#favorite svsss character close *close* second is sqq

[mxtxfanatic]

Hello, new danmei fan here. I'm really late into danmei, just started last year (so I missed the hype). Just when I confused which blog to follow, I found your blog. Thanks so much for this blog of yours, it really helped me to understand more of the stories. I just finished MDZS, TGCG, SVSSS and now I'm reading 2Ha.

For this ask game, can I ask MDZS or SVSSS?

Before I start reading, many people said that SVSSS is inferior to other MXTX works, after finishing the books, I disagree, because I enjoy them all the same....

I mean, if starting last year is considered "late," then I'm also behind, because I only started reading things a few years ago lmao! But it's never too late when fandoms are still booming (for better or worse). So I see we're finishing out the mxtx novels.

MDZS

Favorite Character: Wei Wuxian

Favorite Arc: all Drunk Lan Wangji encounters!

Character I Think is Underrated: Lan Wangji, if i have to hear “he’s boring” from people who can’t read one more time…

Character I Think is Overrated: all of the antagonists and villains. Jiang Cheng is not "single mother!jiujiu," he is just a bitchless Wen Chao. Jin Guangyao is not "poor little Meng Yao forced to do things against his will," he is a a calculating murderer who will scheme against, betray, and kill anyone who stands between him and ultimate power. Madam Yu is not a "girlboss" (unless we accept the real meaning of that word, which is a woman who gains power by ingratiating herself into oppressive systems as the female alternative to corrupt male leaders), she is a domestic abuser who made every single person in her family and husband's clan miserable.

Favorite Ship/Pairing: Wangxian

Something I Love About the Book: I love the way this book is adamant about good always eventually being rewarded. That even if the outcome of doing good was terrible, that does not make the effort wasted or useless. Lan Wangji protecting Wei Wuxian at Nightless City was worth it even if he was almost killed for it, because it made sure that the yin tiger tally did not end up in the Jin Clan's hands as a completed weapon. Wei Wuxian saving the Wen was worth it even though he was killed for it, because A-Yuan got to live. Wen Qing and Wen Ning saving Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian was worth it even though Jiang Cheng betrayed them in the end, because their clan still got to live through its last descendant. None of their actions were met with immediate rewards, but the larger implications of them led to better outcomes than had they just kept to themselves and the status quo of corruption, as everyone else had.

SVSSS (my favorite of the three 🤗)

Favorite Character: Luo Binghe, hands down

Favorite Arc: Holy Mausoleum Arc, cause y'all (Shen Qingqiu 😒) gonna stop falsey accusing my baby, today!

Character I Think is Underrated: Bing-mei version of Luo Binghe, not because he's "unpopular," per se, but because mainstream fandom's perception of him seems to be that he is just Bing-ge who cries, and this is a complete mischaracterization of his character based on popular fanon. I see too much hate for him in this fandom because of it

Character I Think is Overrated: Shen Jiu. The man was a child abuser and died to one of his victims because he chose to be a child abuser. There is nothing tragic or unfair about that. Leave that man in the ether where he'll hopefully never have a chance to harm another person again.

Favorite Ship/Pairing: Bingqiu

Something I Love About the Book: Shen Qingqiu. The man is trying his damndest to do right in what he considers a doomed narrative, but the moment he realizes that his efforts have actually made things worse, he immediately pivots his actions. He never tries to justify himself, deflect from criticism, or misplace responsibility. He has one goal in mind, and that is to make as many people's lives as he possibly can better than what they originally ended up as.

[irrealisms]

svsss and sexual violence pt. 1: shen yuan's realization of himself as a target

it's been a while (read: two months) since my last Big Meta so it's time for another one! this one is about my reading of svsss as in large part About sexual violence but it's gonna be in multiple parts; this one is about 1k, with a lot of quotes from canon, and is focused on Shen Yuan realizing that he has been put in a position where he is a target for sexual violence.

standard disclaimer at the beginning: i am not saying that this is the Only thing svsss is about, or that other readings are invalid; i am not intending to character-bash most of the characters here (while i will freely admit to thinking e.g. old palace master or qiu jianluo are pretty one-dimensionally shitty, lots--probably most--of the characters in this series who i mention as perpetrating SA are characters who do have depths & who i in fact like a lot! despite this meta, or perhaps because of it, my second-favorite character is luo binghe, and i am in fact a bingqiu shipper!); and, obviously, huge fucking CW for sexual abuse and adjacent topics.

(also: shoutout to @rooses40stepskincareroutine for motivating me to actually write all this out haha)

TABLE OF CONTENTS pt 1: shen yuan's realization of himself as a target (you are here) pt 2: gender and homophobia pt 3: non-bingqiu sexual violence pt 4: shen qingqiu's body pt 5: we live in a society

When we first meet Shen Yuan, he's oblivious to the idea of himself as a sexual object. He's attracted to others and at times has to deliberately be respectful and not stare, but he never considers the possibility that others might be attracted to him--much less that men would be attracted to him, and certainly not that he would be a target of sexual violence due to this desire. I could get quotes/proof on this but honestly I think this is pretty uncontroversial.

The first point at which this becomes interesting to me in the context of sexual violence is when Luo Binghe returns from the abyss. here's how the choking scene goes:

“During the day, Shizun was so intimate and gentle with Gongyi Xiao, and this evening you lit a lantern, waiting for Liu-shishu until late into the night. What sincere affection. Why, then, are you so distant when it comes to this disciple?” [...] Under the streaming moonlight, Luo Binghe looked even more peerlessly beautiful, as if his silhouette had been carved from ice and jade. He pressed very close, and he spoke with slow deliberation. “After so many years of separation, we meet amidst golden wind and jade dew, yet Shizun incessantly calls someone else’s name. That truly saddens this disciple a little.”

Luo Binghe is jealous of Shen Qingqiu talking about other people, so he "pressed very close" and starts choking Shen Qingqiu out. This is not explicitly sexual--yet--but it has some overtones. And I don't think this is accidentally sexually charged-- bingqiu is in fact our primary ship, which we are supposed to be reading as sexually charged! It becomes more and more explicit that Luo Binghe is jealous of SQQ's relationships with others not just in general but also on a specifically romantic/sexual level! And later in the same scene we get this line:

Luo Binghe looked at him, then said pityingly, “Shizun, that would require someone to believe you.”

I'll be talking more later about what svsss has to say about sexual violence being allowed and supported by society but right now I just want to really emphatically gesture at the above quote.

And then in their next interaction, in the water prison, the system (we will be talking more about the system's role in all of this later) progresses the scene by causing LBH to physically tear SQQ's robes, and we get this section:

That doesn’t mean you should tear my clothes! Shen Qingqiu clutched the remaining fabric tightly and indignantly said, “What are you doing?! Is this your only method of humiliating others?” “It was clearly Shizun who humiliated me first!” 【 Satisfaction points +50. 】 You can add points for that too?! Gross! Why does this feel so sick?!

But notably--even though Shen Qingqiu notices feeling sick and gross and humiliated about having his clothes ripped off--Shen Qingqiu, even here, does not yet recognize any threat of sexual abuse! Gongyi Xiao sees him and instantly assumes that Shen Qingqiu's been raped by Luo Binghe--the torn clothes, the panicked desire to get out and away from Luo Binghe--but Shen Qingqiu has no idea that this is the assumption being made; Shen Qingqiu is, in his narration, still primarily afraid of more physical threats from LBH, a la PIDW; he's trying to figure out why LBH isn't as good at getting wives as in PIDW, and a couple chapters later he's worrying that LBH is asexual. He's been flagged by the narrative (diegetically, even!) as a target of sexual violence--but he hasn't realized this yet.

this doesn't change for a while; while I have things to say about LBH and LQG fighting over SQQ's corpse under this framework, they're not relevant to my current point. SQQ becomes aware of his role as a sexual object when LBH sexually assaults him in the dream world--it's a kiss, so it's something that SQQ is unable to dismiss as a more platonic form of violence:

Shen Qingqiu’s worldview repeatedly collapsed and re-formed, collapsed and re-formed, cycling infinitely at the speed of light.

