apparently my scum villain feelings are eternal

I am (once again) having a bit of a Scum Villain moment. (This is the fault of a very excellent fic I picked up, and which I’ll rec at the end of this entry.) I’ve also been listening to Evanescence’s Fallen album quite a bit recently, as one does! And, well, listening to “My Immortal” while thinking about Scum Villain made me realize… it would not be the worst of bingqiu songs? Particularly if it were a duet instead of a solo singer.( beneath the cut )

And, as promised above, a fic rec—the fic that has once again sent me falling down this Scum Villain rabbit hole was this one:

forgiveness is beyond our reach (WIP, currently 232K, last updated 2026)
"And what sort of story is Shizun's favorite?" Luo Binghe asks, not really caring about the answer. Luo Binghe's shizun is an air-headed man who hides his inanity behind his fan; surely, whatever it is that Shen Qingqiu deems to read in his free time, it must be something equally ridiculous and superficial. Probably romance, Luo Binghe thinks. Perhaps cultivation adventure stories where the hero always gets the girl and slays evil.

Shen Qingqiu flips his fan open to hide his face. "Revenge stories," he replies.

(AU where Luo Binghe is raised by Tianlang-Jun. When Yue Qingyuan kills his father, Luo Binghe resolves to settle the score.)

I tend to be wary of fics that give Binghe an alternate backstory, because… characterization… but, as it turns out, characterization is what this fic excels at! It has a kind of characterization that invokes the same reaction as very good meta in me, which is to say, I find myself chewing over the interpretation it’s offering, considering where it’s coming from, holding it up against my own interpretations, and debating whether I should reevaluate certain aspects of my understanding of the characters and canon. This is always super satisfying to me! Among other things, it manages to balance Binghe being shaped by the differing circumstances of his backstory while still feeling like Binghe, and also features what might very well be the best Yue Qingyuan characterization I’ve ever come across.