#svsss iceberg

[piosplayhouse]

Ayo thank you for your contribution to society and world culture through the SVSSS iceberg, now if you don’t mind can you please explain it? I’ve been in the fandom a while but I swear I’ve never heard of some of these

Sure! Explanations will be sorted under the cut:

SHEN YUAN TIER:

- all items in this tier are either surface level details from the source material or

- daily bingpup is a popular fandom meme (used in the metal gear sense lmfao) started by @ kamkamquats on Twitter that's pretty self explanatory: kam draws and posts a bingpup picture every day! The archive is available here.

I probably should have made this point just bingpup, as I believe his origins precede kam's art, but she certainly boosted his popularity significantly, and now her art and bingpup are canonized with the publishing of the 4th volume English translation of the novel, so I thought it was a fun point!

LUO BINGHE TIER:

- Feynite's au collection: an extremely popular collection of alternate universe fics written by legendary Scum Villain fic author Feynite.

- Scum Villain is a tragedy: an interpretation of the books that poses that from every other perspective besides Shen Yuan's, Scum Villain is an incredibly depressing tragedy.

- Luo Binghe is Airplane's self insert: "Don't asky why Luo Binghe wasn't the embodiment of [Airplane's] ideal man; Luo Binghe's use had primarily been to fulfill his desire to be a badass and get revenge, as well as his desire for wanton [this section has been censored]" (The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System volume 4, page 163).

- Shen Yuan died on his birthday: Shen Yuan's death date is never given in the original novels, but in the first scene of the donghua when he dies while at his computer, you can catch a glimpse at the date reading September 21st (both his birthday and the day svsss was published!)

- Shen Qingqiu's canon fursona: binghe compares sqq to a crane multiple times in the story but is depicted as a cat in fandom much more frequently, leading people to joke about how the fandom disregards his "canon" fursona in the same way bingpup is much more prevalent than sheep binghe.

- Shen Qingqiu can knit: there's official crossover Christmas merchandise that shows all of the mxtx couples participating in different holiday activities: wangxian are decorating a tree, hualian are baking cookies, and shen qingqiu is knitting a scarf for luo binghe.

- Luo Binghe's birthday: Luo Binghe is actually the only main mxtx character that doesn't have a canon birthday. He's noted in the books as being born on "the coldest days of the year", but it's debatable whether this is late December or early January, and there's no specific date from this that we can confirm is his birthday.

- sv manhua's indefinite hiatus: much to the excitement of starved fans, a Scum Villain manhua began publishing in 2019. It ran for a grand total of 3 wonderful weeks before being unceremoniously put on indefinite hiatus because of drama within the fanbase stemming from rumors that the artist/company drawing it actually hated scum villain. It has yet to return.

SHEN JIU TIER:

- Moshang's horrible first time: MXTX stated in a Q&A interview that neither Mobei-Jun nor Shang Qinghua enjoyed their first time having sex together.

- Shen Qingqiu invented maxi pads: the "scum villain pad commercial" is a commercial from the first season of the donghua depicting an exchange where Ning Yingying is self conscious about going out on her period because her sanitary supplies aren't cute, so Shen Qingqiu magics her up some maxi pads.

- Shen Yuan read mpreg yaoi: "#18 Peerless Cucumber [Expert]: Upthread, keep cool. This forum has a lot of Green JJ sisters 😎" (The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System volume 4, page 145). / "''Great Master' Liu! Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky didn't write a green Jinjiang mpreg novel!'" (The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System volume 4, page 295).

- Shen Jiu transmigrated into Shen Yuan: A somewhat popular theory in the fandom that when Shen Jiu died, he transmigrated into modern day Shen Yuan the same way Shen Yuan did to him.

- Cursed monkey island: Cursed monkey island is/was a private discord server made up of very og sv fans that was known for outputting somewhat dark/off-color/weird fics for each other, often with funny porn spoof names and niche concepts. The first fics from there were published in 2018, while the last fic in the collection seems to have been published in 2022, so they might still be active, but I'm not sure.

- Moshang has a 20 year age difference: Shang Qinghua died at at least age 20 (probably older) and since he transmigrated into a baby, he has 20 extra years of consciousness from his first life on the PIDW native characters, who he meets when they're both teenagers in the Airplane extras. Though physically the same age group, he would've been mentally somewhere around 30-40 years old at this point getting bullied by teenagers.