Suddenly, Shen Qingqiu is being made very, very aware that he is a target of sexual desire, and that people who desire him can force sexual violence on him. He tries to kick and push at Luo Binghe to get out of the kiss--he's described as "struggling with all his might"--but Luo Binghe, who is stronger than Shen Qingqiu and able to overpower him “even though their builds were similar”, keeps him trapped in the kiss. Shortly afterwards, we get this section, which is perhaps the most important section in the whole book for my reading of Shen Qingqiu's arc, which is SQQ interacting with ZZL:

That touch trailed downward until it was at Shen Qingqiu’s chest and abdomen. For some reason, the places he touched felt a bit better. Shen Qingqiu sucked in a breath, and he couldn’t help but say, “Eh, my friend, where…are you touching?” Even a few hours ago, he genuinely wouldn’t have cared where others (especially those of the same sex) touched him. They could touch wherever they liked, please go ahead. But ever since Luo Binghe had opened a series of gates to a new world for him, Shen Qingqiu’s worldview, which had been set for the past twenty-plus years, had suffered a heavy blow. From now on, he needed to look at this world with a new gaze and more sensitive attitude. Especially on the issue of befriending those of the same sex!

for twenty-plus years, shen qingqiu hadn't thought of himself as someone who could be sexually desired by men; for twenty-plus years, shen qingqiu hadn't thought of himself as someone who sexual violence can happen to. and for shen qingqiu, these realizations are the same. suddenly, he's looking at the world differently: he worries about (and imo is afraid of) being touched places where he is normally clothed, even touch that feels good. and specifically--he is touched in a way that he would have previously assumed was nonsexual due to being same-sex and he is no longer comfortable assuming that. which ties heavily into my later post in the series about gender & homophobia & how this interacts with his experiences here! but we'll tie this post up for now.

[ultfreakme]

Danmei ask, what are your top 5 (or top 7) favorite moments from MDZS? Also, can I ask why you love those 3 (JC, WWX , XXC)?

(Riki, I'm so glad when found out you also love Jiang Cheng. You must know how many haters on his character in tumblr and twitter. Like, I was blocked 4 times by MDZS lover blog, when they knew I love Jiang Cheng.)

I love reading your MDZS/ SVSSS crossover, they're so in character.....And yes, SQQ must love Sukuna and Jogo if he ever read JJK...

Thanks for the ask Anon!!

Top 7 moments:

When we find out the Jiang Cheng sacrificed himself to the Wens to save Wei Wuxian. It was dropped so casually and I had to backtrack and go "wait, wait, WAIT! DISCUSS IT PLEASE!!"

The juniors in the Yi City arc, they were so adorable, I loved reading them putting on a brave face and investigating.

Wei Wuxian murdering the crap out of Wen Chao with his sexy undead ladies. Him and Jiang Cheng together torturing him while Lan Wangji was sent out and it's like, LWJ is confused, shocked, and horrified.

The scene where Wei Wuxian's roasting Jin Guangshan at the conference post-war and everyone's scandalized. I love it when Wei Wuxian gets bitchy.

Jiang Cheng's intro scene in the donghua where he emerges from the shadows of that tree, pushing aside the leaves. That's so hot of him.

Wei Wuxian covered in blood in the second siege of Burial Mounds and Lan Wangji is defending him. That scene's so cool and romantic in all its iterations. The donghua went above and beyond and made it seem like a wedding.

Jiang Cheng giving Zidian to Jin Ling ;_; It hurts me. It's so much worse knowing that MXTX was planning on killing Jin Ling soon after to really hurt Jiang Cheng.

Reasons I like:

Jiang Cheng-

He's so complicated! You can't immediately look at him and say he's the good guy or the bad guy. I personally think he leans more towards the good guy category.

He's the perfect opposite of Wei Wuxian, he's not a genius cultivator like wwx, he had to work for every bit of progress he made. He started off simply wanting to keep his family together and at peace, but the war happened and his priorities shifted. He's duty-bound, he's always fighting and scraping to be recognized but no one ever does. He wanted so bad to help wwx, but duty made it so that he was forced to pick between his sect and wwx. Forever chained, closed off.

He's jealous and vicious and so, so angry. I get it, I understand the worst parts of him and relate to it.

Wei Wuxian-

Again, super complicated as a person. Wronged at every turn. He wanted to do good and protect people, and for that he kept sacrificing himself over and over again with little value given to himself as a person. He's got his sharp edges and cruelty too, and I feel like people often forget that Wei Wuxian's traumas and his lack of self-appreciation and value on himself show in ugly and vicious ways.

His story obviously shows a key message of MDZS, which is that when people sacrifice themselves thinking that they're protecting their loved one, they only hurt them in another way. I understood his desire to do good, protect people, but there's no one to stand at his side. The loneliness and fear that comes with fucking up so bad that no one even tries to hear you out, no one's listening no matter how loud you shout.

Xiao Xingchen:

He's like Wei Wuxian but 100% times worse and more self-sacrificial. Too trusting, too good, and everyone kept taking advantage of that without bothering to guide him or be honest with him. Like legit, no one told him what they were truly thinking.

I love that xxc wants to be a good person, i hate that he was ruined for it. God I really wanted him to have a happy ending because he's just, he's so NICE. In a world filled with betrayal and deceit, xxc wanted to spread goodness. And yet.

AAHHHHHH

I think these characters made me see the point of MDZS in a very clear way, or in a way that impacted me most. So they're my faves.

Being a Jiang Cheng liker is a struggle! I was getting into MDZS even before the donghua started airing, like around 2018 and back then Jiang Cheng hate was so bad. I kept waiting year after year for the hate to go down but it just got worse the more popular MDZS got. The misunderstandings built up too. I got black and got into a million arguments too ;_; We have to stick together!!!

i have so many thoughts about Jiang Cheng specifically because, okay I read and watched everything about 3 years ago, so I don't remember much other than my fav, so I'm always thinking about everything he did.

nbsdhfb SQQ's monster-loving ass would go gaga for Sukuna. Four armed man wrecking people??? Yes sir! (side note; big tall powerful man who is called king who is only nice to his close servant and confidante???? SQH come get your boy!)

[hunxi-after-hours]

Hunxi congrats with the progress on the QianQiu subs translation!!! 🥳 (I'm so excited!)

I also saw you read svsss, oh my! I loved your LBH meta! Can you also do one on SY!SQQ please? Would love to have your thoughts on this chaotic unreliable narrator! And also maybe the Bingqiu relationship from Shen Yuan's side?

ty, I'm so close to finishing the 《山河剑心》 subs that I can TASTE IT--

so I've been sitting on this ask for who knows how long because I’ve been trying to track down a single coherent thought about Shen Yuan!Shen Qingqiu in my brain and every time I think I've got a handle on his character I uncover something else, slippery bastard that he is (affectionate)

I'm still not sure I've got a handle on his character but this ask isn't going to write itself no matter how hopefully I stare at it, so here goes

some housekeeping! the first is that in this post, all iterations of "Shen Qingqiu" refer to Shen Yuan!Shen Qingqiu unless explicitly noted otherwise

the second is that I think that there's a distinct possibility that I am Overthinking Simple Things Again, especially because I firmly believe authors should be allowed to not think through Every Single Exhaustive Detail of Their Narrative, so like, it's very possible I'm reading far more into Shen Yuan/Shen Qingqiu's character than I should be, maybe he really is just as simple as a webnovel fan who gets transmigrated into his favorite love-to-hate textual disaster

but I gotta live up to my blog header (心怀杂念，字数无量), so buckle up, I guess we’re doing this

when scraping together the remnants of sentient thought in my brain for this ask, I tried to start with basic premises about Shen Qingqiu that I thought I could rely on. so, premise: Shen Qingqiu is an ordinary dude who gets transmigrated into a shitty webnovel and tries his best to survive

except he isn't, right? first of all, it's not just any webnovel -- it's a 600+ chapter disaster of a work that nevertheless has legions of rabid fans, that suckered him into caring about it somehow, that once perhaps held some potential for becoming Something Great but whose author summarily sold out for the hit count and the money. second of all, Shen Yuan isn’t just any reader, is he? he's PIDW's greatest anti-fan, bitterly dedicated to reading every single amateurish word while writing essays about how bad each new development is (never forget that Shen Yuan was so loud about this that Shang Qinghua, the literal author, recognized Shen Yuan’s web ID amidst thousands of comments). He's someone who continued reading this book for the plot when several hundred chapters ago it devolved into gratuitous PWP

so, not quite your average reader then. he’s also gifted with an exceptional memory (of the monster catalog, and what little plot there is), more investment in the characters than he'd like to admit (again -- he read all 600+ chapters for the plot), and genre/narrative savviness (he knows how these stories go, and more particularly how this story goes, and can therefore manipulate aspects of worldbuilding to his advantage)

and the more I thought about this, the more I couldn’t square the words “ordinary” and “Shen Yuan/Shen Qingqiu” in my head, because despite what his narration would imply (the only premise I honestly feel confident in truly declaring is that Shen Qingqiu is a comically unreliable narrator), he’s really quite exceptional in many ways

I touched on it briefly in this post, but again and again, what stands out to me about Shen Qingqiu is that, well -- he’s a decent person

