#scum villain's self-saving system

[verycharismaticdragon]

Since not everyone can be Luo Binghe (the meme, the legend)...

please vote for Hua Cheng in @the-ghost-bracket!

EDIT2: next round has begun, so the link above now directs there! And Hua Cheng is also currently in a competition for the title of the best leader.

[shrimpchipsss]

cucumber bro "gets forcefemmed"

[sunderwight]

SVSSS fic where Shen Yuan transmigrates into SQQ's disciple days, and accidentally ends up saving Tianlang Jun and preventing Su Xiyan's death by exposing the whole Huan Hua Palace debacle before it can blow up (he didn't even realize this was part of Luo Binghe's origin story at first, since it's not like Airplane ever went into any great details about it. He thought he was just one-upping a rival sect and exposing some sketchy behavior towards the female disciples!)

So, while the system docks him a truly staggering number of points and blaring alarms into his head, SY kind of misses Tianlang Jun telling him that as thanks for his heroic intervention and to solidify the alliance between the human and demon realms, he can marry their firstborn, who TLJ is certain will be a beautiful daughter who will look just like him! SY sort of distractedly prevaricates and TLJ gets the wrong (right) idea and then suggests he could also marry his son, if the brave young cultivator's preferences are more that way, and SY (still distracted) just sort of answers on autopilot that this would be fine, right, TLJ's son, he's sure to be an excellent person who will make his parents proud, and Tianlang Jun is just like "that's settled then! our child will repay our debt to you in twenty years time!" and heads off into the sunset with Su Xiyan.

Shen Yuan is kind of like "well good luck to them I guess?" because it's not like he can un-fuck the hero's tragic backstory at this point. At least he hasn't been killed by the system yet? Although he's getting a lot of notifications about a "genre shift" to compensate, which is worrying...

Anyway. Arranged Marriage AU, anyone?

[dyed-indigo]

an orphaned abandoned opossum skinhe, born in a wet cardboard box all alone

[queer-book-character-tournament]

Character, book, and author names under the cut

Luo Binghe- Scum Villain's Self-Saving System/Ren Zha Fanpai Zijiu Xitong by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu

Wei Wuxian- Mo Dao Zu Shi/Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu

[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.

[ifidogaysomyself]

me and my friend were talking abt this and didnt arrive at an answer so im turning to tumblr because its funny so worst guys ever fight

jun wu propaganda: devised a supervillain ass scheme just to mentally shatter a teenager for saying live laugh love to his face (because he hates things that remind him of himself)

shen jiu propaganda: have u fucking seen his disciples. none of them turned out well. he kept throwing hands with a 12 year old (because he hates things that remind him of himself)

[kukuandkookie]

Finally found some energy to draw something...for the first time this entire new year akfgdsjgf (happy belated new year!).

But yeah, drew this to make me feel better! Wish I had a LBH to take care of me while I'm sick too 😔

[littleartbot]

pumpkin spice~ 🎃

[snailtrain]

If you dont mind me going again xD liushen 1D?

interpretation: local idiot realizes this is kinda gay, news at 11

skyguy, mud sent so many pls do not feel bad for sending another, i love SVSSS 🥒💖

this is a response to this meme

[verycharismaticdragon]

okay so since nobody else jumped to make this, here we go

(there's a 'see results' option for those who did read svsss at the end of the poll btw!)

(also i ask humbly to reblog if this poll caught your fancy. because most of my followers are from danmei fandoms and likely have read svsss)

[shrimpchipsss]

the professors shen should never have been forced to share an office

wasn't professor shen the senior being associate professor shen the junior's PhD advisor enough?

[redsunlover]

New work with one of my favorite characters - Shanya~💚

[masiethewriter]

Honored Eternal Path of Demise CH. 1 -Game Over

It's bad enough that Shen Yuan dies. It's even worse when he transmigrates into the worst horror game inspired by Proud Immortal Demon Way that could ever be imagined. But nothing is more terrible than transmigrating as the scum villain Shen Qingqiu, the character with the most violent and grotesque deaths the game has to offer! Couldn't he have transmigrated into the stallion novel instead? At least there his character would only die once! Now Shen Yuan has to navigate his new life as Shen Qingqiu while trying to keep not only himself alive, but also a cast of characters, each more suicidal than the next. A goal he is going to fail. A lot. Many times. Too many times! At least he can spend some time with his favorite character Lou Binghe while stuck in this mess.