- The microwave: some of the first previews released for the donghua were static turnaround videos of the 3D models set to elevator music -- after these dropped, it was radio silence on the show's status for a long, long time. Fans called these previews "the microwave" because of the static rotation of the models and referred to the time it took for the donghua to come out as "defrosting it in the microwave". There's a fair amount of art/memes from this time period featuring the characters literally inside microwaves, even to the point where people made microwave-themed SV merch. When the donghua finally came out bingqiu were declared "free from the microwave" and a wave of fanart of them destroying microwave prisons emerged.

TIANLANG JUN TIER:

- Wangxian have read resentment of chunshan: in the mdzs audio drama extra episode "Accompanying you to sleep - Lan Wangji", Lan Wangji takes care of a drunk Wei Wuxian by getting him ready for bed. Towards the end of the episode, Wei Wuxian asks Lan Wangji to read him a bedtime story. Lan Wangji says he isn't good at telling stories and Wei Wuxian suggest he reads him The Resentment of Chunshan (bingqiu fanfiction). Unfortunately, Lan Wangji had never heard of it before and thereby could not ASMR it.

- Six Balls x Zhuzhi Lang: a rarepair (also called bamboo balls) written by the lovely Alex here.

- Shen Qingqiu has the protagonist halo: a theory/headcanon suggesting that when Shen Yuan transmigrated, the role of protagonist and subsequent protagonist halo left Luo Binghe and transferred onto him. Often used in angst canon divergences wherein due to the lack of a protagonist halo, Binghe dies from an event he otherwise would have survived because of his story invulnerability.

- Shen Yuan's sister found his dead body: an angst headcanon centering around the idea that Shen Yuan's sister found his dead body rotting in his apartment after he died- very good art made about this here!! (Gore/blood cw)

- Who is zhuzhi lang's dad: we all know zhuzhi-lang's dad was a big snake but what kind of big snake? How big? Why did his mom fuck him? all important questions heavily debated about in this fandom.

MOBEI JUN TIER:

- Every ship is cumplane: we already know Luo Binghe is Airplane's self insert, and Mobei-Jun's cold demeanor is somewhat reminiscent of Peerless Cucumber's tsundere wife-isms, making bingqiu and moshang arguable proto-cumplanes. However, we can go further and argue because Airplane created the entire world of PIDW, all of it in a way reflects him and his feelings, therefore meaning that because it loves Shen Qingqiu and Shen Qingqiu loves it back, every possible PIDW asset x sqq is cumplane in its basest form.

- Original donghua designs: the first pv for the donghua actually featured slightly different designs for bingqiu, which were then changed later in production! You can see the original ones here.

- PIDW is real: someone actually posted PIDW on jjwxc so you can get the real Shen Yuan experience.

SHANG QINGHUA TIER:

- Shen Yuan penetrated into the body of the scum villain: there is a listing for the svsss donghua on Amazon prime video (though no episodes are actually available) which features this banger summary:

 An ordinary youth, Shen Yuan, after reading the novel "Arrogant Gods and Demons' Journey", triggers the mysterious system so that he crosses into the book world and penetrates into the body of villain--Shen Qingqiu. Shen Qingqiu's disciple, Luo Binghe, is the main character of the novel.

- Airplane's foot fetish:

[verycharismaticdragon]

Okay, I promised a writeup of Luo Binghe voter fraud meme, and as Luo Binghe is currently in the finals of the poll this happened on, I figure now's a good time.

So! It all started when Luo Binghe, our beloved half-demon child, was submitted to @/hybrid-battle tournament - or rather, as it was called at the time, @half-being-battle. He won his first poll easily enough, but round 2 was a close battle where he and his opponent, Shantae from eponymous game, took the lead from one another a few times.

In the last ~12 hours, Binghe was losing slightly after a popular blog rb'd the poll with a call to vote for Shantae. However, SVSSS fandom caught this in time and passed the poll around some more. The poll ended with Luo Binghe winning with 51% of votes - or, as simple calculation will reveal, 14 votes lead.