I’m not sure ‘kind’ is the right word, or ‘compassionate,’ or ‘loyal,’ or ‘self-sacrificing,’ because it honestly feels a little silly to throw such Big, Dramatic Words at the insane roller coaster ride of SVSSS, a text which actively satirizes the romanticization of such virtues, but at the same time, all of those words can be used to describe Shen Qingqiu. He’d probably 疯狂吐槽 laugh at me for it, but I defy anyone to explain the entire 圣陵 uhh... demonic mausoleum? arc to me without using those words

and when it comes down to it, Shen Yuan/Shen Qingqiu is, well... decent. He’s not a grand, larger-than-life, self-sacrificing hero the way, say, Xie Lian is, but he also has a bottom line where he will put his foot down, so help him System, and we see him go to great lengths to do what he believes is right -- hell, not even the right thing, just the basic, decent, human thing to do

again (gesticulates wildly) the entire Demon Mausoleum arc; it’s particularly telling that chapter 60 ends with the line: “不过，还好，总算这次没坑了洛冰河。” / “Though, it was fine -- at least this time, he hadn’t screwed over Luo Binghe.” What’s fine? Oh, that’s right--the fact that he’s been severely injured and infected by yet another a crippling, parasitic magical plot device in defense of Luo Binghe. Shen Qingqiu just does this repeatedly throughout the narrative, downplays some truly incredible moments of selflessness/self-sacrifice with his unending internal sass, recasts any genuine emotion he might be having as frustrated exasperation at a terribly-written plot/badly-built world. but like. are we gonna talk about the fact that Shen Qingqiu is casually tortured multiple times throughout this webnovel or like--

again, the Demon Mausoleum arc is the gift that just keeps giving, here:

沈清秋自认倒霉，却不想别人也跟着倒霉，他一手捂着心口，勉力保持脸上表情不变：“阁下想怎么折腾我，请随意。如你所说，喝了这么多次，也该习惯了。可你若是要洛冰河的肉身，想都别想。”

Shen Qingqiu was resigned to his shit luck, but that didn’t mean he wanted other people to also suffer his shitty luck. He pressed one hand to his heart and barely managed to maintain the expression on his face: “Whatever torture you’d like to inflict on me, please feel free. Like you said, after drinking so much [demon blood], I should be used to it now. But don’t even think about taking Luo Binghe’s body.”

沈清秋生平最恨那种被作为要挟筹码的角色，想让他扮这种拖后腿的角色，还不如叫他去死。

Shen Qingqiu hated those characters who were held hostage the most; he’d rather die than play such a role.

(chapter 62)

sure, we have some characteristic Shen Qingqiu snarky genre commentary at the bottom there, but let’s not overlook the fact that Shen Qingqiu said to Tianlang-jun, the greatest archvillain that was never realized in the original PIDW (except that the real villain was the evil demonic sword we carried with us all along), do what you like to me, but don’t even think about touching Luo Binghe

and Shen Qingqiu is constantly doing this in his narration: he’ll do something that’s quite, y’know, good of him, and then immediately play it off as selfishness or survival. He’s being nice to Luo Binghe and Liu Qingge, Shen Qingqiu insists, not because he genuinely cares for them or whatever, but for his “future survival.” He then proceeds to be so nice to both of them that they both fall in love with him, and look, it may have happened off-screen but my dude, you’ve definitely gone above and beyond the call of duty/survival at that point

the narrative unequivocally rewards Shen Qingqiu for his kindness decency -- we joke that Shen Qingqiu transmigrated into a harem novel only to accidentally end up with a harem of his own, but he really did secure the loyalties of half a dozen characters simply by being, well, a decent guy. He saves doesn’t kill Liu Qingge and befriends him pretty much as an afterthought. As a result, Liu Qingge is ride or die for him for the rest of the book. Shen Qingqiu saves doesn’t kill Zhuzhi-lang, who eventually betrays Tianlang-jun for him. Shen Qingqiu is, uh... a reasonable authority figure in the vicinity of Gongyi Xiao, who then proceeds to betray his sect and break Shen Qingqiu out of prison. The Qingjing Peak disciples adore Shen Qingqiu (I’m not even counting the one that, y’know, really fucking adores him), and would gladly throw hands to defend his reputation. I’ll grant you that Yue Qingyuan’s loyalty to Shen Qingqiu was grandfathered in, but like. if you look at the narrative and the relationships that develop in it, Shen Qingqiu is basically a walking vortex of cordial acquaintanceship who suckers in anyone within a certain radius

is Shen Qingqiu nice? he’d deny it to hell and back, but he’s generally a decent guy and that makes him the hottest fucking ticket in this insane, insane webnovel

I think I’ve lost the thread of the plot here (me and Shen Qingqiu both, tbh) but you asked about bingqiu, so! (rolls up sleeves) let’s talk about bingqiu, I guess

the bingqiu relationship from Shen Qingqiu’s side, in one word, is this: indulgence. Shen Qingqiu begins in a caregiving position for Luo Binghe, and nurtures him, supports him, teaches him, shapes him. Shen Qingqiu also praises him, smiles at him, indulges him. Shen Qingqiu is constantly letting Luo Binghe do things -- cook for him, take care of responsibilities for him, pitch into his arms repeatedly -- such that, well, not to be like ��Luo Binghe fell in love with Shen Qingqiu for his kindness,” but highkey, Luo Binghe wholeheartedly adores his shizun because here, for once, is someone who did not abandon him, who believes in him, who chose him over others

meanwhile, Shen Qingqiu is completely oblivious to his effect on Luo Binghe for a staggering amount of the novel, which plays right into Shen Qingqiu’s character arc over the course of SVSSS: simply put, taking responsibility for his own actions

trust me for a bit, I’m going to go on a bit of a tangent to explain how I got there but we’ll make it back, I promise:

we are given deliberately little of Shen Yuan's IRL backstory -- it’s kind of skimmed over with a quick “oh yes, he came from a rich family and didn’t do much with his life, don’t think too hard about it” -- but regardless of what inferences we might want to make about his family life or childhood, the one thing continues to strike me as absolutely key to understanding both Shen Yuan and Shen Yuan-as-Shen Qingqiu is this: in his previous life, Shen Yuan feels preeminently disposable

yes, we’re told that Shen Qingqiu has an almost supernatural capability for dealing with the new and insane shit the plot throws at him, but even with that, I can’t let go of the fact that Shen Qingqiu barely mourns his old life at all

to be fair, for Shen Qingqiu to moan and whine and angst about his own death and the family and friends he’s left behind would be, well, rather tedious and bothersome when all we, as readers, care for is the excitement of exploring a new world and the advancement of the plot, but even then, even making allowances for expectations of genre and reader preference, I think Shen Yuan’s lack of a vibrant life with emotional connections in his prior existence is both notable and significant

the phrase that he repeats, over and over, is that all he ever thought he would do is 混吃等死 to waste time, to eat, to wait for death. Shen Yuan is nobody, not someone with great ambitions or dreams, nor someone who will make waves or change the world. he’s the forgettable middle child of a vaguely rich family somewhere, and if he vanished off the face of the earth, it would not be worth a tragedy -- just a peculiar, tragicomic kind of embarrassment, an odd kind of ruefulness but no true sorrow

and so Shen Yuan carries this mindset of his own disposability, his own helplessness in the face of plot or fate or destiny or the protagonist halo, forward into Shen Qingqiu’s life. this is why it takes him so long to realize that the plot of PIDW has changed on him; even after he’s knocked the narrative off its axis by saving Liu Qingge, by being kind to Luo Binghe, by literally dying, Shen Qingqiu doesn’t quite believe that he’s actually effected change. he’s constantly reading the original novel’s end into his current present; he’s constantly superimposing the original Luo Binghe over the one standing before him

we see this also in his profoundly unreliable narration -- he constantly describes Yue Qingyuan and Liu Qingge as reliable bastions, as nothing more than NPCs, merely tools he intends to use for his own survival, but his own dreamscape betrays him. in chapter 41, we see that his nightmares are haunted by images of Liu Qingge’s death by qi deviation, Yue Qingyuan’s death by ten thousand arrows. “I don’t actually care about them,” Shen Qingqiu insists in his narration, while actually caring very deeply

