Yue Qingyuan is 'Qi-Ge's' new name.

Before this scene, all the dialogue had listed Yue Qingyuan as 'Qi-Ge' or as 'Yue Qi'. (Qi-Ge when they were on the streets and Yue Qi also when they were on the steets and in the examples shown below)

The scene from earlier where Shen jiu accepts that his 'Yue Qi' is gone makes this all the more heartbreaking.

He asks Yue Qingyuan why he never returned. Simple and straightforward — the most straightforward, dare I say understanding, that Shen Jiu has been to anyone at this point. He simply asks him why he didn't come back, why he went missing for so long, why he's now dressed up as if he were a noble young master and the current Qiong Ding Head Disciple. He's willing to wait for an answer, willing to hear and try and understand. Would he have understood and accepted any excuses, no one truly knows, but Shen Jiu was willing to at least try.

When Yue Qingyuan opens his mouth and only a empty apology in the form of 'I let you down...' comes out, not even a reason or an excuse, Shen Jiu realises something.

He is talking to Yue Qingyuan.

He no longer considers Yue Qingyuan his Qi-Ge. To him, Yue Qingyuan is just like the other spoiled young masters that used to belittle him on the streets, the same stuck up fool born with a golden spoon in his mouth that was born too lucky to understand his pains.

After this scene and after Shen Jiu joins Cang Qiong, I can't find any scene where Yue Qingyuan is referred to as Yue Qi by Shen Jiu ever again.

Shen Jiu realises that he would have preferred Yue Qi, his Qi-Ge, was dead.

Shen Jiu genuinely cared and trusted Yue Qingyuan (or Yue Qi to be more accurate). In the scene where the other street kids where being attacked by Qiu Jianluo, Shen Jiu is laughing and states that they deserved it, clearly taking joy in their misfortune, but the moment Yue Qi gets involved, Shen Jiu becomes concerned.

He chases after Yue Qi, chases after him as the other goes to save another boy who Shen Jiu only moments ago had been laughing at for 'getting what he deserved'. This was also the very same boy who Shen Jiu had been fighting with for his begging spot.

Shen Jiu clearly does not show any level of care for the other street kids, yet he shows an exception foe Yue Qi. He willingly chases Yue Qi when the boy goes to save a boy Shen Jiu hates. He willingly waits for Yue Qi to return despite being tortured for so long with no hope in sight. He willingly gives Yue Qi the opportunity to give him an excuse for why he never came back and seemingly abandoned him so he could join the 'elites' on Cang Qiong and become its future Sect Leader.

People say that Yue Qingyuan shows favouritism to Shen Jiu, but I dare say that Shen Jiu shows an equal amount of favouritism to Yue Qi.

If anyone else dared to do something similar to Shen Jiu, Shen Jiu absolutely would've murdered them at first sight. Yet Shen Jiu has allowed Yue Qi all of this.

Shen Jiu doesn't accept any of Yue Qingyuan's attempts at an empty apology, because he's tired of getting hurt. Hurt from giving Yue Qi chances and giving him time, and recieving nothing but empty guilt filled apologies.

Apologies that feel more like lies to help sooth some guilt that Yue Qingyuan has for his past than actual remorse for betraying Shen Jiu. Yue Qingyuan believes that his actual reason would only be insulting to Shen Jiu, but if he had just broken for a mere moment and told Shen Jiu even a glimpse of the truth, then I guarantee you that Shen Jiu's intelligence would lead to him figuring everything out in one hour most.

However, Yue Qingyuan does not break his formal mask of distance politeness, does not cry and tell Shen Jiu he was quite literally unable to leave and save him, does not tell him about how Yue Qingyuan thought the other had died.

Shen Jiu simply wishes the corpse of his dead friend would stop apologising for something he never explains and would simply leave him alone.

Yet, Yue Qingyuan (Yue Qi) is a wound that will never stop bleeding.

He wants Yue Qingyuan to leave him behind again — this time he demands it of Yue Qingyuan.

However, Yue Qingyuan promised himself he would never abandon Shen jiu again.

Like, I also see Enjin called a “cool uncle” or “older brother” on occasion because his whole MO with his team isn’t actually all that fatherly, but I think the best term to describe his relationship with his team is “leader,” or maybe “mentor.” Like the love is there, but I hesitate to actually put the relationships between the team and Enjin in that box, or even under the labels I just suggested as alternatives.

I see the siblings argument more between Zanka, Riyo, and Rudo because my siblings and I do act a bit like that, but I also feel like they fit just as well into “friends” or, again and as I prefer, something labelless.

Like idk I feel like sorting everyone and their relationships into the same nuclear archetypes flattens out the relationships they actually have. I will continue to reblog the art of course because it’s too cute not to, but a part of me is always a little bit frustrated when people use “found family” as a way of assigning random nuclear labels to a group of characters, and simply not as a way of describing people who love each other as family despite not being born into a family together. Like, familial love isn’t inherently any deeper than friendship, we just tend to love our families more because they raised us and we’re closer with them by nature. You can absolutely be closer with a friend than your family, and do so with your friend being your friend and not your “real sister” or something.

