#f!sqq

[shrimpchipsss]

PhD in being insufferable about the Regret of Chunshan

from possession by tshirt

[phoenixcatch7]

The thing with stories of any type is that everything is a translation. Sometimes literally, from the author's own head, from another language, from book to TV.

Then there's things like visual metaphors, props and fake backgrounds, set pieces, onomatopoeia, paragraphs of description that everyone will visualise slightly differently, animated contortions, unrealistic but helpful sound effects, camera angles to emphasise mood.

In fantasy or scifi settings you can't even assume they're speaking the language you do. That their culture is exactly what's shown and nothing more.

So much of what makes up good world building is shorthand, is making it work to the audience, is using something in the right context rather than digging up every detail that would make or break the illusion.

A character in a magical world, or even simply a non English speaking country, would not use the same curse words. Leather could be presumed to be cow but could just as easily be any number of bizarre creatures. Booking a hotel could require a very different system to one we're used to. Champagne, the word, wouldn't exist without France but it carries the meaning of expensive alcohol for celebrations and parties, the readers would understand what it means.

Tolkien did it with LOTR and it was a masterpiece. The prevalent themes of dark and light being mere shorthand for expansive good and evil, used to convey the messages it needed rather than entirely new words the readers wouldn't intuit? The characters not even going by their actual names? A whole entire conlang that never even gets mentioned in the actual story??? That's a man who has a grasp on how tightly interconnected the world, history and culture all reflect each other. I mean of course he did, it was his job, but what he did was nothing short of fantastical.

All this to say, I believe this is the root of all world building. Cohesive, well balanced, feasible, detailed-but-not-too-much, no words that'd break a reader's/viewer's immersion, expansive enough, realistic, resonant, coherent, believable. All of it, whether fantastical or realistic, stems from one thing.

Is this a good translation of what you had in your head?

[waitineedaname]

wait. since im on my svsss/hlvrai kick. cumplane as the chuck e cheese debate

[phoenixcatch7]

Competent sy is my JAM.

Like, just because he nicked all sorts of skills and knowledge by accident doesn't mean he hasn't used them to great effect! This man is a TEACHER and a TOP LEVEL MONSTER HUNTER and a FAMOUS ARTIST and a MUSICIAN and the SECOND IN COMMAND of a mountain! He gets by with wit and deception and obfuscation, but that's the thing! He gets by.

He doesn't have a fraction of the preparation time someone born into the world does. He has no prior experience with any sort of appropriate mindsets, his XP is set to zero. All he has is two months binging (and we all know how terrible that is for memory) the most tacky, over stuffed, distracting, contradictory 'manual' beforehand he immediately lost upon arrival. He has an extremely limited amount of mistakes he can make before he gets killed over it. He is tasked with single handedly raising the child destined to torture and kill him.

And still he has enough love and patience to keep coming back (against his plans) after he's been KILLED, and it saves the world. Just one person.

Y’know I think the thing I enjoy the most about the SVSSS fanfictions I’ve read is getting to flip outside of Shen Qingqiu’s POV for a while and see him through the eyes of others. Because Shen Yuan has some monster imposter syndrome – understandably so, he is literally an imposter! – but even with as little respect as he had for the Original Goods, he still thinks of himself as an inferior substitute, a worthless hack who is just cheating and faking everything to get by. 

But Shen Yuan is such a fun character once you get past the bitchy shell! He’s genuinely very brave! He’s genuinely very smart! Not only in his ability to retain and recall information but in his innovative solutions to intractable problems (just look at the way he got around Zhuzhi-lang during that trick with the drugged wine, that was a good one.) And he has a genuinely compassionate heart under all that bitchiness, much more so than he thinks of himself. He thinks that anyone would care as much and try as hard  as he does, and is blind to the fact that literally nobody else does.

So it’s nice to get to see him from the POV of others (aside from Luo Binghe, who is canonically acknowledged to be extremely deranged about his Shizun and not a good judge of character) and see that oh, the Qing Jing Peak Master actually is really smart and really cool and very good.

And while he may have inherited the looks from Shen Jiu, he brought the style all by himself.