(“I’m incredibly selfish and just out here to save my own skin,” Shen Qingqiu protests, while turning himself over to Luo Binghe in exchange for Cang Qiong’s safety)

and so, Shen Yuan’s character arc is this: coming to own the fact that 1) he does actually care, which means that 2) his actions are more than game mechanisms conducted at arms length with no real stakes, but real actions with real consequences on real people

and this, metatextually, reflects the journey of his relationship with PIDW as a whole (going from “what are you talking about, I hate this fucking novel” to “fine. FINE. I didn’t say it was good, I said I like it okay?!”) as well as the arc of his relationship with Shen Qingqiu, the body he wears, the identity he steals by accident and eventually grows into. by coming to accept his role as Shen Qingqiu, and therefore his place in this not-quite-PIDW-anymore canon, Shen Yuan is finally accepting the fact that this is now his life

and who is he in his life? indisposable

perhaps, for the first time, his actions effect change; the words he casually throws out are remembered, internalized, recited back at him years later. Shen Qingqiu is absolutely critical to the plot and to the development of the characters around him, and it takes him a while to realize this and come to terms with the fact that his actions have consequences, his words have effects, and that he has, for better or worse, had a direct hand into shaping Luo Binghe into who he is now today

this isn’t to say that it’s Shen Qingqiu’s fault that Luo Binghe is like this -- let’s not remove a character’s agency in developing themselves or an individual’s responsibility to be a decent person -- but Shen Qingqiu has helped make Luo Binghe who he is today, and the emotional turn of the novel occurs when he begins to accept that and take responsibility for it

so perhaps what I’m trying to say isn’t so much “Shen Qingqiu learns to take responsibility for his actions” as “Shen Yuan as Shen Qingqiu learns to take ownership over his life, his agency, his actions, and his effects on the world and the people around him,” which is how we get back to Luo Binghe

and the last thing I want to say about the bingqiu relationship in this post that apparently will not end is this: the book ends at their beginning. I mean this literally, in that the last chapter of this webnovel is titled “The Story’s Beginning” so like. it’s right there y’all

which is to say, all of bingqiu’s relationship development and negotiation, all of the messy tangled threads of resentment and forgiveness, all of the awkward tears and arguments and apologies and exploration happens after the book ends

bingqiu is not perfect. bingqiu is fraught as hell. bingqiu is a flaming clown car careening off the edge of an upside-down mountain peak that is being forcefully yoinked into this plane of existence as part of a hare-brained scheme to smash two realms together. bingqiu is composed of a vastly overpowered and deeply insecure former protagonist who has the ability to destroy entire worlds and a compulsive webnovel reader transmigrated into the questionably immortal body of his lover’s former abuser who snarks on reflex as a coping mechanism. all of which is to say--

it’s gonna take a hot second for these two disasters to work through things, okay

tl;dr Shen Qingqiu, you slippery bastard (affectionate), I hope you live happily ever after with the extremely clingy consequences of your actions

[imaginaryelle]

Hi, again..... If you don't mind me asking, what are your top 5 favorite moments from SVSSS novel? And why?

And who are your top 5 favorite characters from SVSSS novel? And why? Sorry if you've answered this question before.....

(Thank you so much for answering my ask before, by dividing them in categories 😊)....

I apologize for the extreme delay in answering this—I really thought I had actually answered it already! I do not mind the ask at all, I just got very distracted apparently. You may uh. Notice a theme here. I will try to break it up a bit with categories again so that I’m not just crying over qijiu and nothing else.

Warnings for: angst and blood mentions. For favorite moments and characters in the parody novel, you ask? Yes, yes for favorite moments and characters in the parody novel.

Okay, 5 favorite moments:

1. Replays in My Mind on Repeat: Original!Shen Qingqiu in the Water Prison, confronted with Yue Qingyuan’s death.

The verbal prodding at his jailer, the laughter, the introspection, the red string of fate imagery with the blood !! I will never be over this scene, okay, the Qijiu extras in general are the part of canon I revisit most often, and this scene is just. The total tone switch between Shen Yuan’s storyline and the extras makes it hit harder, you know? And it hits pretty hard already.

“The sword is broken, the person is dead.

It shouldn’t be like this.

A thread of blood stretched out, moving closer until it was just about to meet another and tie. It missed and coiled back.

It broke.”

Excuse me I need to go scream into the void.

2. Coolest Worldbuilding Detail: Sun and Moon Dew Flower

This one was super hard to choose because the worldbuilding is actually the thing I love most about SVSSS. There are so many hints that are juuuust fleshed out enough to make me wonder about them. Xin Mo’s world-hopping thing comes a close second probably, but the Sun and Moon Dew Flower gets the mention because not only is it a cool concept, but the continuation of the plot hinges on it in entirely unexpected ways, not because SQQ needs it, but because Tianlang-jun needs it.

3. Made Me Scream with the Implications: Shen Yuan accessing Shen Jiu’s old, corrupted memories

Y’all. How much of memory is the body, and how much is the soul? How much of who you are is what you remember? How much of of your personality lives in your bones, in your muscle memory, in a perfect poker face that you don’t even have to think about anymore? How much of you is consistent across multiple lifetimes?

Also there’s A+ Qijiu content. The door conversation gets to me every time.

4. Most Heartbeaking Moment: Yue Qingyuan’s confession

I know, I know there’s a theme here but this moment. This moment and the extras saved the entire novel for me. We find out so much about what happened to propel the events of the past 25 years or so right at the end, and this is the last puzzle piece clicking into place. Yue Qi and Shen Jiu, and a broken promise that cut them both, a precursor to the percieved betrayal between Su Xiyan and Tianlang-jun, and both of those misunderstandings bearing down on Luo Binghe like shards of broken glass.

What would be different, if those promises were kept? What would be different, if Shen Jiu got the chance Tianlang-jun did, to learn that he had not been betrayed before he died? These are questions that literally keep me up at night.

5. Funniest Moment: Two rooms at the inn for SQQ, LBH and LQG

The entire chapter is funny but this is the best, to me. I must get away from the gay, Shen Qingqiu tells himself while claiming a room for only himself. Because I am straight and reading a stallion novel obviously proves that I’m straight. But oh, Liu-shidi can visit. Liu Qingge is the straightest person ever! So beautiful, and so very straight as he gives me back the fan he’s been hanging onto for five years at this point, after attacking Luo Binghe over and over again in an effort to retrieve my body. I am in no danger of gay happening here.

I mean this line: “It was true that Liu Qingge was, since the beginning of time, the world’s first straight man, as straight as the reflection of the sun and moon or the day and night.”

This line is a work of art, okay.

Favorite characters:

1. Most likely to inspire fic writing: Shen Jiu

Probably not a surprise given the above moments list but oh, Shen Jiu. So much potential. So much influence on the plot when he’s not even there anymore. I love it. If Mo Xuanyu haunts the edges of MDZS, Shen Jiu is an ever-present spectre in SVSSS. Now, I will say that I am a huge fan of the idea that Shen Jiu and Shen Yuan are the same person, just different reincarnations of the same soul. But I tend to like Shen Jiu better, because I find him more interesting. He’s bitter and cruel and should never have been put in charge of children without significant time in therapy but he has solid reasons for being that way that can be directly traced to his life experience. He’s loyal even when he’s been betrayed, and he acts altruistically to save Liu Qingge even though they’ve literally never managed to have a civil conversation. His past and these qualities don’t excuse his actions, obviously, but they do make him an extremely complex character, and that paired with his rather extreme influence on the plot makes him prime fic material in all sorts of ways.

2. Favorite Moron with an Overpowered Sword: Yue Qingyuan

Funny how there’s two of those, isn’t it? Look, Yue Qingyuan messed up. He messed up badly in several ways. His is a truly impressive case of trying to do the right thing and just fucking it up over, and over, and over again. I’ve written before about the parallels between Yue Qingyuan and Luo Binghe (plot parallels, though they’re also both intelligent, reportedly handsome and improbably endowed, likely to repeatedly overstep personal boundaries and then cry/apologize about it, etc.), but Yue Qingyuan is more interesting to me because every step of the way it’s his choices that lead to his own downfall. Luo Binghe gets buffeted around by the plot and all those broken promises I mentioned above, but Yue Qingyuan chose power over reliability and ended up destroying the most important relationship in his life. And in reaction to that he swung too far in the other direction: he let his need to reclaim that idea that Shen Jiu would see him as reliable lead him into situations where he was indulgent instead of exercising any authority. His choices are pivotal to multiple plotlines, and yet he’s barely seen in canon because Shen Yuan just. Straight up doesn’t care for quite a long time, and doesn’t know why he should.

3. Favorite non-OT3 Peak Lord: Mu Qingfang

The OT3 is Liu Qingge/Yue Qingyuan/Shen Qingqiu, but I feel like I should talk about someone else so! Mu Qingfang. Mu Qingfang suffers so much nonsense. Also his sense of humor is excellent.

Qi Qingqi placed her teacup down on the table rather heavily and raised an eyebrow as she spoke. “Of course. How could that be indeed? If Luo Binghe dared to return to Cang Qiong Peak now, you’ll see just how we take care of scum like him!”

Mu Qingfang, sitting off to the side with his hands in his sleeves, commented casually, “Well you’d have to be able to take care of him first.”

The deadpan practicality is just so good.

4. Favorite protagonist for a prequel novel: Su Xiyan

Listen. Su Xiyan should have a novel. I think Su Xiyan is the most complex character in the canon, and I want to know—how long was she working the con, and when did she fall in love? What did her fellow Huan Hua Palace disciples think of her? How did she learn the bloodline seal that saved Binghe’s life long enough for him to actually be born? Almost all we have left of her is a story told by a man who found her bleeding out of her pores on the road, trying to return to a lover she didn’t know was already lost. And Binghe’s looks. The sheer willpower, the determination she must have had. Both Tianlang-jun and Yue Qingyuan imply she was fierce and often cold, and a skilled fighter. What might she have done, if she’d lived? What could she do as the head of Huan Hua Palace, assuming she was allowed to actually succeed the Old Palace Master? I want to know, okay. She’d make a fantastic protagonist, even if her story still ended in tragedy.