We breathed out a collective sigh of relief, but too soon - as half a day later, someone sent this ask:

(x)

Initially the pollrunner wasn't intending to do anything about it, but then someone suggested a teamup option, and the poll for the option was made (x). It was rb'd by some SVSSS fans with the general sentiment of 'free our boy he did nothing wrong', but didn't gain real traction until:

@gaywarcriminals reblogged it with a small rant in Binghe's defense

@piosplayhouse rb'd said rant with addition of the image from vol.3 cover, of Shen Qingqiu holding Luo Binghe's hand, edited to look like SQQ is the one saying the text above.

This version of the post was circulated in fandom overnight, leading to 'Luo Binghe moves on alone' option winning by a large margin - and, ofc, to the birth of "Luo Binghe voter fraud" meme.

Though aside from this particular post being funny, there was another factor contributing to the meme catching on: how damn in-character it all was. The following sentiments were all repeated more than once in the post's notes:

Luo Binghe getting accused of crimes he didn't commit? Omg just like in canon!

Shen Yuan would absolutely buy bots to get his most beloved blorbo to win an internet poll.

It's just Luo Binghe's protagonist halo!

All of which made the situation fucking hilarious.

Then, the next day, tumblr user verycharismaticdragon (whoever they might be 😉) made some fanart about it, which possibly aided the spread of the meme too.

Also, SVSSS fandom surprised the mod with our chillness 😅

(x)

Since then, Binghe has been going strong in that poll - and now, he's in the finals! So make sure to vote for him; as we all know now, the real voter fraud is the friends we made along the way. And I do recommend checking Luo Binghe's tag on the poll for some fun propaganda we've been making, including a family tree by Pio and some more art by yours truly <3

But wait! There was also another layer to the voter fraud iceberg. The tl;dr:

At about the same time Luo Binghe vs Shantae ended, Hua Cheng was losing in round 1 of @/the-ghost-bracket, with something like 39% of votes to his name. In a desperate move, I linked his poll under my bingqiu voter fraud art, which gave him a boost to get close to a tie, but didnt flip the poll. The next day, I was explaining the LBH voter fraud meme to my friends, and mentioned Hua Cheng's poll too - which was when inspiration struck me, resulting in...

this post. [ID: art of Xie Lian with a wooden board which reads "Puqi shrine accepting donations in the form of votes for Hua Cheng in the ghost bracket", captioned "please help dianxia, he doesn't have the money for voter fraud"] Which gave the poll enough visibility for Hua Cheng to win with over 62% of votes in the end. (The link in the post is currently changed to round 2 poll, which HC was also initially losing. Srsly besties we gotta follow the tourneys to get our babygirls to win!)

So: LBH voter fraud meme had even helped little bro Huahua out.

And thats about it! Since then, the scum villain fandom has been joking about voter fraud on all of our polls 😂

(Aaaand the last reminder to vote Bingbing in the finals. His opponent has been gaining lately and I think we shouldn't leave it to the protagonist halo this time.)

[popqorn]

have u read all the MXTX series so far? im on the last book of tgcf, i wanted to know ur recommendation for the next series to read >:)

Hi! I hope you’re enjoying TGCF! I have read them all ☺️ l think my recommendation would change depending on what vibe you’re going for.

SVSSS is delightful, and I can honestly say I’ve never read anything like it before. If you don’t know much about it, it’s a satirical take on web novels and their various tropes. My favorite thing about this series is that it’s silly, entertaining, and playful while also being thoughtful, intense, and heartbreaking. It's all about balance! Shen Qingqiu is a disaster of the highest order (affectionate). And Luo Binghe is, well, he's a disaster too, but in a completely different way (also affectionate). I think about both of them on a daily basis, and I love them dearly. Anyway, I’d definitely recommend if you’re looking for something quick, funny, and clever!

MDZS is a slower read. One thing I love about this series is that it tackles heavy topics like politics, classism, and power in a really nuanced, insightful way. But my favorite thing about MDZS is the characters! Wei Wuxian is talented, brilliant, incredible, amazing, show stopping, spectacular, never the same, totally unique, completely not ever been done before. Lan Wangji is an iceberg of emotions. And the other characters are wonderful as well! Thoughts of them spin around in my head constantly, even months after I finished reading. If you want something that full of intrigue, pining, and zombies, this is the series for you!

Keep in mind that there’s some stuff in both series that might be triggering. Please take care of yourself!