Next Chapter

"Stupid developers, stupid game!" was Shen Yuan's final words as darkness overtook everything around him.

He hadn't meant to die right after reaching the secret ending of Honored Eternal Path of Demise, the new horror game based on the popular novel Proud Immortal Demon Way. But after spending hours upon hours, days upon days, with barely any sleep or food, and finally painstakingly saving every character (Even the evil scum villain Shen Qingqiu), to see the secret final ending of the game end ambiguously as a sequel teaser, it was too much for Shen Yuan.

After beating the last boss, the cutscene allowed him enough of a break to take a bite of a meat bun, only for the ending sending him into such a fit of rage, that the food got caught in his throat. Unable to cough it out, he was only able to curse out the game as he choked to death.

And like that, Shen Yuan had died.

It might not have been as bad, if at least he died criticizing a better game, but as it were, Honored Eternal Path of Demise just barely managed to sell enough copies to not be considered an absolute failure.

Now, don't get Shen Yuan wrong. When the game had just been announced, the excitement for it had been great. One of the most popular stallion novels being turned into a game! Even Shen Yuan had been interested.

While exactly what kind of game it would be had yet to be revealed, fans were quick to speculate and theorize. Most looked forward to getting to play as Luo Binghe, many discussing which of his wifes would make it into the game and how many romances that would be added. Whether it would be more like a visual novel, focused on the story and relationships or an action game where players truly could feel out the protagonist's OP powers.

Not too long after, it was revealed the game was going to be a horror game. And with that announcement, the excitement only grew. The novel was known for its harsh opening and cruel blackening, so choosing a genre that allowed the project to stay dark and explicit made sense.

Though that was one of the last smart decisions that would be coming from the development team from then on.

Somehow leaks got out and while it was mostly concept art of the characters and potential wifes, it got revealed that Luo Binghe was NOT going to be a playable character.

Fans were quick to get in an uproar, displeased with not being able to play as the overpowered protagonist. Why even make a game about Luo Binghe if no one got to play as him? What were the developers thinking!

This was just the first reveal of many that would leave fans raging on forums and social media.

Next was the reveal that the game was dropping the cultivation aspect and was instead going for a modern retelling. Also, instead of the more edgy, but beloved blackened Luo Binghe, they took the more heroic route, so he resembled himself much more from before he was pushed into The Endless Abyss.

At this point fans begin to question why even make a game based on Proud Immortal Demon Way if they were going to change all aspects of it? If the development team wanted to make an original story, they should make an original story, instead of capitalizing the novel IP for cheap advertisement.

Then, as the full cast were revealed, the more feminist fans began to riot.

The first version included Luo Binghe as the only male character, the rest being either wifes from the novel or original female characters made for the game. "What is this?!" They protested. "Is this a horror game or a harem simulator! Just another excuse to make vulnerable women suffer for the sake of a man?" And while this backlash was nowhere near as aggressive as when it was revealed Luo Binghe would stay an NPC, the developers still rushed to produce an updated cast with an almost equal amount of male and female characters.

"See, we can listen and change depending on the needs of the fans!" They said.

"What about everything else?!" The fans replied.

"..." The developers stayed quiet.

The rest of the production stayed like this. Any time more of the game was revealed, fans only got angrier and more disappointed. The stress and pressure was enough that people on the development team kept getting switched out, people quitting because of the crunch, resulting in new hires barely getting integrated into the team, before they were also loaded with a mountain of work. A scandal broke out with someone not getting properly credited and accusations of art assets stolen from fans. It was even revealed a few developers hadn't been paid in months, paychecks apparently getting lost in the chaos.

Then production got delayed because of IP issues and for a while the game appeared as if it would never happen. A destructive production, made mostly with sweat, blood and tears, leaving nothing but gossip and slander in its wake.

And then the game was announced to release a month from then.

Of course, as Proud Immortal Demon Way's biggest critic, Shen Yuan had to try out the game. So he reserved the special edition (That of course included a copy of the art book, a CD with the soundtrack and an unique poster for the game, impossible to get anywhere else) and was the first in line to collect the game when it was released.