5. Favorite non-Cang-Qiong Character: Gongyi Xiao

Gongyi Xiao tries so hard. He’s young and gifted and nice, which is like. An incredibly rare quality in his world. And again, so much potential, cut short. Would love to have seen more of him.

[phoenixtakaramono]

Thank you for answering my q ♥️. The thing about Bingqiu is, you're probably right about LBH having many possibilities for love interests although it saddens me a little that in this aspect Bingqiu aren't like Hualian or Wangxian because no matter what circumstances or AU, you could hardly find a better partner for either of them. Wangxian and Hualian are IT for eo while SY is replaceable. Wangxian and Hualian are inevitable while Bingqiu is not. Idk, I love them that's why it makes me sad.

I had a long response on mobile, and then the app closed on me without saving. :’) *cries*

Happy to reply to your asks, anon! 💗 That’s a very interesting perspective actually. Although while some could find it disconcerting, I personally think it’s amazing to see such variety. I also think Bingqiu is less of a “one-time deal” than you think, OP (at least, I like to headcanon in every universe or timeline, there is a Shen Yuan for Luo Binghe—because that’s a romantic thought so long as it’s not a terrible AU LBH). Or as the more extreme diehard Bingjiu fans put it, a SJ for every Luo Binghe. The other ships like Bingjiu (this could be argued) and LQG/LBH are fanon, but Bingqiu is presented in SVSSS as a fated match (it just took a whole lotta misunderstandings to reach that point; whew, what a huge “love trial!”)

Hmm, so these are just some more of my personal thoughts on the MXTX ship(s): I wish Bingqiu was as popular and accepted as Hualian and Wangxian, but SVSSS is supposedly the least well-known out of the three despite its seniority. Out of all her works so far (at the time of this post, we have not yet heard more information of her upcoming fourth novel), I think the Bingqiu ship is a little less clear cut because, and this is no fault of her own, one party is a modern man who’d transmigrated into another man’s body. This identity theft/body snatching muddles somethings and raises questions for a few readers; furthermore, MXTX did not write a scene revealing the truth of SY’s transmigration in the main story and in the extras—which I feel could help this couple feel “authentic” and “deserved.” In MDZS and TGCF, there is no imposter syndrome or transmigration throwing a monkey wrench into the relationship. It’s pretty clear cut. In SVSSS, the relationship thusly can feel a little...I hate to use this word, but it can come across as “disingenuous.” Which is a shame because we see Shen Yuan as SQQ say such romantic lines like these near the end of the book (ugh, my heart 💘):

The second he flipped open ‘Proud Immortal Demon Way,’ the story officially began; the moment he closed ‘Proud Immortal Demon Way,’ the story still remained unfinished.

Or, in other words, the story that circulated among the people of the world has already come to an end. But, the story between you and me has only just begun. (—SVSSS)

But, for context though, under the assumption some of you guys aren’t super familiar with transmigration trope (I’d binged almost the entire genre of transmigration stories from translated light novels to transmigration manhuas/manhwa/and isekai manga at the height of my obsession...it’s literally one of my new favorite genre tags), there are only a handful of works where the main character admits to being a modern wo/man who’d transmigrated into another person’s body in whichever fictional work belonging to the premise. It’s unusual to see them reveal that information. Why?

Because the main character knows they would be called crazy or be looked at with worried/ sympathetic looks (if you tell someone who’s alive and breathing that you came from a different world from another time, and that they were fictional characters or NPCs in your previous world, they would naturally think you’ve either gone mad or are temporarily delusional/confused or have a wild imagination and are playing a joke on them)

Revealing such info could lead to dangerous situations like an unstable universe or to its collapse (some other transmigration works have done this), or their own lives being threatened (like the fear of the character’s loved ones realizing their child/lover/whomever was replaced by the soul of a stranger) in a strange and unfamiliar world that they were uprooted into

Sometimes the System strictly forbids it

Sometimes the MC is willing to discard their previous identity (oftentimes plain or boring or overworked/ stressed or financially troubled) and start over as a new identity, so they essentially disown their mundane past and wholeheartedly embrace their new role

It’s more of the norm to see the main character embrace their new role aka this new identity in the new world. So it’s not so strange to me that Shen Qingqiu never admitted to being Shen Yuan in canon to Luo Binghe. (Plus, I doubt the System would even allow him to, because his true identity and the knowledge that there is another world out there is confidential fourth-wall-breaking information that a book character like the protagonist should not be privy to.)

Another thing that is different is that in TGCF, we find out Hua Cheng/ San Lang was head over heels for Xie Lian from start to finish (my gosh, all time biggest simp & the world record holder for the most patient love and devotion that has lasted for practically so long 😭 he really is his most devoted believer). In MDZS, the romance between Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian is also pretty clearcut (oh gosh, Lan Wangji, when we find out how much he cares for WWX, ugh, my heeeeeart). In SVSSS, Luo Binghe started out as a sweet, devoted disciple in the first half of the story (embodying the “white lotus” archetype) who then blackened in the second half of the story (I know some people don’t like to see LBH being typecast as a yandere, but his actions—while influenced by Xin Mo—highkey reminded me of a yandere at that time) and we nervously read his interactions with Shen Qingqiu until the penultimate conclusion. And then in the extras we see them bonding and even getting married! MXTX was definitely trying to show post-main story that Bingqiu is a happy relationship and is OTP.

And another thing I’ve noticed is there is no real alt. ship competition compared to the canon ship in both MDZS (although technically it can be argued JC/WWX is one such competition, but...I mean, it’s easy to see why people ship it, especially since fanfiction allows us to play with so many different possibilities) and TGCF (I mean, technically I can see Xie Lian with...oh god, I’ve also seen quite a few alternative ships (as you can see, anon, I’m quite the open-minded reader, even if I do have my favorites...which tend to be the canon couple of whichever fictional work) and some of them were intriguing, but I ship Hualian hardcore. For SVSSS, while I also ship Bingqiu hardcore, I also like Bingyuan (Binggeyuan), but it’s also interesting to see the other alternative ships in the fandom. Bingqiu still dominates the fandom in the end (as do all canon couples in all fandoms).

Since it’s canon OTP, I personally don’t see SY as “replaceable.” MXTX is pretty clear about her couples all having their red strings of fate (Wangxian, Hualian, and Bingqiu). Bingqiu was still the canon endgame OTP in SVSSS. SVSSS is indeed MXTX’s first work (I could see why it’s considered rough around the edges), but the build up to the romance, to the “Oh” moment, are different from the setup in MDZS and TGCF where the main characters had good romantic sexual chemistry. LWJ and WWX were mutually in love with each other (the subtle gestures and the overt ones). Xie Lian also wasn’t afraid to bond and inevitably reciprocate Hua Cheng’s/San Lang’s affections. With SY!SQQ...in SVSSS, SY spends a good first half and almost half of the second half of the book oblivious to LBH’s crush on him, and we read SY vehemently declaring himself a straight man. Yet it’s the littlest actions he does that show how much he cares for LBH. He’s also an unreliable narrator, lol. But that’s where the humor comes from: the misunderstandings. SVSSS is mostly comedy and satire/parody/genre deconstruction imo making fun of established Chinese fan culture norms; romance is included but I don’t think it’s SVSSS’ focus. The romance here is so much less...”overt” (I’m not sure what word would work here) than MXTX’s other works and we have to rely on subtext (like how SY, himself, a man, poetically describing another man’s eyes—LBH—as obsidian starry night skies SY, so hella romantic 🙄 and him mentioning over and over again how attractive LBH is like, SY, we get it, LOL, and him throwing himself into life-threatening situations for LBH like saving his life even though he knows LBH has plot armor from his protagonist’s halo). I really like the first half of SVSSS and chapter(s) near the end, and the extras personally. I think they show more of the happy ship dynamic (the tragic middle is hard for me to reread multiple times without me feeling like an incurable M).

I do appreciate that MXTX must have belatedly instinctively realized with her writer’s instincts (or she heard feedback) that she needed to show a bit more of the Bingqiu relationship after the main story was done to show that, yes, troublesome things did happen but this is the endgame couple for a reason and they’re happy together. So I’m appreciative for the extras.

