#[sad journaling noises as i realize that whatever ridiculous wordcount tgcf has still only counts as one completed book on my list]
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Okay, I want to pull together more detailed thoughts at some point, I think, because the sheer amount of material means I have about ten billion thoughts to sort out. But Iāve read all three of the mxtx novels now, and loved all of them, in different ways. Though I already tried to figure out if I can pick a Favorite, and tbh, I canāt. I love them all in ways that are too distinct to let me rank them easily. And... man, itās lucky for my friends that social distancing is in place, or Iād be hassling them shamelessly to give these novels a try.
RIGHT. So.
The Scum Villainās Self-Saving System: Shen Yuan goes to bed full of rage directed at a trashy webnovel with a grimdark blackened hero who conquered the world and collected hundreds of women into his harem.... and wakes up in novel, while that hero is still an innocent youth. As the heroās abusive teacher. Who is doomed for a horrifying death unless he can somehow turn things around.
I think I had the most fun with this one. I really enjoy self-referential stories, and stories poking fun at certain genres, and Iāve run into the concept of transmigration before (the idea being a person enters a fictional world, a la lost in austen), though Iām blanking on any media like that Iāve actually consumed. This was chronologically the first book mxtx wrote, and it has less of a sprawling cast with complicated relationships than the other two books, but it definitely has the thing where she lays early groundwork for later revelations that shatter my poor heart.Ā
And there may be fewer relationships to play with, but my GOD, do I love the relationships we got. Iāve been rolling around in svsss fanfic since I finished the book, even more so than mdzs or tgcf. Thereās a lot of good crunchy relationship content with the 79 ship (they destroy me, all day every day), Liu Qingge owns my whole-ass heart, and Luo Binghe makes for a fascinating love interest. I love that even at his best, he remains a needy, needy, manipulative boy, whoās so smart and strong and nEEDY. I donāt love how the book handled moshang, but mmmm the fan content is Good. And Shen Qingqiu does the unreliable narrator thing that is usually not my jam, but works so WELL in these books, in that his unreliable narration is hugely skewed towards not giving himself nearly as much credit as he deserves. Xie Lian takes this to UNBELIEVABLE heights in tgcf, but in Shen Qingqiuās case, itās done on such a casual, immediate, personal level that Iām fascinated by everything he does.Ā
And, since Shen Yuan/Shen Qingqiu is a millennial fan of trashy romance webnovels who gets yanked into the universe of a novel he hates, into an old-timey xianxia setting, the prose is SO COOL. You swing between modern slang and old school high society courtesies at the drop of a hat, and Iām honestly awed that the translators were able to catch so much of that. Like, in-setting, I love all the nuance you can get inĀ āqi-ge should give his a-jiu the scrollā vsĀ āyue-shixiong should give this teacher the scrollā vsĀ āyou should give me the scrollā. But then it adds a whole new layer when the person ALSO has modern-day casual speech bouncing around in their head. It makes for a fascinating, fascinating reading experience.
The Grandmaster Of Demonic Cultivation: Thirteen years ago, Wei Wuxian died. And then he wakes up! In someone elseās body. Iām not going to try to summarize the premise of this one, go look up The Untamed if you want someone to do a better job of this than me XD
Ahhh, this was the book I read first. I still havenāt watched the show (only clips) and Iām not sure I ever will, because adhd is a hell of a drug. But itās hard to purely evaluate the prose when thereās also this gorgeous, beautifully-acted visual adaptation all over my tumblr to bias me in its favor. I think this book benefits a lot from the MYSTERY of it all. From the very start, thereās the question ofĀ āwhat the fuck is up with this goddamn armā that the characters pursue, even as that takes them through flashbacks and other arcs within the story. It gives a thrust to the novel that I think isnāt exactly there in tgcf, though Iām torn on which one is ābetter.ā This gave the story momentum, yes, but it also meant I was much more impatient in yi city and the 3zun flashbacks, because this isnāt what I was focused onnnnnn this is cool but how much longer will we BE HERE--
That being said, I think Iāll be more patient with those flashbacks on my next time through the book, now that I have a better picture of where everything is headed. I think the balance and structure of the book worked really well, I was setting myself up for self-sabotage because of the pace I was plowing through the thing. My reading habits didnāt lend themselves well to the nonlinear storytelling, and it speaks to the storyās strength that it held up that well despite me. And the CAST. My GOD. I went in not caring about anyone but Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji and maybe the jackass nephew, but... that Did Not Last. I didnāt intend to care about 3zun? Nope, too bad, you care so much now. Who cares about Xue Yang? Me. I care. Way too much. HECK!!!
And something that happens in this book and tgcf that was much less of a thing in svsss is that there are some meaningful holes in the story that Iād like to be filled, and I really care about filling-- and the story doesnāt go there. But it doesnāt leave me unhappy, it leaves me cheerfully scrabbling around in the throwaway details trying to piece together a picture of what happened when I wasnāt looking. What happened to Wei Wuxian in the burial mounds? How did Hua Cheng take control of the ghost city? Idk, but let us Rummage and theorize and roll around in ideas and have a fantastic, speculative time. Svsss might hook me more than the other stories from an au+shipping perspective, but mdzs and tgcf do a great job of making me want to roll around and create within the bounds of canon.
Heaven Officialās Blessing: 800 years ago, Xie Lian ascended to heaven. And fell. And rose again! And fell again. Now heās ascended for the third time, and things are Awkward.
God, I just finished this, and Iām still reeling. This is the LONGEST mxtx book, thatās for sure. I also think itās the most tightly edited translation. All the translators did an unbelievable job, I could never even approach what they accomplished, but I am genuinely stunnedĀ that a book this long was edited so well. I blew through this in about 3.5 days (if not for work, i could have made it in three dghsafdsgf) and my brain was cooking in my skull by the time I was halfway through, but I couldnāt STOP. I was ENCHANTED the entire time! I was reading so much my head was destroying me and I still sulked so HARD every time I had to put my phone down and sleep.
This book sprawls the hardest, I think, because it involves a cast made of mostly immortal/immortal-adjacent people, so time and space get... flexible. And I feel really bad saying this, because Lan Wangji is DEVOTED, but this is seriously the book with the most attentive and adoring and respectful love interest. Hua Cheng is..... god. I truly donāt think Iāve EVER read a character quite like him before, and I am so, so sad, because I donāt know how Iāll find one who lives up to these heights ever again XD I recommend reading this book just for the Hua Cheng experience, if nothing else. I was making audible noises at literally flailing at multiple points in the story, but most often, it was because of him.Ā
Shipping is what usually drags me into a fandom hardest, and all of these books do pretty well for themselves, all of them have a nice selection of fluffy and crunchy ships to choose from. And this one... goddammit. I just realized, that the best, most crunchy ships are too spoilery for me to be willing to talk about them here. Hell. Goddammit. But I think tgcf has the crunchiest ship of all, even better than xuexiao. I was so invested, and then there were Reveals, and then I was like OH NO THIS IS TERRIBLE BUT MY INVESTMENT HAS EXPONENTIALLY INCREASED.Ā
And something that I really, really appreciate, is that across the mxtx books, even though a lot of characters fit into strong archetypes, thereās nobody that is blurring together for me, either within or across the books. Liu Qingge isnāt Jiang Cheng isnāt Feng Xin. Theyāre all blunt, fighty boys, but all super distinct in my head, and what I want for each of them is distinct and character-driven. I want Liu Qingge to be properly cherished and I want Jiang Cheng to relax with his brother and nephew and I want Feng Xin to [goddammit i donāt want to spoil this book AGH]. Itās something I appreciated in the other books too, but I can really FEEL it in this book, with how long and luxurious it is.Ā
And last thing I have to say, I think, is that tgcf is so long. Itās so, so long. But I would FITE if anyone tried to pare it down at all. I canāt think of anything Iād be willing to sacrifice. I enjoyed every last piece of it so much, and it was all ultimately SO well-constructed and interlocking, that any piece I can think of snipping out would take away significant emotional impact from what was left. Itās a nonlinear story, like mdzs is nonlinear, and I loved mdzs a lot! But the construction here is so, so, so elegant. Iām just in AWE of how well it was assembled. I was in Agony as reveals happened, because oh no no no no, now that theyāve told me this, that casts this whole other scene in a brand new light! The one I read hundreds of thousands of words ago! Literally, I need to go start the book over so I can savor the shitty teens in new ways, given [redacted] as revealed in like, the last twenty percent of the book. The book was a fun experience, but thereās so Much here that I know I havenāt even absorbed yet. I loved the other mxtx books a lot, and in many ways, they were easier to get a grasp on than tgcf was, but even before I finished tgcf I was already despairingly trying to figure out how easily I could fit a full reread into my life, and I think that says a lot
#tgcf#mdzs#svsss#long post/#[sad journaling noises as i realize that whatever ridiculous wordcount tgcf has still only counts as one completed book on my list]#i need to get an actual wordcount at some point#then stack up enough physical books to visually represent each of these monsters#i know i read a lot#enough that i very much want to know *how much* i read#because CHRIST
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