Now unlike everyone else, Shen Yuan actually understood why the game developers had made the decisions they had. Unlike the fans who were blinded by their parasocial relationship to characters that were never going to fuck them, Shen Yuan was able to look past the seemingly thoughtless decisions and see the true politics at play.

First of all, of course players could not play as Luo Binghe. The OP stallion protagonist who never lost a single battle or chance for papapa with a woman? Of course they couldn't let the players grubby hands all over the Luo Binghe image, potentially failing puzzles and quests while carrying his face! And who knows what the trolls would do with a Binghe character? Certainly not anything the developers were going to risk. So, of course Luo Binghe was going to stay an NPC that would support the player without ever failing in his own goals.

Also, it made sense for them to use the more innocent white sheep Luo Binghe even though the darkened demon lord version was more popular. He couldn't exactly be the villain of the game, right? The IP would never allow it! So instead, with the storyline the team were aiming for, they needed Luo Binghe as his more heroic and kind self.

The choice to modernize the story was probably just laziness though. The developers likely didn't want to do any research for Proud Immortal Demon Way's time period or cultivation. So they just took the easy way out. Bastards.

Updating the cast to be more balanced gender wise, was a decision Shen Yuan had felt more neutral on. While most fans were discussing wifes and potential for spicy papapa, Shen Yuan had been glad the game included beloved characters that weren't going to end with their legs spread for Luo Binghe.

Seeing some of the other peak lords presented as modern characters was intriguing and Shen Yuan had been looking forward to learning more about them in this other world. Even the Scum Villain, though mostly as an opportunity to hopefully see him die in a variety of horrible and creative ways.

So as Shen Yuan began playing Honored Eternal Path of Demise, he did not let any of the prior issues affect his view of the game. None of the decisions, scandals or slander was going to make him play with the expectation that he was going to hate it.

No, the horrible story and awful execution were able to do that all by itself.

First of all, the story was a confusing mess, with more plot holes than plot. At first it might seem intriguing, with the way each character had multiple deaths that each affected the story in their own unique way, leading to a vast variety of different endings. One of the main game mechanics was a groundhog-day-esque saving system. Each time you died you would have to start over, but the knowledge gained from the prior playthrough could be used to affect the story, leading it to split into multiple directions. Each death was a learning opportunity and dying was going to happen a lot. The game was such a challenge that Shen Yuan was unable to save a single character in his first many playthroughs, Luo Binghe being the only survivor each time.

Characters would reset after each ending, though with the occasional 4th wall break joke, related to sudden weird ass decisions, usually only making sense in the context of what had happened in the prior session.

But while the death and restarting mechanic was fun enough, they never tried to explain how it worked in universe! The characters just found themselves in a strange haunted house and at no point did the game bother explaining how they got there, who took them, what was going on or why they all had to survive!

And what was going on was such a mess by itself. Unable to put a single original thought into the game, the game developers had instead just stolen whatever they wanted from other, more popular, horror games. In one playthrough the villain you had to survive might be a deranged serial killer. In another it was zombies eating them all alive. Then you had eldritch beings summoned by cultists turning them all insane. Sometimes it would be the characters themselves, having turned crazy from all the terror and death. The game would go from one horror monster scenario to the next with no explanation for how any of it was connected.

Even the puzzles were clearly taken from other games, with fetch quests happening so many times it was a wonder that the characters themselves didn't get tired of it.

And don't even let Shen Yuan get started on the characters! One-dimensional stereotypical clichés with not a single functioning brain cell between them! It was physically painful just how stupid every single female character was, constantly making decisions that no real life person would make while in their right mind. And while feminist fans might brag that they had influenced the game development, they would find themselves disappointed when realizing that not a single female character could even pass the Bechdel test. Even in the most insane ass situations, when they would find themselves at death's door, they would whine and sigh about Luo Binghe and how they wished he was there with them or that they just wanted to see him one last time.

Forcing the female cast into a functional death-avoiding group in order to reach the secret ending had literally brought Shen Yuan to tears with how impossible a task it was.

The male cast was slightly easier, but solely because they got much less screen time and deaths dedicated to them.

While there was a seemingly endless amount of endings, Only some led to true progress in the game. Say, once you reached the Serial Killer ending with enough surviving characters, then during your next playthrough a new mystery and monster would appear. This would keep the game going with no end in sight until finally the player was able to reach the good ending - An ending only archivable by saving all characters with the exception of Shen Qingqiu. This ending was considered The Good Ending because it was the only one where the cast managed to leave the mansion and return to their normal, but traumatized, lives.