[sunderwight]

Much as I love the idea of PIDW being rife with terrible porn tropes and interesting (if contrived) erotic writing conventions, all actual evidence in canon would seem to indicate that apart from some sex pollen and "uh oh, the protagonist has gone into a fugue state, whatever shall calm him down?" type stuff, it was fairly vanilla.

Like, that's part of both Shen Yuan and Airplane's frustration with it, I think. It's full of sex and it's not even sex either of them enjoy the concept of. Airplane was fully just trying to pander to an audience he felt he knew and could manipulate, but not one either he nor his ultra mega hate reader were actually part of.

Not that they understood that themselves at the time.

I mean I know fandom likes to make Airplane less closeted than Shen Yuan (for a lot of reasons), which I support, but I feel like in canon at least... he didn't cotton on to Luo Binghe's change in interests at first either. It wasn't until he was watching his protagonist obsess over resurrecting Shen Qingqiu at any cost that the light started to dawn. For Shang Qinghua, also, many more years have passed since he was back in their original world. He's had more time to reconcile himself to certain ideas.

What glimpses we get of the person he was before he died, was reborn, and lived a whole other life well into adulthood, would seem to indicate that he probably wasn't much better than Shen Yuan back when he was writing.

I mean he probably was still BETTER (the bar is on the floor), like I bet he could have a fantasy featuring Mobei Jun without having an existential crisis or pretending it didn't happen, but he would have probably been like "wow I guess I've been writing so much m/f porn that I can't even enjoy it anymore and my brain had to come up with something else, anyway Mobei would make a hot chick tho, I'm gonna write one of his cousins as Binghe's next wife" and gotten on with things.

Basically I guess what I'm driving at is that it would be funny if SQQ and SQH figured they had a solid handle on the kinds of sex pollen-y porn tropes to expect from the world (mostly just the occasional fuck-or-die that missionary can cure), only for the rug to get ripped out from under them because the system incorporated a bunch of stuff from Airplane's subconscious to fill out the gaps. Not even his notes. His daydreams and fantasies.

SQQ: what the hell?! PIDW didn't even have werewolves or tentacle porn monsters!

SQH, suddenly reminded of some very specific fap sessions: right?! this is definitely weird and in no way my fault! it must be because of the genre switch!

SQQ: *suspicious*

SQH: which is your fault! you made the protagonist gay! in fact it's probably your fault that I'm gay too now!

SQQ: bullshit. what did you do. was this in a draft?!

SQH: *sweating* I can say with absolute confidence that it was not! I never wrote anything like this!

SQQ: *having a crisis now because maybe he DID accidentally cause the monsterfucker stuff and he desperately doesn't want anyone to realize that he's actually into it*

SQH: *continuing to sweat because the world is consistently manifesting content from his personal spank bank and if cucumber ever figures that out he's a dead man*

[amethystamaranth]

aita for recommending svsss to my straight guy friend??

okay so we were talking abt fav books and I started talking abt svsss and then he asked to borrow it and he has no idea what danmei or BL is...do I tell him?? Also he's reading it and thinking so much in terms of sqq "beating" lbh and how he's going to do it and I am soooo tempted to say the power of love

I'll liveblog his reactions if they're entertaining enough but I have a feeling he's going to F L I P when he gets to the kiss

[sophia-sol]

SVSSS fic recs

Shen Qingqiu's Harmony in the Workplace, by raitala

➤ svsss fic wherein sqq is an oblivious aroace who just wants to be left alone to enjoy his disciple's company in peace (binghe even does the voices when he reads aloud!) but other people in his sect keep bothering him by needing things

➤ sqq has no idea that his efforts to get people's problems dealt with results in impressively effective matchmaking

➤ cute and fun!

➤ 6k words in length

i could be your girl, by sixthmoon (seventhstar)

➤ a cute little modern au f/f bingqiu get-together!

➤ lbh comes over to sy's apartment to cook for her on a rainy day

➤ binghe is SO good at working around her yuan-jie's heterosexual hangups 🥰

➤ 2.5k words in length

Territorial, by acernor

➤ a fic that's doing very different things with a/b/o worldbuilding and it's so fun and funny

➤ sqq just wants to be able to talk monster lore with lqg and lbh without those two alphas getting all territorial at each other!