[skollwolf]

I am here a few days late with some questions for the fic writer ask game!!

4 - a story idea you haven’t written yet?

14 - where do you get your inspiration?

30 - share a fic you’re especially proud of!

Aw, thank you friend! 💖

4 - A story idea you haven't written yet

There was this fic idea that burst into my mind in vivid color shortly after I first played Disco Elysium, which was for some reason a Scum Villain's Self Saving System (SVSSS) fic written in the style of DE. Shut-in gamer Shen Yuan is absolutely obsessed with an episodic video game called Proud Immortal Detective Way. It's a xianxia-styled detective thriller, where Shen Qingqiu--an immortal master with a hinted-at dark past--and his disciple Luo Binghe work together to solve a murder in Jin Lan City.

Ever since the very first episodes released, Shen Yuan has been incredibly well known on the fan forums for his vitriolic insistence that any episode now there's going to be a twist where it's revealed that Luo Binghe has been the true hero of the piece all along, just pretending to be a mediocre side kick to catch his no-good shizun off guard. Even as game developer Airplane starts investing more and more time into DLCs that add romantic interactions into the game--and why are all these women falling all over Shen Qingqiu when Luo Binghe is right there, huh??!!--Shen Yuan remains convinced. And when Airplane hints at a huge reveal in the next update, only to drop yet another romance-centered episode, Shen Yuan chokes to death out of sheer shocked rage, and wakes up--inhabiting Shen Qingqiu's body at the beginning of Proud Immortal Detective Way's storyline??

Well, didn't Shen Yuan put over 50 hours into the first episode alone, diligently documenting every plot thread that supported his reading of the game? Hasn't he written nearly a hundred different guides on the best stat distributions to unlock different secret routes early?? Forget the mystery in Jin Lan City--this is Shen Yuan's chance to solve the real mystery of who Luo Binghe really is once and for all!

....obviously I haven't done this yet, because this seems like...such a niche overlap? But it does exist in my head completely rent free. Maybe someday I will.

wow realized how long that'd gotten in only the first question, oops. here's a read more to make other people's dashes less cluttered up with my nonsense.

14 - where do you get your inspiration?

I feel like there's two answers to this question: what inspires my story ideas, and what inspires me to write. as for the first one, my story ideas usually kinda descend into my head abruptly and insistently, accompanied by the character that wants me to tell them. I'm kinda just a vehicle for what the characters are doing, the majority of the time.

as for what inspires me to actually sit down and write, though, that's music 100%! Every fic I write has an accompanying song or playlist that I put on while writing. can't write without 'em.

30 - share a fic you’re especially proud of!

the fic I'm currently writing and publishing, House Fire, is my absolute favorite thing I've written in ages. I love everything about writing it. my word processor tells me it's currently 145 pages long and it's nowhere near done, so the bits I've published are kinda the tip of that particular iceberg. That said, it's uh....very nsfw, so not everybody's cup of tea.

another older fic of mine that I'm still very proud of is Blinding. I did some things there with nonlinear storytelling and an unreliable narrator that I think landed really well!

[r-aindr0p]

little guy is terminally online

[fan-fan-tastic]

In this house we show our love by bulling Shang Qinghua

Mobei-Jun

[bonesblubs]

I'm sure someone asked this already, but... Which mxtx story, book, character and ship is your favourite so far? Also, have you seen the donghuas?

This is such a tough question because tbh the answer is entirely dependent on what mood I’m in,, I go through phases of tunnel vision for each novel in a rotating system. The answers I’m going to give are only the tip of the iceberg and what I’ve noticed most when these patterns emerge.

(I have seen/read small bits of the donghuas but I’m not an avid reader of either!!!)

I think it’s Very Obvious that of TGCF I’m most drawn to FengQing, though this may be in part because HuaLian is (I’m assuming) cannon and therefore my meddling is unnecessary (and potentially contradictory depending on what the future books have in store) to a degree. I’m a sucker for rivals who actually care a whole lot about each other, whether known to themselves or each other or not.