But of course, which horror game could call itself a classic without secrets? And one of those secrets was the secret ending of course.

After thousands of playthroughs, it seemed like Shen Qingqiu was impossible to save. While all characters (With the exception of Luo Binghe) could very easily get killed, Shen Qinqiu appeared to attract death like it was an obsessed lover. As the character that players got to play as the least, how easy it was to fuck him over would make you insane.

The way to save him didn't even happen during his own scenes. No, instead it was while controlling another character that you had to keep him from betraying anyone else. This resulted in Shen Qingque not even being playable during that run. Only like this was it possible to keep him alive with everyone else and in that way, finally reach the secret and true ending...

An ending so horrible, so excruciating, so absolutely pointless it wasn't worth describing. So awful and horrendous that it ended up killing Shen Yuan.

And so, Shen Yuan died. Alone in his apartment. Honored Eternal Path of Demise still playing on his screen. A meat bun stuck in his throat. A rage that could burn down the world. And as darkness took over, he could only wish that he had never wasted the last days of his pitiful life on such a terrible game.

Floating darkness scraping against his skin. Nothing to see or hear, space going endlessly. Shen Yuan had awareness, but what he was aware of, he did not know. Drifting like this, he could only wonder where he was.

Suddenly a light. Big and square and white and so strong he had to close his eyes. Somehow he wasn't able to lift his hands to provide protection.

Slowly able to squint at the light, he could barely make up black lines across it. He felt like it should hurt and leave his eyes with tears, but they stayed dry. No feeling of pain.

Opening them for a better peek, he could finally recognize the lines as letters. And still remembering how to understand written word, he was able to read what it said:

[ALL PATHS DIVERGES MISFORTUNE]

[MISFORTUNE SHATTER STORIES]

[ONE STORY ABOVE LIFE]

[LIFE GIVEN TO REST]

[REST IS THE END]

[Does user accept the quest?]

[Yes] [No]

Throat tight and hurting, unable to get above a whisper, and still Shen Yuan did not hesitate to speak.

"Yes!"

With a start, Shen Yuan opens his eyes, urgently sitting up. He gasps for breath, a hand against his neck as he looks around at the unrecognizable walls around him.

Unable to take in anything around him, he pushes himself to his feet. He is immediately unsteady as he reaches out for anything to keep his balance. He finds a moldy table, legs broken in one end, as he leans against what still stands.

Things are the slightest bit blurry around him and he instinctively pushes against his face to correct his glasses, only for his finger to meet nothing. As he takes a step, the sound of broken glass underneath his feet tells him of their fate.

"What the fuck?" Shen Yuan asks out loud. No one answers him.

Less dizzy, he pushes himself forward until he stumbles against a door. He quickly pushes it open. The other side provides no answers. An empty hallway going as far as his eyes can see.

Or mostly empty.

At the end stands a shadow. And even with his blurry eyesight, Shen Yuan can see that it is going directly towards him.

Leaning against the wall, as it gets closer, he is able to recognize it as a person. A girl, if the short height and lithe body is anything to go by. As she gets closer, he is able to distinguish dark hair pulled into pigtails and what must be a school uniform. She holds something in her hand and something dark is splattered against the front. Shen Yuan can't discern what either is.

At no point does she slow down her march towards him.

"Hey, do you know what is happe-" he tries, but she interrupts him, voice full of rage.

"Shen Qingque, you son of a bitch!"

She is clearly talking to him, but must have him confused with someone else. He is about to explain, when he takes an extra look at her hands. Way too late he recognizes the item she's holding as a knife. Sharp edges shiny enough to reflect the poor light of the corridor. He barely takes a shaky step back before she lifts it high above her head. Intent clear.

"This is for what you did to Liu Mingyan!" She screams.

The knife sails down. Stumbling over his own legs to get away, he falls on his back. The girl uses this as her chance. Throwing herself on top of him, he is able to see more of her face. Tears are streaming from burning eyes, lips twisted into an ugly sneer. What must be blood splatter is smeared across her face, dry and crusting.

He has no idea who she is. She clearly believes otherwise.

She howls. Plunges the knife down. With nowhere to go, it goes straight in his chest.