➤ meanwhile lbh and lqg..... figure out a way to resolve their differences

➤ bingliushen is definitely in their future

➤ I love them all

➤ 3.4k words in length

On Paper, by acernor

➤ svsss au fic where as part of peace efforts between the human and demonic realms, marriage has been arranged between lqg and lbh

➤ nobody's pleased with the thought of the marriage actually taking place and everyone expects a duel rather than a completed marriage ceremony

➤ stands alone as a fun glimpse into the world of this story, but author hints at the possibility of it being the first chapter in a longer fic (that would probably end up bingliushen)

➤ 1.7k words in length

somebody told me, by tshirt

➤ svsss fic where sqq transmigrated into one of original lbh's wives

➤ sqq proceeds to go on a gender journey. several gender journeys. it all seems very obvious to sqq!! nobody else gets it!

➤ including liu mingyan, who is honestly TOO supportive for what sqq is looking for!

➤ lbh very willing, meanwhile, to just roll with whatever is going on with his wife a-yuan

➤ I love sqq's baffling little mind. nobody does gender like her!

➤ 4k words in length

The More You Learn, by Neery

➤ svsss canon divergence au, focused on the dynamics between mbj and lbh, with background moshang and bingqiu

➤ I love mbj's pov omg. in his own head he's so straightforward! and just doesn't feel the need to explain himself most of the time

➤ mbj internally: alright sure I'm willing to be allies with this powerful young heavenly demon. mbj out loud to lbh: nothing

➤ also holy shit mbj's pov on sqh!!!

➤ 3k words in length

[herbofthyme]

f!sqq in pretty clothes

[arospecsyourblockdudes]

Shang Qinghua is one of the SV characters I can most relate to purely in terms of also being a writer. I know that a lot of the stuff I want to write won’t end up being super popular (a romance with a purposefully unsexy vampire? a story between an m/f best friend pair with a really deep emotional bond and no romance? come on) and publishing is a nightmare anyway. But the difference is that I don’t plan to make a living off my writing. Poor SQH does. So if he wants to do fun things like pay his bills and eat food every day, he has to pander to the big audience.

He’s written other things that weren’t PIDW. Things that weren’t trashy stallion novels. Things he might’ve had a passion for and put his heart into. No dice. So PIDW it is and my god I can’t imagine how annoying and frustrating it is that the one work that you purposefully sold out on so you can, yknow, survive, is the only one that got big. It got really big. Really popular. That’s gotta be so fucking enraging. Imagine that, you think sitting down to write something you like is hard? Try to pump out a few thousand words of some crap you don’t even like every day, crap that you know had potential if following your actual ideas and plans for the characters would allow you to pay rent. Alas. The characters you lovingly crafted are watered down now. No one cares that you came up with a really compelling backstory for this one villain, he did bad things and he got murdered and that’s all anyone wanted to see. Not a real story, not something you put love into

In a way I think that’s partly why he and SQQ became friends. I’m a writer, we like feedback. We like to hear what people think of the things we write, even negative feedback can be appreciated. So if you have this one guy who reads everything, comments frequently, and (most important) can see how absolutely shitty this work of yours is? Someone that also sees the wasted potential of this story? Gotta be worth something.

[gaywarcriminals]

How much lesbingqiu is there?

Since exactly One (1) person asked for the femslash slash stats on my post about the proportion of hetswap in the bingqiu AO3 tag, I have obliged. 

I used the bingqiu tag and filtered by F/F. Obviously many of these results are F/F side pairings with M/M bingqiu, so from there, I counted them by hand.

I excluded crossovers from my search criteria, but I did a separate search to include the fics tagged with both SVSSS and Scumbag System. At time of writing there were 257 and 18 fics respectively, or 275 total.

I have included fics with multiple pairings and polyships. Iirc this was only relevant to Bingliushen.

I counted collection fics that had at least one fembingqiu ficlet/chapter.

I included art posted to the archive.

I included podfics posted to the archive, and counted them and the fics they were based on as two separate works.

