#like I love world building and stuff but I'm also bad at media analysis which is something I want to get better at

[phantom-does-a-thing]

talk to me about toh what are your thoughts on everything

HI!!!!! Phantom is literally going to go kerblooey if there is any more studying done tonight so I'm gonna talk about toh for a lil bit.

UHHHHH I don't really have many thoughts nor are they coherent but I will do what I do best and talk. Under the cut bc its probably gonna be spoilers

Ok so this has turned into me ranting about world building and character design more than the actual plot of the story itself. Sorry I'm a writer.

anyhoo my first order of business is one of my favorite favorite things about the animation in the owl house is the fact that there is a lot of variety in the way the characters blush. Like this was such an innocuous thing to notice that I somehow did. And I realize I don't think I've EVER seen that in another animated show.

like Hunter blushes to his ears (which was the main reason I noticed that bc I realized that no other character's ears get all red like his does)

Amity blushes with her entire face and Luz blushes just the bridge of her nose and cheeks. Like that's such a small detail but I am so obsessed with it because it's so cool and it's something I've never seen before.

ironically enough, I think that the first thing that dissuaded me from watching the Owl house before I watched it was that I wasn't a big of a fan of the surface level animation style but I do really really like the animation now that I've watched it, and the designs for creatures are so so so SO cool like I kjhkb,mxbn UGH.

Belos' monster design thingy idk that's just so cool just the way he looks and how he's animated is so intimidating and I think it's crazy cool. And I think it's also really creative which is a thing that I love a lot about this type of casual slightly modern fantasy is just the way that things are translated from modern real life into the world which is something that can often be done really awkwardly.

The ravens and the scrolls things are really cool and I like that, I also like the added thing of social media which isn't usually something I like in shows and stuff but I thought that was really neat.

SORRY THE THOUGHT TRAIN SWERVED THE WHOLE WORLD BUILDING THAT THEY'RE LIVING ON THE DEAD BODY OF A TITAN IS SO COOL I LOVE THAT. In the world of one of my new stories that I've just started working on, it's sort of similar to that in the way that people on the surface live off of the bodies of dead gods like living inside them and feasting on the flesh and stuff like using the dead gods all the way through (in a way that people from the floating islands would think is sacrilegious). I didn't really get that from the owl house because I just noticed that connection right now but GOD THATS SO COOL. I hhh *fans face*

The way magic works is also super cool and like honestly, I think the coven system is also really cool, not the whole having to only chose one magic track part of it but the different sections of magic that you can do. Like all the different types is really cool to me and I don't really consume much fantasy media of this type with heavy reliance on magic systems but this is one of my favorite magic systems.

I think the bard magic is really cool and GOD THE GLYPHS THATS SO COOL THE WAY THAT WORKS. Like it's such a wonderful mix of just hjkljhflkjhjbnvclkjhlskufg. I think it's very cleaver the way that they did that, especially with the glyphs and stuff being hidden around in nature. That's something that's very very cool and also very smart. Like in my mind, in the way my mind works that makes incredible sense. Like enough sense that you could tell me that in real life and I'd be like (yeah sure). It's like molecule shapes and stuff idfk.

Also the harpy Eda (is that what they called it I remember them calling it that) in season 2 was GOD so cool, just the way she looked in that form was so awesomely designed. Also just the whole Owl Lady thing, listen I am a sucker for wings and bird like characters (I would have more feathered winged OCs if feathered wings weren't a pain in my behind to draw). Eda is feathery and sharp with claws and teeth and by god is she so incredibly cool.

Ok I'm going back to hunter because I've been thinking about him all day, I think the fact that he has a tooth gap is really neat, I don't recall seeing that often in characters and I think it's really neat. He looks very disheveled all the time, especially in the later episodes of the season where he is literally one inconvenience away from a panic attack at every moment. But he really just LOOKS like a mussed up kid.

Also I believe that witch ears, they are pointy, they can flick and move and you can pry those headcanons out of my cold dead hands for all I care. I think they deserve to move like that. (I assume you know how I write Gillion, I love those kind of small motions like ears flicking and stuff like that)

also x2 I really like King's design as well, the whole skull for head thing is so cool to me and it's something that I really really like in design. I've had characters like that and I've had characters that wear skull masks and I don't think I will ever tire of characters like that. Even the titan hunters who even though it was just a costume I thought their outfits looked really cool and also really awesome how all the skulls and stuff were different and unique. It's just so charming to me and so cute how King looks with his skull and his horns, it's just one of those character design things that I really really love.

Ok I'm done for now I need to stop before this goes on for like way longer than it needs to. I don't think I have said a word about any of the plot or lore that happened. I have been rambling about world building and character design for a good half an hour that it's taken me to type out this response. Oops.

Does any of this even contain spoilers? I do not know and I will not be reading over anything that I just typed, it's going out into the world of my tumblr blog.

[veilchenjaeger]

(I'm going to talk about non-consensual sex in media below, obviously. Just a head up.)

@stripedroseandsketchpads I’m not super knowledgeable about these tropes either, so I’m definitely not the right person to do a detailed analysis of the trope subversions here (or trope subversions in Scum Villain in general). I don’t read a lot of danmei, though I do have a background in old 2010s BL manga, and a lot of tropes do seem familiar to me. I have looked at a few stallion novels, but those are so incredibly misogynistic that they’re impossible for me, a person without access to copious amounts of alcohol, to read without taking permanent damage. But like… What bothers me about the Maigu Ridge takes I see isn't a lack of understanding of the trope subversions (which I don't fully understand either) but how many people miss the basics of what's happening in this scene? I don't think it's necessary to do, like, a close analysis of the text to recognise that Maigu Ridge is not supposed to be sexy?? Maybe I'm wrong and it is hard to tell, but?

I am genuinely baffled by the amount of misinterpretations I see about Maigu Ridge mostly bc I don't think it’s subtle about what it is! I, too, think that MXTX's sexy scenes are sort of odd and not very sexy [Edit: @stripedroseandsketchpads pointed out that this is likely a translation bias, and I agree 100%], but the difference between e.g. the wine enema extra and Maigu Ridge is blatant? Shen Qingqiu is in so much fucking pain at Maigu Ridge that he can barely think! He's hurting in the other sex scenes, too, but not nearly as much, and the tone of those is light-hearted and Shen Qingqiu's narration is funny. There's nothing funny about Maigu Ridge! Shen Qingqiu doesn't very nearly black out from pain in the You Understand extra, because that one's supposed to be cute and awkward and not absolutely horrifying!

And even if we ignore the actual sex (I hesitate to use the term!), the entire way Maigu Ridge is framed makes it obvious that this is very much intended to be read as a traumatic event. First of all, they stop. It’s so important to me that they stop. It would have been so easy to transition into a good, pleasurable sex scene as soon as they're both able to consent, but it doesn't. They stop the second Luo Binghe comes to, because none of what just happened was arousing or made them want to continue having sex. This shouldn't be special, but it is, because this is a romance novel and romance novels don’t do bad sex, but I’ll get into the trope subversion later.

More stuff about the way Maigu Ridge is framed: My favourite thing about it is not the sex scene itself or the build-up to it - I'm not that hardcore - but the conversation they have afterwards, after Luo Binghe regains consciousness. They stop having sex, and they immediately start taking care of each other. This is a scene where they just went through a very traumatic thing together, and they support each other in the aftermath. This is one of the ultimate Bingqiu conversations for me, which cemented my love for them and imo proves how much they care about each other.

Within that conversation, it becomes obvious how shaken Luo Binghe is by what happened. He fucking asks why Shen Qingqiu didn't kill him instead of letting him do this! It's. Just. It's so much. It shows how horrified Luo Binghe is by what "he" (in quotation marks bc he wasn't conscious) just did. He's hurt Shen Qingqiu a lot in this book, in various ways, but here, we see him break down after doing so and pretty much say outright that he'd rather have died. Bingy.

There’s also the fact that Shen Qingqiu tries to calm him down by pointing out that he "was willing". No you weren't, king, but I appreciate you reassuring Luo Binghe that he didn't just outright rape you. It's such a weak reassurance in this moment, when Shen Qingqiu is literally dying, but it still means the world. Everything is so horrible, but Shen Qingqiu successfully pinpoints the thing that makes it slightly less horrible.

Later developments support this reading, too! Luo Binghe, Mr Pushy himself, doesn't dare initiate anything sexual for the first weeks of their relationship! Maigu Ridge is the catalyst for him letting Shen Qingqiu go and not being there when he wakes up (despite having waited five years for Shen Qingqiu to wake up before), because he doesn't believe they can come back from this! In the interview extra, Luo Binghe refuses to name Maigu Ridge as their first time, preferring to pretend it never happened! Shen Qingqiu mostly refers to it as a failure, something that’s tragic bc Luo Binghe as a stallion protagonist should have had a better first time, but his tone in those moments of narration is seriously mismatched with his narration during Maigu Ridge, and ignoring his own feelings about the matter completely and re-framing it as a plot point in a novel instead of a real thing that happened to him is precisely how Shen Qingqiu deals with trauma all the time. Maigu Ridge is so obviously written as a traumatic event, so I really cannot understand people who are either mad that the sex scene wasn't hot (It's not meant to be!) or complain about this scene being super problematic and Bingqiu thus being horrible. (This was very intentionally written that way and Bingqiu themselves acknowledge that it was awful!)

And that isn’t even getting into the trope subversion yet. As I said, I’m not super knowledgeable about that, but I read a post recently that pointed out that a lot of danmei tropes are just romance/erotica novel tropes, and… yes. That’s true. What happens a lot in these stories is the “It starts out non-consensual but the main character (the woman in straight romance, lbr) ends up liking it anyways!” trope. Afaik, this is a staple of stallion novel sex, too. I hate this trope with the fire of a thousand burning suns, and when I first read Scum Villain, I was afraid that Maigu Ridge would turn into that. And then it didn’t. Which blew my mind a little, because main couples in romance or erotica novels don’t have bad sex. Bingqiu are an obvious subversion of that bc they suck at sex even if it is consensual, but Maigu Ridge is that subversion times 100. Scum Villain talks a lot about satisfaction points, so let’s think about reader satisfaction here: For this entire novel, we’ve been waiting for Bingqiu to kiss and get together and fuck. And a romance story isn’t always over with the first time, but usually, such a scene is satisfying because it shows them finally coming together after chapters upon chapters of build-up. Usually, it’s good sex. It shows us that the main couple is meant to be together. (Wangxian's first time is a pretty good example of a sex scene that is more of a problem than a solution but is still good.) Apparently, the “Fuck or Die” trope is a lot more prevalent in the genres MXTX is commenting on than in stuff I know about, so that plays into it, too: It’s the kind of scene that’s meant to be satisfying, and Maigu Ridge absolutely fucking isn’t. This book, which is very much a romance novel, looked the “Fuck or Die” trope in the eye, said, “This would fucking suck irl”, and ran with that. And I think that owns.

Non-consensual romantic or sexual actions are a fucking staple of romance media, and while there can obviously be kinky reasons for that, the fact that it's so prevalent is awful imo. The amount of completely innocuous prime time movies targeted at girls and young women that I've seen where straight-up stalking and sexual harrassment are played as a romantic ideal is horrifying. Not to mention that Scum Villain is commentary on stallion novels, too, and the way non-consensual sex is portrayed in those – books targeted at an audience that is meant to identify with the rapist – is terrifying imo. It genuinely scares me that there are men out there who read these books uncritically and buy into that portrayal of women and consent. I could talk a lot about the nuances of this topic (bc it is nuanced), but let’s just say that it's so important to me to see a scene like this portrayed as the horrible, traumatic even it would be in a realistic setting (while still being a scene in a romance novel that doesn’t end the main couple’s relationship). Maigu Ridge is one of the main reasons why I trust MXTX to address and play with consent issues (as she does with Wangxian).

I don’t think that the message of Maigu Ridge is “The Fuck or Die trope/non-consensual sex in romance novels is horrible and shouldn’t happen ever” – MXTX does include a whole parody of super tropey danmei novels full of noncon with Resentment of Chunshan, which is portrayed as silly but harmless, kinky fun – but it invites us to think about these tropes and the implications they have. There’s a lot of nuance here that I appreciate, especially with the distinction made between the Scum Villain plot, which is situated in “reality”, and Resentment of Chunshan, which is very firmly fantasy. I’d love to read an analysis on this by someone who really knows their shit when it comes to danmei, stallion novels, and Chinese media tropes in general (My perspective on this is obviously very Western!) bc this is all I really have to say about this, but like. Bottom line is that it’s fucking baffling to me why Maigu Ridge is so often treated as the Big Problematic Scene of Scum Villain when it’s literally commentary on noncon tropes in media. If anything, this is the single least problematic Bingqiu scene! What the fuck are y’all talking about!