#please only interact if you're willing to accept me being critical lmao... i'm trying to sort out my feelings not be told how to feel ✌

[luobinghelovebot]

Trying to make sense of my Scum Villain feelings…. I know that it’s uh… quite a polarising novel but message me if you’ve read & have opinions either way (into it, hate it, critical but found peace with it etc.) 🤔 

under the cut because my little thought dump got Long

I’ve come to the point where it’s been long enough since I’ve read it that it’s Sunk In & I’m thinking about how when I was reading it was kinda easy to just cherry pick the bits I liked and joss the bits I didn’t (as I always do lol) but it feels different when the very foundation of the work is the SQQ/LBH relationship and that story/relationship is FOUNDED in the fact that from LBH’s POV SQQ has vastly more knowledge than him, ESPECIALLY about LBH himself, from the beginning, is LBH’s shizun, & is the first/only person to actually show him a modicum of kindness.

I’ve seen people argue that (from SQQ’s POV) given the time he’s dead/LBH’s in the abyss LBH grows & matures & becomes a demon prince (king?) so LBH actually has MORE power over SQQ/it balances out. SQQ is actually kind of afraid of LBH at first (knowing how powerful/vengeful he’ll become, specifically of SQQ) to the point that he thinks LBH will torture and kill him because, in another life, he KNOWS he DID.

And I’m torn because on the one hand I think the whole POINT is that the power dynamics and history and perceptions between them are messy and they have so many unfinished conversations and there’s still things they don’t know and understand about each other (LBH doesn’t know SQQ hasn’t always been SQQ but was Shen Yuan, SQQ still sometimes slips into seeing LBH as og/Bingge and is surprised when LBH is LBH), and in terms of calling SQQ shizun if he then changed that it’s almost then ignoring that that was the whole reason LBH is different from og/Bingge, if he keeps calling him shizun it’s also just. uncomfortable because SQQ is then being reminded of 14 year old LBH (who, in his internal monologue he often refers to as “this boy/disciple I raised” or something similar). 

The characters are fun and I like some aspects of their dynamic (the obsessive/jealous stuff is SO annoying but I like it when they just. sit and talk and chill and stuff) & I feel like it’d have really great potential if more of this stuff had been addressed but it’s so rooted in such a MESS it’s so odd for me to think about properly/critically, especially as I don’t fully understand the complexities/power balances with a shizun/disciple relationship in this type of work. ?

And I know some people see even SQQ’s pov as reluctant/internalised homophobia or whatever but there’s just. nothing really in his internal thoughts that implies he grows to… like LBH ? Outside of fondness for him as a disciple/pity/relief he’s not og!Bingge ? Like even when they get romantic etc. SQQ internally feels very much just like. “well alright then” but then some fics I have read present this with the double edged sword of it being a kind of. jokey/internalised thing because externally SQQ is very clingy and sappy with him ? 

I also can’t stop thinking about SQQ being from “our world” and viewing them all as fictional characters and LBH as the undefeatable protagonist etc. but then it feels as though it’s being turned on its head and it’s really SQQ (who is, obviously, our protagonist for SV), but then LBH still has the “protag halo” etc. and I just. it would have been really interesting to explore that/have SQQ realise he had his own halo of his own and go into a crisis about how he’s now the main character of a new story and wondering if he’s real at all anymore, if LBH is really real or just a projection of his desires for a love interest (devoted/adoring/clingy etc.) because he’s now the Main Character and he GETS the “happy ending”…. 👀

Half the reason I’m kind of fond of the idea of SQH/SQQ (cucumberplane ? lol) because it’s like. imagine dying and waking up in a novel you hate and the author is there and like. sure you thought their writing sucked but is anyone else here real? does anyone else remember the music & food & internet & memes & LIFE that you do ?? 🥺 i don’t find their dynamic in canon would lead to Romance™ but it would’ve been so interesting if LBH was the author or something instead lmao imagine if he’d turned around at the abyss and been like. I know you’re gonna push me in bitch! BYE!.. and SQQ was like…. wait what klsafdgjlf

Also god I wish they’d explored LBH’s parents and their relationship (with him & each other) more…. & also Shen Yuan’s original life before he died…