I am excluding fics where male characters' bodys or genitals are temporarily changed for a plot device but the characters maintained their original gender identity.

By these criteria, I counted 140 lesbingqiu fics on AO3. At time of data collection there are 7005 total fics in the bingqiu tag, meaning lesbingqiu makes up 0.01999% of the bingqiu tag

For funsies, I have also noted instances of trans bingqiu!

I am including fics where amab Shen Yuan Transmigrates into a cis woman and decides they're okay with this body in the trans category. 

If gender was not mentioned in a fic I defaulted to cis.

I am lumping all iterations non-binary bingqiu into the trans category, including afab non-binary bingqiu.

Not all fics with trans characters are tagged as such, so I skimmed any fics I was unsure of, but I'm sure I inevitably missed some.

Cis bingqiu - 118 Trans SQQ x cis Binghe - 8 Trans Binghe x cis SQQ - 6 T4T bingqiu - 4 Monsterfucking body weirdness, gender fucky omegaverse, or high tier SQQ gender shenanigans that I didn't know how to categorize - 4

Reflections

WAY LESS THAN I THOUGHT??? I think my perception has been skewed by what a high proportion of my fandom friends are lesbians, and how often femslash AUs feature in our discussion. 

Similarly, the fact that there are only four T4T fics was genuinely shocking to me-- I forget sometimes what a bubble I'm in lmao. I also noted that trans bingqiu was a more recent development, at least on AO3; the first fic I found to feature trans girl SQQ was from January of 2022.

I don't have exact numbers because I didn't think of it until halfway through, I noticed that in almost all the NSFW fics where just one of bingqiu was trans, the trans girl topped. This was an interesting mirror to the trend I've noticed where, in cases where just character is a trans man, he almost always bottoms. I'll shelve speculation about that for another post tho. 

[maomia0]

I feel like bingqiu (sqq to lbh) are the "Well, now I've gotta f*ck him." "You don't have t-" "No, I'm gonna f*ck him" meme.

[web-novel-polls]

Favorite WN Quotes - Bonus: MXTX

Quote A: Shi Wudu's Fate

“Everything I have today, I have fought for! I will fight for what I don't have. I will change fortune if fate denies me! My fate is up to me and not the heavens!” - Shi Wudu, Heaven Official’s Blessing

Quote B: SQQ's Period

“Shen Qingqiu panted, his heart flooding with tears-- his period was finally over!” - The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System 

Quote C: Maiden Luo Binghe

"To push him away at this moment would be like giving a young maiden-one who'd finally worked up the courage to call and brokenheartedly weep to an older sister fotlr comfort and encouragement-a face turning slap. It was really a bit cruel". - Shen Qingqiu’s narration, The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System 

Quote D: Not Interested

“Even if I like men, I don’t like all men, and I definitely don’t just go home with any man who waves at me. I’m not interested in your type.” - Wei Wuxian to Jiang Cheng, Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation 

Quote E: Difficult to Bear

“Hanguang-jun endured the wait for so many years, but even now, his efforts have come to naught. Not only does Sect Leader Lan have reason to be impatient—it is also difficult for those of us watching from the sidelines to bear." - Jin Guangyao, Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation 

Quote F: Wanted to Sleep with You

“Lan Zhan! Lan Wangji! Hanguang-jun! I...I genuinely wanted to sleep with you earlier!” - Wei Wuxian, Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation 

Quote G: Infinite Glory

“To me, the one basking in infinite glory is you; the one fallen from grace is also you. What matters is you, and not the state of you.” - Heaven Official’s Blessing

Quote H: Humanity

“Remember: when humans ascend, they are still human; when they fall, they are still human.” - Heaven Official’s Blessing

[Propaganda below]

Quote A: Shi Wudu's Fate

Submission: THE most badass delivering in all of danmei history!! Bro is literally faced with death, covered in blood! He Xuan asked him if he showed remorse and Shi Wudu was like 'bitch no, remorse isn't real!' Shi Wudu is a BAMF and we all should be appreciating him more!!

Quote B: SQQ's Period

Submission: Trans rights 🏳️‍⚧️

Quote C: Maiden Luo Binghe

Submission: this is the mc talking about the ml in a danmei.

