I do think its really important to remember that SY was suppose to be the villain character but its only because of his kindness and newly gained life that he didn’t end as one. In the very beginning of the story we learn that Peerless Cucumber Bro often left comments on how SJ didn’t get his dues and needed to be punished more, and only after he transmigrated did he acknowledge how awful of a death SJ had. He also made point to explain that he only read the book for LBH, which he noted to enjoy his decisive actions and deft ability to kill. Markedly, he liked his brutality and personality over the erotica that the majority of PIDW fans enjoyed. Peerless Cucumber Bro is someone who loves action and the ability to cut right to the chase, something that he does not do and most likely has difficulty with in his world.
Speaking of, it is something to note that Peerless Cucumber bro is rich. He had head chefs, he could pay for a 6k+ chapter book of erotica in 20 days, he noted that he could not understand SJs envy and ambition for power since he lives well, and he even noted to himself that his family was well off. He is incredibly wealthy, and it shows. Which is important to note because he, not once, showed any guilt or remorse on dying and leaving his family behind. Yes, he sometimes refers to people as being similar to his family but he never showed any pain for losing that life like he did when he lost LBH. This is important because I genuinely think SY was depressed and self destructive to himself, which goes against popular HC that he was chronically/terminally ill (I do like this HC and like how its portrayed in fanfiction). It would explain how he ended up dying all alone by himself, and how blase he was to his own life and death.
SQQ is a self destructive force who ended up dying three times, and didn’t feel anything about death itself. He was worried about others and the effect it had on them, but for himself it was up and on again like it never happened. He does not care for his health, had self isolated as SY to the point he died alone, and has a horrible self esteem to the point that he continuously agrees when other people put him down and often calls himself the villain. Even though we have seen the evidence of someone who is always being thrust into new situations and awful plots, he calls himself lazy and easy going. He hides his thoughts and feelings behind his fan and has a remarkably thin face. At the very base of his actions and his thoughts, he is self destructive, powerful, and smart. This is the set up for a villain.
However, when shown the actual people in front of him and forced to act as SJ did towards LBH and his disciples, he flinches from it. He notes that it happening in front of him was different. His entire self soothing comedy monologue went quiet when he had to enforce the Endless Abyss scene, and grieved for the childish innocence he killed from one of his favourite people. SY was set up to be the villain and obviously thinks of himself as one, but can not act as one. If he had the choice LBH would have been his sticky sweet white lotus disciple for as long as LBH wished to be.
His kindness, as seen in the book, is what turned him from being “the scumbag villain” to the protagonist we see in the novels. Which, yes, he is a protagonist! He even has the protag halo that LBH has and its very funny in the meta way for SQQ not to realize this, but thats for another post. But he loves his disciples, he loves his peak lord siblings, he loves his Binghe, he loves his new life, and he is kind. That is what kept him from being the villain he sees himself as, his kindness and love for others. Whether that be romantic, platonic, or familial, he loves the people he has met and he treats them kindly. That is why it is important to remember that he was set up as the villain by everything in the story we do not see, but what we do see is him continuously changing the story to fit a new genre that lets as many people as he can save live. Sorry sorry, I just think about SY being set up as a villain so much. It changes a lot of views I have on the series when I remember the duality of SYs story and character development.
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Do you ever just become overwhelmingly cognizant of the existence of evil in the world?
Like, not as a cute, devil-emoji 😈 i'm-so-naughty-i-steal-chocolate-cake-and-do-weird-sex-acts thing, nor still as a melodramatic, comic-bookish, high-absorptivity-black-fabric, soon-my-death-ray-will-destroy-Metropolis thing, but like.
Actual Evil, as a force that is real and immanent in the world.
Just pointless cruelty inflicted pointlessly by one human being upon another because they've forgotten how to be kind. Just entire systems and machinery of state and ideology brought to bear on the problem of annihilating human lives and maximizing human suffering so that small men can feel powerful. Just humans who have through trauma or conditioning or propaganda shut off their ability to see other humans as fundamentally like them.
Anyways, I joke on here a lot. I get angry on here a lot. They're both just scabs to hide my horror and my despair at the condition of humanity.
Your regularly scheduled programming will return shortly.