I got a bit long winded but I had some thoughts on Kabuto’s presentation in the arc and on the arc itself.

I haven't written from every character's POV, but I want to someday have done it, and for now I have Thoughts on the ones I have written about.

I've already made two posts about Ponyboy as a canon narrator (here and here), but basically he can and will misinterpret everything. Everything is warped by his self-esteem being absolute shit. Any look towards him is judgemental. Any ambivalent comment is derisive. No one loves him. Run-on sentences my beloved.

Johnny is slowly growing to be my favourite character to write from. Anyone who heard "nothing gold can stay" for the first time from the shitty reciting of a fourteen-year-old who's insecure as fuck (when you feel insecure reciting something, you're more likely to speed up because you feel stupid doing the right intonation) and immediately knew what it meant and that it was what he was trying to express is going to have an aggressively poetic inner monologue, which is exactly how I like to write, so he's fun. I feel like he thinks a lot about the world around him and I love metaphors, and it's actually so. much. fun.

Dally is in constant denial of any sort of human feelings. It's really funny to describe a common reaction to caring for someone and then say. Huh. That's a weird feeling. I must just be hungry. He is incredibly unaware of his own feelings. Dally is one of the heavier cursers.

Darry is... interesting. For some reason, Darry is the character I've gained the strongest connection to out of the whole book, despite being a teenage, female middle child with absolutely no strength. So writing him feels personal. He's also the character I've written about the most, especially from his point of view. He's also kind of shit at noticing social cues, like Ponyboy, and he has low self-esteem, but they aren't as interconnected as they are with Ponyboy. He just doesn't understand people and also feels like he's constantly messing up with his brothers. But these two things aren't cause and effect, they're two characteristics that coexist in one fucked-up guy. Darry is also one of the ones that curses the most because he is constantly stressed out. He has a lot of short sentences.

I've never written from Two-Bit's point of view because I find it mildly terrifying because he's funnier than me and also often drunk. I have never had a drop of alcohol, so he's a bit far from my reality. As for Marcia, I have written a bit from her pov, but I don't love it. I mainly made her insecure so I could relate to her on some level, because she's also much funnier than me.

Now, Steve... Steve is insecure, but not as much as Ponyboy and Darry. He's confident in his abilities mostly, but has grown insecure because of how he's always seen as "the other one", "Soda's friend", etc. I haven't written much from his point of view, but Steve's mom was Latina so he absolutely inserts random phrases in Spanish into his inner monologue.

Not sure if I'm just not reading carefully enough or what but the language was ... idk ... plain? And I didn't feel much of anything until Dr. Jekyll's letter at the very end.

That was somewhat compelling [and also feels pretty typical of the era with its focus on evil being something perceptible, like with Dorian Gray-- while also making it so that this is conveniently not the case for the main character, undermining this assertion because people can indeed hide their "evil" natures.] I related to the idea that every part was wholly himself- but it slowly grew less and less true where he began to horrify himself, both in his willingness to partake in that he considered evil and in his willingness to resist evil's temptation, until his whole was full of self-loathing...which is in itself destructive.

People criticise this as a poor depiction of DID but this seems so clearly a metaphorical depiction of parts of self in a normal psychological way and not meant to be taken literally? Do people really think this story could be or is about DID? It feels so in line with other novels about the repressive social and personal morals in Victorian England that it feels odd to think that this [medically induced!] depiction of "split personality" is meant to be perceived literally?

I find Dorian Gray's fall more compelling, but it could just be that there is more to chew on stylistically and his fall is more detailed? We really only got a few pages - Jekyll and Hyde was a lot shorter than I thought it would be.

Definitely have some headcanons! Here are some off the top of my head:

Rio wanted Beth to kiss him but then he thought it was even hotter that she didn't

Rio thought one wrong move could implode the entire thing which is why he was careful to avoid eye contact (keeping his face in her hair) and why he didn't speak (though he'd have personally loved dirty talk)

There was hardly any real foreplay; I think he basically confirmed she was ready and went for it

He wanted to tug on her hair and make her look at herself in the mirror (but he refrained)

They didn't use a condom—Beth because she didn't think of it (the infrequency she was having sex with Dean coupled with the normalcy of not using them with him) and Rio because he didn't have one on him and bringing it up might've ended it all before it started. He's usually meticulous about it, though, and I think he specifically banked on the fact that chances were good she was on some type of birth control.

Rio initiated the move to the wall because he needed to be even closer to her.

If they exchanged any words at all, it was during the position switch, and it was essentially meaningless phrases like "c'mere" or "what?" or "oh" as they readjusted

When they finished, they allowed themselves a brief moment where they just absorbed what happened, slumped against each other.

Beth left the bathroom first but she didn't rush; she wanted to appear calm, cool, and collected and not appear rattled.

Rio took the panties.

Jimin selecting his victim (JK)

Sitting down and getting ready.

Game face ON.

Eyefycking the shit out of the bunny, ignoring everybody in the room.

Bunny gay panic-munching.

Jimin V for victory.