Quote D: Not Interested

Submission: MC tries to escape an awkward situation by saying THIS to his estranged adopted brother, who doesn't know it's him but STRONGLY suspects it's him, and he says this BECAUSE HE THINKS HIS BROTHER WILL BE PERSONALLY OFFENDED BY THE THOUGHT THAT SOMEONE IN THE WORLD IS INTO SOMEONE ELSE MORE THAN THEY'RE INTO HIM. And he's RIGHT. it's so funny 

Quote E: Difficult to Bear

Submission: tfw your sworn brother's brother's boyfriend doesn't know they're dating and it's SO agonising that you are compelled to interrupt your own hostage situation to chew him out (politely, of course)

Quote F: Wanted to Sleep With You

Submission: tfw you realize you're in love with your boyfriend and express it so poorly that the guy holding you at basically knifepoint lets you go out of pure shock. who is doing it like wei wuxian.

[my-life-is-important-mb]

Bing-mei: "Shizun is so wise.... so sublime and mysterious! He is as restrained in the spring games as the celestials, even better!

SY/SQQ *brought up on public pages with alpha quotation, Internet sages generation X, And he's a millennial who has only seen naked people on you-know-what-sites*: If you fallen, get up, are you dying? f up.

(there should be a cool quotation from the pubs of 2010, but they are not translated into English with rhyme. by the way, I think SY even if he was born in China, he still grew up like in the West, well, like all sorts of Coca-Cola, Maincraft. idk)

[emo-nova]

Spoilers for people who haven't read up to book 3 - you'll need context. For the folks that just don't give a f, hi, I'll still be vague. Just know it's part of the monastery part.

So as anyone who recognises my handle at this point, possibly is aware, I love me some Shen Twins. Now imagine that one time that SQQ was about to be stabbed in the back with LQG and YQY becoming the most badass and protective friends ever?

Now imagine this with me.

Shen Yuan almost getting stabbed in the back, been there since childhood. He is being protected by LBH but he still almost gets stabbed.

Shen Jiu, who has the face sculpted from ice and looks barely bothered that you think that this man must be detached and pondering over the matter. Just turns ugly with anger. He's there. Ready for blood and murder and fire.

Liu Qingge is right behind him, happily following the lead while also looking absolutely beautifully pissed. Yue Qingyuan is being detached and ready to just call the meeting a free for all.

Just imagine that with me. Bask in the chaos of Shen Yuan being an idiot. Bask in the potential violence that siblings would do for the other after the many close calls, especially with someone like Shen Yuan. Imagine.

[luobinghelovebot]

good evening kind tumblr user luobinghelovebot, i have devoured svsss this week and consequently fallen into bingqiu hell. i was wondering if you would be so kind to give this lowly one some fic recs? preferably modern aus as i'm in the mood for those rn but rly if there’s anything you think someone MUST read i would be happy to receive them 🙏🏼🫡

oooh my lovely i am absolutely honoured u came to me for this !!!! I dont rlly read a lot of modern aus bc its not my vibe BUT i do read some occasionally and so here are some of my recs !!

Assume its bingqiu unless i say otherwise but also i love so many ships in this fandom so just included them all 🫡:

Asmr artist!binghe my beloved

Cumplane forum au...

This retransmigration fic oh my god

And this one

Hannah montana au (just trust me)

bingyuan...

Another cumplane one

f/f/f bingliushen pwp

another retransmigration fic

bingliushen but lmy&lqy 🥺🥺 i love siblings

Cumplane were married before transmigrating

Moshang arranged marriage....

sqq makes a r/relationships post

binghe/sqq/he xuan/xie lian/hua cheng from tgcf

Florist binghe/librarian sqq

Another retransmigration 🙈

Aaand one more

Not a modern au but this is my fave sv fic at the mo, or maybe this

also i do bookmark literally every fic i read, mark them by recs and favourites SO i can give u this link for all my faves of faves for sv. And this one for all the recs. Or feel free to sleuth all my bookmarks ofc! Happy reading 🥰

[chaos-is-the-experience]

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