While she does leave things a bit open to interpretation (lol, such as LQG’s misunderstanding in the succubus extra; I joke that LQG is like the typical second ML—since the 2nd ML in Chinese works never gets “the girl” over the protagonist despite being qualified), she did write the succubus extra where Madam Meiyin checked Shen Qingqiu’s love fortune. While it could be argued that since this was Shen Qingqiu’s body, her divination was Shen Jiu’s life story essentially—particularly the past—but you also see ambiguous passages like this:

Madam Meiyin examined it for quite some time, and her expression became increasingly solemn as time passed.

Perplexed, she said, “Immortal Master, my learnings must’ve been too shallow, for this red line of your past seemed a little… …unclear. When I first observed it, it seemed like you were destined to be alone. However, when I take a closer look, I can see a very faint line of marriage.” (—SVSSS)

I always like writers who leave things open to interpretation^. In this case, Madam Meiyin made a weird expression when she was reading out Shen Qingqiu’s love fortune. I headcanon this was the System interfering with her divination, because this is an NPC. Shen Yuan, a modern man, transmigrated into the cannon fodder villainous NPC. She of course wouldn’t be able to see Shen Yuan’s past (that’d be breaking the fourth wall) so the muddling is essentially the System’s censorship in play. But she does hint at Shen Qingqiu’s (SY) destined lover essentially—and her descriptions seems to be pretty clear to the audience that she’s talking about Luo Binghe being the person at the other end of the red string of fate. (Although, lol, LQG’s misunderstanding, hahaha. And SY’s obliviousness, dear lord. I want to facepalm and laugh simultaneously.)

Haha, don’t worry. I think we’re pretty much all suckers for lifetime romances. I think it’s also fun to see all the different fanon ships in all of MXTX’s works (that’s the beauty of fanfiction) but the canon ship is canon.

[spockandawe]

I doubt this is something I’ll ever even try to write, because I rarely have the energy these days to devote my energy to a ‘lol but what if’ ship. But never say never, and I legit wrote the emilonni and tlj/sqq fics, after all, so I’m going to write this down and maybe, possibly, someday come back to it.

Now, hear me out

Wei Wuxian/Jin Zixun

Yes, yes, I know, but give me a second. It’s the sort of ship where I kind of want to do it just to see if it can be done, and where the idea of ‘textual support’ is kind of laughable, and it’s not like I’m smashing together two super-popular characters who just never happened to speak, and it’s the kind of ship where I think I could only shake one fic out of it before I was repeating myself, BUT.

First, a quote:

The person at the head of the group was Jin Zixun. He said, “Zixuan, is that Wei making trouble for you again?!”

Jin Zixuan said, “None of your business, don’t worry about it for now!” Seeing that Wei Wuxian grabbed Jiang Yanli and was about to take her away, he added, “Stop!”

Wei Wuxian said, “Oh, you want to fight? That’s fine with me!”

Jin Zixun said, “You Wei, just what do you mean by going against Zixuan so many times?”

Wei Wuxian looked at him. “Who are you?”

Jin Zixun paused in shock, and fumed, “You don’t know who I am?!”

“Why should I know who you are?”

When the Sunshot Campaign had first broken out, Jin Zixun had insisted on defending the back lines, due to an injury. He hadn’t had the chance to see what Wei Wuxian was like on the front lines, and most of his knowledge had come from rumors. He hadn’t care much for him, thinking that the rumors were simply exaggerations. However, a while ago, Wei Wuxian had summoned all of the dark creatures in the forest with a whistle, calling away the fierce corpses Jin Zixun’s group had been about to capture, causing their efforts to be wasted. He was already displeased.

Now, in front of his face, Wei Wuxian was asking who he was, stirring up a strange sense of indignation within him— He knew Wei Wuxian, yet Wei Wuxian didn’t know him, and even dared ask who he was in front of everyone. It was as if this had caused him to lose too much face. The more he thought about it, the more irritated he became.

Now, there’s a thoughtful meta I hopefully reblogged to my sideblog, which I would have to dig up or recreate on my own, about the most sympathetic possible reading of Jin Zixun. If memory serves, it has a lot to do about the precarious nature of his social position, where he’s part of the Jin clan, and kind of the closest thing Jin Zixuan has to a brother, but also, everyone knows that Jin Zixuan has half-siblings coming out of the woodwork, and many of them would be stoked to get Jin Guangshan to accept them into the family. At this stage in the story, Jin Guangyao is already a major player and a hero of the war and part of the venerated triad, where Jin Zixun spent a lot of time... not in the thick of things, like most other peers of his generation.

Is he an asshole? Yes! Is... Wei Wuxian an asshole? Also yes! One of them may be a more likeable asshole than the other, but that’s part of the excitement of a story like this, trying to coax people into holding a fannish position that they’d never considered before, and aren’t particularly eager to be convinced of. I don’t think I’m bad at that uphill climb, it just takes a lot of energy that I don’t often have to begin that journey in the first place. Also, one of these assholes is a certified grade-A torturer, and it’s probably not the one you dislike. Jin Zixun isn’t starting from an insurmountable disadvantage here. 

And see, the thing that got my attention is this: Earlier in this chapter, Wei Wuxian is a little melancholy, thinking about how since the Sunshot Campaign, lots of people are scared of him, hardly anyone is willing to be alone with him, and almost nobody would ever be willing to approach him alone. And here, we get the information that because Jin Zixun was injured early and wasn’t on the front lines of the Sunshot Campaign, he doesn’t know to be afraid. He tried to provoke Wei Wuxian before the hunt, he’s about to keep provoking Wei Wuxian, he’s Jin Zixun and he doesn’t afraid of anything. Yes, he’s about to say some very hurtful things, but I look at that, and I think ‘okay, now how do we recover from this?’ Giving Wei Wuxian someone who just... plain isn’t afraid of him (but is also derailed by me, your author, from taking that to unrecoverable places) would be good for him. Jiang Cheng will antagonize him and isn’t afraid of him, but they also share years of history and are dealing with a lot of other stresses in this situation, and Jiang Cheng is asking things from Wei Wuxian that Wei Wuxian is struggling to provide, and the golden core thing is still hanging between them. Lan Wangji isn’t afraid of Wei Wuxian, but Wei Wuxian parses his concern and worries as antagonism and criticism, and those stress him out in a whole different way. This dynamic, as much as I would have to work to make it happen, would bring something new to the table.

One of my favorite activities is crackshipping with sincerity, and when I poke at this, it genuinely feels like richer territory than it looks at first glance. A lot of the antagonists share some fascinating character notes with our lead, and what’s most interesting to me here is an elevated-but-precarious social position and the various stresses that puts upon our characters. Jin Guangyao is the most obvious example, and Su She echoes it more quietly, with how he struggled within the Lan Sect and eventually left (honestly, kudos to him for him and mianmian to be two of the only characters to realize that their home was hurting them and to leave). Jin Zixun is in a family position that’s close to being brothers with his sect’s heir, but isn’t quite brothers, and is close to the seat of power, but also in a precarious social position if someone acts against him. Jin Guangshan and Madam Jin create a dysfunctional family dynamic to grow up in, where Jin Guangshan’s heart attention strays from his wife, and his wife has beat at least one kid who wasn’t biologically hers in the household.

There’s some common ground, is all I’m saying

I don’t even know what would happen, necessarily, I’m talking this all out here right now, and the interesting part of ships like this is digging in extra deep, and seeing what unexpected thing shakes out. It isn’t quite in the style of the other notable rarepair fics I have managed to write, which tend to follow a paradigm of ‘[person] is floating unmoored from the world, and [love interest] gets them engaged with life again’, but it’s not totally out of line with my interests. Svsss won’t give us more detail about Tianlang-jun? Okay, what happens if I make him hopelessly fond, what happens then? What happens if I properly re-engage his sense of humor? I hardly had anything of substance to go on with Horuss, and that fic is old, but I managed to pull interesting things out of him with Roxy. And I mean... what does happen when Jin Zixun stops self-destructively antagonizing the people around him and starts acting in more neutral ways? Not even positive, I think this relationship is going to have a strong antagonistic component, but what happens if he stops basing his interactions purely on who gets the higher rung on the social ladder?

Now, I do have a problem, which is that plot is something that happens to other people. See also: the reason there has not been a tianlang-jun sequel. I think that it would almost definitely have to do with repairing the situation between Jin Zixuan and Jiang Yanli and both of them managing to dial it back a LITTLE so as not to completely sabotage their family member’s happiness, and that leading things forward. And in a ridiculous pipe dream that will never be realized, because either possible pov will be completely oblivious, I would also want to include Jin Zixuan’s confused bisexual awakening and his resentful (also confused) attraction towards Wei Wuxian, even if he still ends up with Jiang Yanli, but... wei wuxian isn’t going to notice, and neither is jin zixun, SO. That’s probably right out. And the plot implications would have to be... significant. Setting it post-Sunshot campaign means that the Wen situation is simmering, and any plot that involves me untangling that mess... terrifying! I wouldn’t know where to begin! But like, also. What if I could write this ship in a compelling way. I bet I could do it. Nothing feels as good as the sensation of ‘I have scored points on my own darling readers by convincing them to like something they didn’t want to like’, and usually, I only get that from the second person pov. It would be so hard to write this ship. But also, what if I did it.