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hi! your blog is one of my favourites and i absolutely adore reading your thoughts. my grandfather recently passed away and it feels like i lost myself with him. how do i continue living after this? there is this constant weight on my chest and it feels like an emptiness has made a home inside of me. how do i go on when it feels like the world crashed on my shoulders?
hello, love! this is so very sweet and kind of you, and i hope you're treating yourself gently and kindly right now - there aren't words for a loss like this. that heaviness is difficult, and hard, and painful. it's okay if things don't feel okay, right now, or even soon - i think that's something that a lot of the people i know that have gone through similar grief feel: like they should be able to get back to a relative 'normal' in a [insert far too short period of time].
but it's okay if it hurts. that's where i'd like to start. you're allowed to feel that emptiness, that world-crashed feeling that goes beyond words, beyond time. don't feel like you have to rush this to feel some sort of better. things get easier with time, i promise you this, but sometimes painful feelings are important to feel, too. cry, scream, feel your emotions. they're a part of you. grieve.
it's perhaps a little silly, but when i think about death i always think about a couple of space songs: mainly drops of jupiter by train and saturn by sleeping at last. there are perhaps others that speak to the emotions better, but these two have always hit something a little deeper for me, and are popular for a wide-reaching reason.
and while personally i don't know much about grief like this, i do know a lot about love; and i think they're a lot of the same thing.
the people we love are a part of us, and this is why it takes from us so deeply when we lose them, because it does feel like we've lost a part of ourselves in the wake of it. but it's because they were so central to our experiences of living - our lives, that the separation introduces a hollowness - a place where they used to be. a home that now goes unlived in.
an emptiness, like you said.
but just because they're not here physically, doesn't mean he's not still there, in your heart, in your life, your memory. you can hold him close in smaller ways, as well: steal a sweater, or cologne/scent for something a little more physical and long lasting for remembering. hold onto the memories you cherish, the things that made you laugh, the ease of slow mornings and gentle nights. write them all down, slide a few photographs in there, go through it and add more when you miss him. keep them all close, keep them in your heart.
you're not alone, in this. he's still there, with you, it's just - in the little things.
he's with you in the way you see and go about your daily life, in doing what he liked to do, in the ways he interacted with the world that you shared with him. the memories you recall fondly when the night is late or the moment is right and something calls it into you like a melody, an old bell, laughter you'd recognize anywhere.
but i think, perhaps most importantly above all others - talk about him. with your family, your friends, his friends, strangers; stories are how we keep the people we love alive. the connections they've made, the legacies and experiences they've left behind, and so, so many stories.
how lucky, we are - to love so much it takes a piece of us when they go. grief is the other side of the coin, but it does not mean our love goes away. it lives in you. it lives in everyone who knew him, in the smallest pieces of our lives.
the people we love never really leave us, like this: they're in how we cook and the way we fold our newspapers, our laundry, in the radio stations we tune in to and the way we decorate our walls, our photo albums. they're in the way we store our mail, organize our closets, the scribbled notes in the indexes of our books. the meals we love and the drinks we mix, the way we spend time with one another. they've been passed down for generations, for longer than history - and we are all the luckier for it.
think about what you shared with him, and do it intentionally. bring him into your life, like this, again. whether it's crosswords or poetry or sports or anything else. if one doesn't help, try another. something might click.
i hope things feel a little easier for you, as they tend to do only with time. i hope you find joy in your grief, even if it is small and hard to grasp at first. know that your hurt stems from so much love that there isn't a place to put it properly, and that it is something so meaningful and hurting poets and storytellers have been struggling to put it into words and sounds that feel like the fit right for eons, and that it is also just simply yours. sometimes things don't have to make sense. sometimes they just are - unable to be put into words or neat little sentiments, as unfair and tragic as they come.
but i promise it will not feel like this forever. your love is real. and perhaps, on where to begin on from here - i think it's less on finding where to begin and just beginning. and you've already started. you've taken the most important and crucial step: the first one.
wherever you go, after that, from here? you'll figure it out. you always have, and you always do. it'll come, as things always do. love leads us, as does light - and you're never alone in your hurt. in your grief, your missing something dear to you. i think if you talk about it with others, you'll find they have ways of helping you cope as well - and they have so much love of their own to spare, too.
as an aside, here is the song (northern star by dom fera) i was listening to when i wrote this, for no other reason more than it makes me think of connections, and love, and how we hold onto the people we love and how they change us, wonderfully and intrinsically. it's a little more joyous than the others i've mentioned, and plays like a story, and it made me think of what is at the core of this, love and stories and i am here with you, and maybe it'll bring you some joy, if you'd like it. wishing you all my love and ease 💛
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