Shen Yuan gasps, experiencing an unimaginable pain. His heart tries to beat out of his ribcage. His limbs are frozen. Blood rushes in his ears. And out his chest.

She yanks the knife out. She is speaking, but Shen Yuan can't hear what she is saying. Instead his eyes are caught on the knife above him. Again it falls. Again it hits its mark. Shen Yuan spits out a mouthful of blood, gurgling on the thick liquid. His chest burns while the tip of his fingers begin to feel cold.

She pulls out the knife and prepares to swing a third time. Finally Shen Yuan manages to get his arms to cooperate. Covering himself, he tries to block the next hit.

It is a futile act. Shen Yuan knows it is already too late to save himself.

Piercing vulnerable skin, the sharp edges still reach the shredded meat his chest has become. Only this time the knife doesn't go as deep. It stays inside him a bit longer than the other times. Manic glee in her face as she takes this opportunity to twist it around, screwing it deeper, forcing him to scream.

He can't hear what sounds he makes, as blood fills his lungs. He is unable to breathe. Turning him into gory mesh entertains her for a bit, before she rips the knife out.

It is as she prepares to stab him a fourth time, that she suddenly freezes. Her eyes caught on something behind him. Shen Yuan can only see red at his edges, as he weakly gasps for air. Her mouth moves, voice suddenly soft. Expression frail and vulnerable. A contrast to the madness spilling out into puddles.

Like this, as darkness overtakes everything around him, Shen Yuan is only able to wheeze out a final: "Stupid developers, stupid game!"

[queer-book-character-tournament]

Character, book, and author names under the cut

Mobei-Jun- Scum Villain's Self-Saving System/Ren Zha Fanpai Zijiu Xitong by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu

Nicky Hemmick- All For The Game by Nora Sakavic

Kieran Kingson- The Dark Artifices trilogy by Cassandra Clare

Vanya Schmidt- Little Thieves by Margaret Owen

[irrealisms]

svsss and sexual violence pt. 5: we live in a society

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 1.5k words.

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 pt 4: shen qingqiu's body pt 5: we live in a society (you are here)

something that's universal across all three of mxtx's books is that society allows for & often approves of abuse, that invisibilized abuse of people with less power from people with more power is the bedrock society stands on; that even when society claims to disapprove of abuse, this is a smokescreen at best for attacking what (and who) it actually disapproves of. svsss...is not an exception to this. a lot of the incidents i'm about to discuss are ones i've already mentioned earlier in the series, but here i'm less interested in the specific incidents and more interested in the ways that society implicitly approves. a lot of these are sexual abuse but some of these are in fact nonsexual abuse because "society dgaf about abuse" applies fairly equally to all types of abuse in svsss.

the first and obvious example here is Shen Jiu. society, both in the universe of PIDW/SVSSS and in the ~frame story of the audience reaction to PIDW, objects to a 14-year-old slave breaking the engagement vows he made to a girl from the family that owns him so harshly they would throw him in prison/torture him (within the universe of the story) or demand for him to be castrated (in the comments section of said story). no one objects to the fact that slavery exists, or that Shen Jiu was abused; while it is ambiguous whether he was sexually abused (although I think there's strong evidence for it, as discussed in parts 3 + 4), society would not care if he had been; within PIDW universe, that's Qiu Jianluo's right, to do what he wants with his property, and within the universe where PIDW exists as a novel it would be hated as a storytelling decision the way all of Airplane's attempts at making Shen Jiu sympathetic were hated (because PIDW fandom didn't want complex villains with tragic backstories, they wanted someone they could uncomplicatedly hate).

the second example is also Shen Jiu, but the other way around--while he didn't sexually abuse Luo Binghe, nor was his abuse of LBH presented as particularly sexualized in any way (and if you've read this meta you know i am not shy about seeing technically nonsexual violence as sexualized/referencing sexual abuse in this book :P), it's another good example of how society allows for abuse? SQQ was in a position of power over LBH, so... he just gets to do whatever he wants to LBH. LBH can get revenge as an adult with a lot more power, can leverage that power & the ways SJ is vulnerable, can make it so that torturing and abusing him back is also allowed by society's rules--but when he is a kid without that power? society doesn't care! this is obviously less true on a "what did PIDW fandom care about" level than the other examples, but it's still true enough in-PIDW-universe that imho it counts!