[elencelebrindal]

Sorry if they're too many, you don't have to answer everything! What is your fave novel of the three? Favorite/least favorite character for each one? Favorite male/female character for each one (aside from you all-time fave)? Favorite canon ship? Favorite non-canon ship? Least favorite of them (and why)? Favorite tool/weapon in the three? They're so many, sorrysorrysorry!

Don’t worry, I love answering questions! There might be some spoilers here, so... be wary of them. 

Ok, let’s go in order:

1.

My favorite novel of the three is Tian Guan Ci Fu. When I read Mo Dao Zu Shi I told myself “okay, I don’t think anything could beat this”, and then TGCF came around. I think this novel is, in general, one of my favorite books of all time. Aside from the romance part of it (which is often what people mainly focus on when it comes to MXTX), I really loved the characters and the story is absolutely incredible. I ended up getting so involved in it that I read the entire thing + the extras in three days, subsequently read what was out of the manhua in... maybe two hours? and watched the entire donghua as soon as it came on Netflix in one sitting. The only time this happened to me before TGCF was with the Silmarillion. 

This tells a lot. 

2.

Favorite SVSSS character: Luo BingHe shares his first place with Shen QingQiu.

Least favorite SVSSS character: Immortal Master Lao Gongzhu of Huan Hua Palace. I cannot even begin to explain how disgusted I was by that character, I almost never hated anyone more than him. 

Favorite MDZS character: Wei WuXian. He’s been my favorite character from the beginning. His story follows exactly one of my favorite character dynamic, much like many other favorites of mine (from good to evil to neutral/somewhat good again, even if in this case WWX didn’t actually turn evil). I’m pretty sure the same can be said of almost everyone in my favorite list... oh well.

Least favorite MDZS character: it’s a tough choice between Su She, Wen Chao, and Jin ZiXun. I just... I disliked them so much. It’s not even hate, I just didn’t want to see them on screen. Maybe Wen Chao is the worst of them... yeah, he’s the worst. I could count Jiang Cheng in my least favorites as well, but my reasons for not liking him are way too complicated so I won’t insult him so much. 

Favorite TGCF character: Hua Cheng!!!!!!!

Least favorite TGCF character: I don’t have a least favorite character. 

3. 

Favorite SVSSS male character aside from LBH and SQQ: MoBei-Jun and LiuQingGe. I’m not troubling myself with trying to choose between them.

Favorite SVSSS female character: I used to be torn between Sha HuaLing and Liu MingYan, but SHL follows my general preferences way more so she wins. 

Favorite MDZS male character aside from WWX: Wen Ning. He deserves all the love in the world. All of it. Also I really love Nie MingJue and Xiao XingChen. 

Favorite MDZS female character: Jiang Yanli (because I fell in love with her gentle personality while watching The Untamed and I can’t bear myself to stop loving her). Wen Qing is right up there with her.

Favorite TGCF male character aside from HC: well, first of all Xie Lian. Second of all, Bai WuXiang and He Xuan.

Favorite TGCF female character: Ling Wen, but only because I don’t count Shi QingXuan as a fully fledged female (I am too in love with both forms to choose one side, sorry guys). 

4. (they’re all going to be the main ones, lol)

Favorite canon SVSSS ship: Shen QingQiu x Luo BingHe, though... MoBei-Jun x Shang QingHua is a really close second. 

Least favorite canon SVSSS ship: I don’t think I have one? I mean, there’s not much material to examine when it comes to canon pairings.

Favorite canon MDZS ship: Wei WuXian x Lan Wangji.

Least favorite canon MDZS ship: it’s not really a ship (I think, maybe it’s just me?) but whatever they tried to do with Jiang Cheng and Wen Qing in the drama doesn’t sit right with me. For reasons that are a bit more complicated than it seems, and that would need me explaining my opinion about JC first. 

Favorite canon TGCF ship: Hualian! Hualian! Hualian! Hua Cheng x Xie Lian is one of my all time favorite ships, in general. I stand by the statement “Hualian invented love”. 

Least favorite canon TGCF ship: that weird bullshit the mortal realm like to do with Shi QingXuan and Shi Wudu. Poor guys. It’s canon only because their perverted followers say so. 

5.

Favorite non-canon SVSSS ship: I don’t think I have one...? Maybe ZhuZhi-Lang and TianLang-Jun, but I’m still way too confused about that. I know people ship a lot Liu QingGe and Shen QingQiu, but I never saw the appeal of it.

Least favorite non-canon SVSSS ship: again, don’t have one, mostly because I never delved too deeply in the world of non-canon SVSSS ships. 

Favorite non-canon MDZS ship: Xiao XingChen x Song Lan. It’s probably the pairing that makes the most sense (to me) out of everyone else. And it’s heartbreaking, so bonus points for that. 

Least favorite non-canon MDZS ship: Xiao XingChen x Xue Yang. [heavy spoiler alert] I absolutely HATE this pairing. I love Xue Yang, he’s an amazing villain, but this pairing is straight up abuse, no matter how you look at it. I am a sucker for angsty shit, but I really draw the line at the fucked up pairing that is this one. Xue Yang literally destroyed Xiao XingChen psychologically, lied to him for years, gaslighted him, forced him to kill innocent people, forced him to kill Song Lan, and then ended up ruining him so much that Xiao XingChen killed himself and destroyed his own soul. 

I have no idea why people love this pairing so much, but I genuinely hate it. There’s nothing redeeming about it. 

Another ship I don’t like is Jiang Cheng x Lan XiChen, but once again this has more convoluted reasons that revolve around JC, mainly. There’s also Lan XiChen x Jin GuangYao. Please, no. I really don’t like it. 

Favorite non-canon TGCF ship: Pei Ming x Shi Wudu and He Xuan x Shi QingXuan. We all know why beefleaf is important in our hearts, so let me explain something about Pei Ming and Shi Wudu; this pairing doesn’t mean I completely disregard everything else about Pei Ming. He’s our good old manwhore womanizer and I haven’t changed that (too much). But this pairing... in my headcanon, which is something I’m also going to write in my desperate attempt and being a good fanfic writer, Pei Ming fell in love with him so hard that he was like “okay, fine, there’s just you now, I’m done with sleeping around”. After Shi Wudu dies, Pei Ming keeps his word and doesn’t cheat on him for the reminder of his life. My own headcanon is the reason why this is my favorite non-canon ship. I stumbled into it my complete chance, but I genuinely love it. 

Least favorite non-canon TGCF ship: anything that has Xie Lian and Hua Cheng not with each other. I don’t like seeing them paired with anyone else. 

6.

Favorite SVSSS weapon/tool: Xin Mo and Xiu Ya. 

Favorite MDZS weapon/tool: Chenqing

Favorite TGCF weapon/tool: E-Ming and Fang Xin

If you want to ask anything else, feel free! My blog is mostly Saint Seiya, but I do write about other stuff if you ask me! ^ - ^

[irrealisms]

svsss and sexual violence pt. 3: non-bingqiu sexual violence

standard disclaimer at the beginning: i am not saying that this is the Only thing svsss is about, or that other readings are invalid; i am not intending to character-bash most of the characters here (while i will freely admit to thinking e.g. old palace master or qiu jianluo are pretty one-dimensionally shitty, lots--probably most--of the characters in this series who i mention as perpetrating SA are characters who do have depths & who i in fact like a lot! despite this meta, or perhaps because of it, my second-favorite character is luo binghe, and i am in fact a bingqiu shipper!); and, obviously, huge fucking CW for sexual abuse and adjacent topics. this section is about 2k.

(also: shoutout to @rooses40stepskincareroutine for motivating me to actually write all this out!)

TABLE OF CONTENTS pt 1: shen yuan's realization of himself as a target pt 2: gender and homophobia pt 3: non-bingqiu sexual violence (you are here) pt 4: shen qingqiu's body pt 5: we live in a society

so, in parts 1 & 2 i talk a lot about bingqiu as a site of sexual violence & shen yuan as a victim. but to establish that this is a theme of the book as a whole i want to talk more about the sexual and sexualized violence done and experienced by other characters! this one will be broken into a few subparts lol

volume 3, chapter 16

one of the things i noticed is that a lot of this ramps up all in the same chapter--in chapter 16 of vol 3 (i'm working with the official translation; in the web novel this is chapters 59-63, and I don't know which parts are in the same vs different chapters), we get four different references to sexual abuse of/by different characters, of varying levels of explicitness. some of these, on their own, i wouldn't necessarily take as evidence of sexual abuse, and i don't necessarily stand behind all of these as definitive proof of sexual abuse for the characters on a fully watsonian level--but to have four references, all incredibly close together, after spending a lot of the book on scenes of sexual assault and sexualized violence, is not an accident of writing, either. this is supporting my take of svsss as broadly concerned with sexual violence, as a text.

the first two happen at the same time, and are the most explicit: old palace master.

No wonder the Old Palace Master had always been so good to Luo Binghe, to an almost unsettling extent. No wonder that Su Xiyan, despite being his most beloved disciple, had held absolutely no attachment to Huan Hua Palace and had readily betrayed her sect to run off with a demon youth without ever looking back. This “love” must not have been much different from molestation. And the Old Palace Master’s favorable interest in Luo Binghe was definitely founded in the shade of a former beloved disciple that the sect leader had seen in him. He had extended his perverse possessiveness of Su Xiyan to Luo Binghe, deluding himself into thinking he could groom Luo Binghe into an obedient darling child.

it is IMO explicit text from this (and from what we hear later of Old Palace Master, Su Xiyan, and Tianlang-jun) that Old Palace Master groomed, raped, and generally sexually abused Su Xiyan. It is also explicit text from this section and the section surrounding it, in which Old Palace Master looks at Luo Binghe like he would touch him if he had hands and talks about how he looks like his mother (there's feminization as a site of sexual abuse again!) and SQQ thinks about how OPM was unsettlingly doting on LBH and that he was "thinking he could groom Luo Binghe", that OPM wanted to sexually abuse LBH in the same way.

It is not canon whether he successfully did sexually abuse LBH in the same way, but, well... I observe that (a) Luo Binghe was part of Huan Hua Palace for a while post-abyss (b) after SQQ's death, Luo Binghe makes OPM into a human stick, which in PIDW he does to SQQ--his abuser (c) OPM comments on LBH looking most like SXY "when his eyes are closed", and it's not like he would have been lacking in access to asleep LBH while LBH was his ~beloved disciple~ at huan hua palace (d) SQQ, known Most Oblivious Man Alive who is terrible at identifying when people are sexually attracted to each other & thinks that LBH (both versions) is Immune To Abuse Probably, after, like, a page of seeing OPM interact with LBH (who isn't even conscious for it), is going "OPM groomed LBH". It's not conclusive, but it's really fucking suggestive. At the very least, he extremely textually really wanted to rape Luo Binghe. We've got some Unsettling Implications going on in there!!!

the third implication in this chapter is Qiu Haitang, witnessing Shen Jiu's past:

“It’s not possible… Not possible…” she said, her lips trembling. “It’s fake! It’s all fake! It wasn’t my brother. My brother didn’t do anything wrong—it couldn’t have been him! You’re lying!”

now, on its own this isn't obviously sexual, and whether the Qiu Jianluo-Shen Jiu relationship was sexually abusive at all is something that is left ambiguous through the end of the book, and which I will discuss further later in this post. But this is a major reference to that relationship, which is...well, whether it was sexually abusive was ambiguous, it's not an unambiguous "no" either. this is my weakest point of the four IMO but put next to the others i don't think it's nothing.

the last implication in this chapter is actually from Tianlang-jun, and it's one I haven't seen talked about at all:

“Peak Lord Shen, don’t forget, your immortal body was in our hands for no short amount of time,” Tianlang-Jun replied, his words quite suggestive and teasing both. “There’s really too much we could have done.”

this is in the context of having forced him to drink demon blood while he was unconscious--something that luo binghe did earlier in the book in a very sexualized manner, which was both emphasizing the threat of sexual assault and deliberately analogous to being sexual assault (it's a very literal, physical violation of autonomy). and TLJ is insinuating (suggestively!) that they could have done more, that they had SQQ's unconscious body for a long time, that they could have done anything with it. his words quite suggestive. again, i don't think we have an unambiguous "TLJ raped SQQ" here; i'm not sure if, on the watsonian level, I think that he did? but certainly we have strong implications and threat of sexual abuse. which, again, we are getting a LOT of. right in a row.

qiu jianluo & shen jiu

okay, i said i'd come back to them, right? it is...never stated that shen jiu was sexually abused. i have read and enjoyed interpretations where he isn't, even. but he was, very much, a slave--someone who has to do whatever their master tells them or get punished. someone who is not allowed to say no. the history of slavery, especially when you look at people who were slaves to families instead of companies/factories, is very obviously full of sexual abuse. one of the word choices i'm not sure if i'm reading too much into is that it refers to the slavers as "human traffickers"--which is a phrase that can be and is used for a lot of nonsexual slavery (construction and agriculture have huge human trafficking problems) but in english it does also have very sexualized connotations such that the first thing most people think of wrt human trafficking is specifically sex trafficking (and the implementation of "trafficking" as a word is very racialized, and the combination of these is such that I generally prefer avoiding it altogether and using "slavery", but that's a tangent). and shen jiu, who is a slave being abused by his master...kills all the men of the qiu household, is afraid of men, and only feels safe around women. his master tries to marry him off when he's fourteen and this is one of the inciting incidents of him snapping and killing everyone! can you read this as "he was, as we see onscreen, being physically abused by qiu jianluo, a man, who didn't physically hurt him when he was around qiu haitang, a girl"? sure, i guess. it's not definitive. but....again, they tried to marry him off when he was 14 and unable to say no; even if it didn't happen, that is enough for me to say that the threat of shen jiu being forced into sexual relationships is present in the QJL-SJ relationship. much like OPM and LBH, it's...certainly extremely suggestive, even if it's not onscreened, especially when paired with the novel's overall themes. i'd also like to draw attention to the following quote:

“Gege, he’s so much fun! No wonder you purchased him even though you’ve always hated bringing in outsiders. I rather like him.” Young Master Qiu smiled, though it didn’t reach his eyes. “I too like him very much.” Upon hearing the word “like,” Shen Jiu couldn’t help but shiver.

(there's also something to say about his relationship with how he's iirc somewhat afraid of men even before the Qiu family buys him, and how his position as a slave begging on the street was also a very high-risk one, and about how his relationship with Wu Yanshi is clearly pretty predatory on Wu Yanshi's part + Shen Jiu at that point has no other support system, but that's more speculative; and there's a quote that i think fits better with the point i make in the next part but which provides additional support for shen jiu as having been raped.)

@regicidal-optimism also drew my attention to another very specific word choice that i'm not sure if i'm reading too much into--

Having witnessed the incident in its entirety, Shen Qingqiu was stunned. Such a brutal first time!

and...this is about SJ's first time killing someone. but "a brutal first time" without specifying is...well, it's a very, very specific wording choice, which is (IMO) clearly evocative of the way people discuss sex.

bing-ge

man i have enough to say about bing-ge (mostly wrt svsss's themes of gender) that it could really be its own full post BUT most of that would be a ~tangent. i'm pretty sure "bing-ge is a violent serial rapist" is, like, uncontroversial and i don't need to get textual evidence there, but for exactly that reason i didn't want to fully leave him out of discussion about sexual violence? so instead in this section i mostly want to draw attention to something that @wolffyluna pointed out to me last month, which is a section from book 1:

The girl thought, “Since I’m about to die, I must leave behind some memories to ensure that my life won’t have been in vain. I don’t have many days left, after all, so I won’t suppress my feelings anymore.” Then, using her weak and fragile body, she pushed Luo Binghe down. Luo Binghe put up a brief show of resistance before telling himself “She did it all for my sake. I don’t have the heart to reject her final wish.” He yielded, still half-reluctant, and went along with it…

this is...not framed by Shen Yuan, or presumably by PIDW, as rape. but it is at the very least dubcon, and it's most likely rape. resisting someone who is pushing you down and trying to have sex with you before yielding, "still half-reluctant", is not. good consent. that's sexual coercion and assault at the very least. but because he's a man--the epitome of masculinity, even! the great stallion novel protagonist, bing-ge!--this is framed as him progressing, as him gaining a wife. which is...really, really horrifying, and once again Says Some Things about how Shen Yuan sees gender. i also recommend these posts which were linked to me today by @rooses40stepskincareroutine about bing-ge and sexual violence!

gender

this is another short section but: something i noticed while writing this up is that the primary unambiguous case of sexual abuse (other than, well, bingqiu, but bingqiu is more complicated for other reasons) is that of old palace master and su xiyan; and that, at the end, when a crowd is decrying su xiyan (for, in large part, having been abused by old palace master), misogyny is a major part of it, and (for obvious reasons) his attempt to coerce her into an abortion bc her child is by someone he sees as a romantic rival is ... a very historically female sort of abuse to experience. given how deliberate mxtx is with gender/feminization and its ties to sexual abuse in svsss, and on a less positive note how few female characters she has, i think the choice to make the one "this character was, unambiguously and repeatedly, molested/raped/sexually abused" a woman who is then subject to sexist victim blaming and entitlement to her body is probably a deliberate one.