For SVSSS I probably spend most time thinking about MoShang. I just love SQH, I think he’s a very fun character and MBJ is such a good pitfall for him. Equally Heaven and Hell- he is the perfect man and also SQH’s worst nightmare. Sort of the reversal of BingQiu. They have to earn their happy ending by both becoming better people. Embodies “I’m happy for you or sorry that happened”

MDZS is the one I have the least amount of info about (book 2 comes out soon though,, I’m so excited) so I’m super basic with them. WangXian is so sweet and goofy, Wei Wuxian is so smart but so oblivious when it comes to anything in regards to himself. Love a great unreliable narrator.

As for fave characters, Mu Qing and Liu Qingge I think are closest to my heart- I love characters that are prickly/withdrawn/have a cool exterior but crave companionship/intimacy. They just don’t know how to ask for it.

[piosplayhouse]

I have a really long post explaining the svsss iceberg cooking in my drafts rn please be patient for it

[piosplayhouse]

i am trying my hardest to find the sqq microwave because i made the mistake of referencing it but i cannot find it. i need to prove that it exists. please help.

o7

[blankbabyangel]

Always love to see breakdowns of the wildness of SVSSS.

Ayo thank you for your contribution to society and world culture through the SVSSS iceberg, now if you don’t mind can you please explain it? I’ve been in the fandom a while but I swear I’ve never heard of some of these

Sure! Explanations will be sorted under the cut:

SHEN YUAN TIER:

- all items in this tier are either surface level details from the source material or

- daily bingpup is a popular fandom meme (used in the metal gear sense lmfao) started by @ kamkamquats on Twitter that's pretty self explanatory: kam draws and posts a bingpup picture every day! The archive is available here.

I probably should have made this point just bingpup, as I believe his origins precede kam's art, but she certainly boosted his popularity significantly, and now her art and bingpup are canonized with the publishing of the 4th volume English translation of the novel, so I thought it was a fun point!

LUO BINGHE TIER:

- Feynite's au collection: an extremely popular collection of alternate universe fics written by legendary Scum Villain fic author Feynite.

- Scum Villain is a tragedy: an interpretation of the books that poses that from every other perspective besides Shen Yuan's, Scum Villain is an incredibly depressing tragedy.

- Luo Binghe is Airplane's self insert: "Don't asky why Luo Binghe wasn't the embodiment of [Airplane's] ideal man; Luo Binghe's use had primarily been to fulfill his desire to be a badass and get revenge, as well as his desire for wanton [this section has been censored]" (The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System volume 4, page 163).

- Shen Yuan died on his birthday: Shen Yuan's death date is never given in the original novels, but in the first scene of the donghua when he dies while at his computer, you can catch a glimpse at the date reading September 21st (both his birthday and the day svsss was published!)

- Shen Qingqiu's canon fursona: binghe compares sqq to a crane multiple times in the story but is depicted as a cat in fandom much more frequently, leading people to joke about how the fandom disregards his "canon" fursona in the same way bingpup is much more prevalent than sheep binghe.

- Shen Qingqiu can knit: there's official crossover Christmas merchandise that shows all of the mxtx couples participating in different holiday activities: wangxian are decorating a tree, hualian are baking cookies, and shen qingqiu is knitting a scarf for luo binghe.

- Luo Binghe's birthday: Luo Binghe is actually the only main mxtx character that doesn't have a canon birthday. He's noted in the books as being born on "the coldest days of the year", but it's debatable whether this is late December or early January, and there's no specific date from this that we can confirm is his birthday.

- sv manhua's indefinite hiatus: much to the excitement of starved fans, a Scum Villain manhua began publishing in 2019. It ran for a grand total of 3 wonderful weeks before being unceremoniously put on indefinite hiatus because of drama within the fanbase stemming from rumors that the artist/company drawing it actually hated scum villain. It has yet to return.

SHEN JIU TIER:

- Moshang's horrible first time: MXTX stated in a Q&A interview that neither Mobei-Jun nor Shang Qinghua enjoyed their first time having sex together.

- Shen Qingqiu invented maxi pads: the "scum villain pad commercial" is a commercial from the first season of the donghua depicting an exchange where Ning Yingying is self conscious about going out on her period because her sanitary supplies aren't cute, so Shen Qingqiu magics her up some maxi pads.

- Shen Yuan read mpreg yaoi: "#18 Peerless Cucumber [Expert]: Upthread, keep cool. This forum has a lot of Green JJ sisters 😎" (The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System volume 4, page 145). / "''Great Master' Liu! Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky didn't write a green Jinjiang mpreg novel!'" (The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System volume 4, page 295).