the third example is the water prison. once again, Luo Binghe does not rape Shen Qingqiu in the water prison (although there was some very sexualized violence, shading into sexual assault). but-- SQQ was put in the water prison to be tortured at LBH's whims. if LBH had wanted to rape SQQ in there? he could have. with the material support of society. if Gongyi Xiao had been right that LBH raped SQQ there, GYX would still be disobeying his master to show SQQ kindness and break him out, and he would still end up just as killed for it. in the eyes of society, trying to help a prisoner escape the person who is raping them is worse than raping a prisoner. (identifying obviously identical problems with the prison system in the real world is left as an exercise to the reader.)

the fourth example is the old palace master. i talked about him some in part 3, but two things i want to highlight: - given that he was able to groom and abuse at least two generations, he's been doing this for a long time, and either no one noticed (even though it is obvious enough that sqq notices within a few lines of talking to him, implying that no one cared enough to look) or people did notice and, for whatever reason (some of which are even very sympathetic--certainly if i were his disciple and was mostly getting away with Not Being Abused i wouldn't want to come to his attention! but some of which are, uh, much less sympathetic) they let him, the same way people must have known about shen jiu's treatment of luo binghe and let him. because he's a powerful man, because it's his disciples and he has the authority, because, because, because. either way, this.... does not speak to a society that cares about sexual abuse. - when society learns about su xiyan's history, they blame her. they blame her for getting with tianlang-jun, they blame her for not aborting luo binghe, they assume she left her sect because she was ashamed and not because her sect hurt her. tianlang-jun is demonized (heh) even though his relationship with her was entirely consensual, because society hates him; old palace master is assumed to be innocent of any wrongdoing, because society likes him. do things eventually get figured out? yes. but the immediate reaction here is ... well, it's relevant.

last example here is moshang. again, not sexual/sexualized abuse! but through shang qinghua we get a piece of insight into demon society, rather than just human society, and what we get is... very very normalized physical abuse. shang qinghua is often going around with bruises from mobei-jun, to the point where shen qingqiu notices and is used to it. compare these two quotes, the first spoken by SQH to mobei-jun and the second from SQQ's narration:

“No one likes getting beat up every day, and no one would actually be all cheery after getting beat up every day! I’m not actually a dog! Even with a dog, if you kicked it twice a day, given enough time, it’d learn not to bother with you anymore!”

&

There was no telling what Shang Qinghua had done to piss off Mobei-Jun this time, but the corner of his lip was swelling as he gave Shen Qingqiu a pathetic smile. Shen Qingqiu couldn’t bear to look, so he shifted his gaze back to the file.

and.... the thing is, mobei-jun doesn't want to hurt sqh? when sqh gives him advice on how to woo men, he takes it; he pats sqh on the head instead of beating him, he gets sqh a cart when he's injured, he offers to let sqh hit him back. but the frequent beating is just...how demon society works, esp around the sort of power dynamic that sqh and mbj have. it's normal. and, given the demons we see, i don't actually think this is a fundamental difference of demon psychology. the demons we see who are person-y enough to Have Society are, broadly speaking...basically human? i think this is just... demon society is fine with it, because society is fine with all sorts of abuse as long as it's normal. and as we've seen in this post, it's not like human society is, uh, different in this regard.

the last thing i have to say isn't really a direct example. it's a little aside from shen yuan's internal monologue when talking to tianlang-jun about the plan to merge the realms:

The last part even sounded like rape culture logic: if you violate a person often enough, they’ll cooperate eventually; so do it first and think about the rest later.

which-- honestly i wouldn't have even thought to make that connection! but it was made for me by the book! and this is in a paragraph talking about how tianlang-jun thinks like this because he was mistreated and trapped under bai lu mountain, that he's bitter and resentful because of it, and it draws a neat little bow with our first example--shen jiu. the way that this is one way that rape & abuse culture perpetuate: someone is mistreated. they learn that this is how the world is; they pass it on. the cycle of abuse (and the breaking or attempted breaking of it) is another theme mxtx returns to over and over, in all three books, and you see that highlighted here. there's probably more to say here about TLJ's overall arc but i've worked on this meta for a long time and it is getting Really Quite Late.

if you've read all the meta (or even just this one): thanks for sticking with me through this! i really hope it was interesting & you got something out of it. i wrote. SO much in one day.