Archive of Our Own ^beta

This started out with the premise: We know Shěn Jiu is amazing. The fact he became a Peak Lord even though he lived in the streets, and his meridians were shot. He never got enough to eat at a critical point in brain development, which almost always leads to cognitive deficits. Even with all the strikes against him, he still became a Peak Lord.

What if Shěn Jiu was raised in a wealthy scholarly family? What ey would be like if ey had access to resources? What if ey had a family who loved and cherished em? What would that look like?

Endgame is BingJiu.

The only genders are Alpha/Omega. Again, male and female genders are not relevant in this culture, only Alpha and Omega genders. Because male and female are not relevant, male and female identities do not exist. The only pronouns are ey/em/eir and they/them/their. Gender is not assigned at birth, but there are 25% have penises, 25% have vaginas, and the rest have both or have indeterminate genitals. The gender differences are not obvious at the beginning because Jiujiu is too young to understand. The construction of gender in this society gets addressed in the next story, but essentially, everyone is trans.