- Shen Jiu transmigrated into Shen Yuan: A somewhat popular theory in the fandom that when Shen Jiu died, he transmigrated into modern day Shen Yuan the same way Shen Yuan did to him.

- Cursed monkey island: Cursed monkey island is/was a private discord server made up of very og sv fans that was known for outputting somewhat dark/off-color/weird fics for each other, often with funny porn spoof names and niche concepts. The first fics from there were published in 2018, while the last fic in the collection seems to have been published in 2022, so they might still be active, but I'm not sure.

- Moshang has a 20 year age difference: Shang Qinghua died at at least age 20 (probably older) and since he transmigrated into a baby, he has 20 extra years of consciousness from his first life on the PIDW native characters, who he meets when they're both teenagers in the Airplane extras. Though physically the same age group, he would've been mentally somewhere around 30-40 years old at this point getting bullied by teenagers.

- The microwave: some of the first previews released for the donghua were static turnaround videos of the 3D models set to elevator music -- after these dropped, it was radio silence on the show's status for a long, long time. Fans called these previews "the microwave" because of the static rotation of the models and referred to the time it took for the donghua to come out as "defrosting it in the microwave". There's a fair amount of art/memes from this time period featuring the characters literally inside microwaves, even to the point where people made microwave-themed SV merch. When the donghua finally came out bingqiu were declared "free from the microwave" and a wave of fanart of them destroying microwave prisons emerged.

TIANLANG JUN TIER:

- Wangxian have read resentment of chunshan: in the mdzs audio drama extra episode "Accompanying you to sleep - Lan Wangji", Lan Wangji takes care of a drunk Wei Wuxian by getting him ready for bed. Towards the end of the episode, Wei Wuxian asks Lan Wangji to read him a bedtime story. Lan Wangji says he isn't good at telling stories and Wei Wuxian suggest he reads him The Resentment of Chunshan (bingqiu fanfiction). Unfortunately, Lan Wangji had never heard of it before and thereby could not ASMR it.

- Six Balls x Zhuzhi Lang: a rarepair (also called bamboo balls) written by the lovely Alex here.

- Shen Qingqiu has the protagonist halo: a theory/headcanon suggesting that when Shen Yuan transmigrated, the role of protagonist and subsequent protagonist halo left Luo Binghe and transferred onto him. Often used in angst canon divergences wherein due to the lack of a protagonist halo, Binghe dies from an event he otherwise would have survived because of his story invulnerability.

- Shen Yuan's sister found his dead body: an angst headcanon centering around the idea that Shen Yuan's sister found his dead body rotting in his apartment after he died- very good art made about this here!! (Gore/blood cw)

- Who is zhuzhi lang's dad: we all know zhuzhi-lang's dad was a big snake but what kind of big snake? How big? Why did his mom fuck him? all important questions heavily debated about in this fandom.

MOBEI JUN TIER:

- Every ship is cumplane: we already know Luo Binghe is Airplane's self insert, and Mobei-Jun's cold demeanor is somewhat reminiscent of Peerless Cucumber's tsundere wife-isms, making bingqiu and moshang arguable proto-cumplanes. However, we can go further and argue because Airplane created the entire world of PIDW, all of it in a way reflects him and his feelings, therefore meaning that because it loves Shen Qingqiu and Shen Qingqiu loves it back, every possible PIDW asset x sqq is cumplane in its basest form.

- Original donghua designs: the first pv for the donghua actually featured slightly different designs for bingqiu, which were then changed later in production! You can see the original ones here.

- PIDW is real: someone actually posted PIDW on jjwxc so you can get the real Shen Yuan experience.

SHANG QINGHUA TIER:

- Shen Yuan penetrated into the body of the scum villain: there is a listing for the svsss donghua on Amazon prime video (though no episodes are actually available) which features this banger summary:

 An ordinary youth, Shen Yuan, after reading the novel "Arrogant Gods and Demons' Journey", triggers the mysterious system so that he crosses into the book world and penetrates into the body of villain--Shen Qingqiu. Shen Qingqiu's disciple, Luo Binghe, is the main character of the novel.

- Airplane's foot fetish: