#this is not to shit on any of them i love all of mxtx’s protags i really do | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

eldritch-elrics · 3 years

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more svsss notes! from “shen qingqiu’s short but aggravating time in jail” to “shen qingqiu Fucking Dies” :]

...this got long. oops

so the book does this a lot but i’m always a huge fan of when a character (in this case little palace mistress) spouts off a cliche and sqq internally goes “oh my god here we go again. cringe.” it’s like... the reader gets to experience the drama of the cliche but also laugh at it

airplane has gay and homophobic vibes. or like...... araki jojo vibes. it’s so funny

the system keeps forcing sqq into plots that were originally meant for binghe’s harem members, which is of course hilarious (more so now that binghe’s not a teen anymore) - but i’m thinking about the fact that the system is literally powered by binghe. i wonder if binghe’s feelings are subconsciously influencing the system/the rest of the plot? like we know he has plot armor; does he also have enough influence to shift the story’s genre without knowing it? shit like this is why i love this novel. i’m really curious if it’ll be addressed

more of sqq being absolutely terrible at communication <3 please sir. say your FEELINGS. i’m sure you could figure out some way to explain without revealing that you know how the og plot goes...

another thing i find super interesting about sqq’s character is how sure he is that lbh’s gonna turn out how he did in og pidw. he’s just refusing to accept that lbh’s changed in any way, or that he cares about sqq at all anymore. there’s some line somewhere where sqq is like “oh no, being nice to him just made it worse... i’m stuck with him hating me even more now...” like NO. you’re just refusing to see all the signs of lbh’s hidden feelings. love unreliable narrators lmao

fate/destiny is such a big theme i keep noticing stuff about it

the system giving him a multiple choice answer to binghe’s “do you regret it” question, dating sim style, is of course hilarious, but it’s also a fascinating moment for a couple reasons. first, it shows how much of a crutch the system is for sqq - sqq’s leaning on it to fix his problems instead of actually putting in the work himself to get better at interpersonal communication. i hope that in a key moment later he’ll choose to defy the system. i think that would be a nice pivot point for three themes: first, accepting that sometimes he needs to fix problems on his own, without any omniscient outside guidance, second, accepting that not everything is written in stone (either by airplane or by the system), and third, recognizing that binghe and the rest are “real people” (ymmv on whether or not you think they are, but i think this is where i think sqq’s arc is headed) rather than video game objects to be manipulated.

i think that some shifts in his attitude do start to happen in chap 43 though when he sacrifices himself

back to slightly less analytical observations! sqq getting his clothes torn up. oh my god. and lbh’s REACTION...

dying at shang qinghua’s “coded” letter and the fact that its content basically amounts to “i fucked up, please escape from jail asap thanks bro”

gongyi xiao my BELOVED that prison break was pretty great. also i am so fucking sad about him. binghe WHY

so lbh wasn’t actually a disciple of meng mo? huh...

seems like the words of sqq’s vengeful ex weren’t completely true. i very much doubt the trial’s gonna happen now but i bet this will come up later

seriously losing it at sqq’s tavern disguise? smeared his face with dirt and drew on whiskers?? CATBOY SHEN QINGQIU???

love this development ning yingying’s gotten. the disciples’ relationships with their shizun in general are so cute omg

liu qingge keeps saving sqq from situations and it’s very fun. bros :)

also how lqg was like SO down to fight binghe at the end of that chapter?? king shit

binghe held out his hand to sqq when they were on the roof..... what was he planning to do.........

oh my god that whole confrontation. what is it with mxtx and Climatic Fights On Roofs

here is where the fate theme gets REALLY clear. sqq uses “we can’t avoid fate” as an excuse/coverup but lbh is like “no. was it fate that made you do all those horrible things to me?? i’ve decided that fate doesn’t actually exist. fuck the world i do what i want!”

which like. YEAH. protag energy. the rules of the world don’t apply to lbh so much do they???

im so excited for these themes to be explored more

also like. hell yeah. binghe finally sharing his emotions at a super climactic moment

and then sqq SACRIFICES HIMSELF...

god damn.

it’s a bit out of nowhere but also like. i kinda love it? because sqq knows he can’t talk his way out of this. he can’t say “hey it wasn’t me who abused you/made the choice to push you off the cliff.” so he goes and does the most drastic action he can think of. and it WORKS

now initially i was a lil mad about lbh changing his mind so quickly but i actually think it fits for 2 reasons. first, he’s a webnovel character. they do that. second, his mind has just been cleared of xin mo’s influence, which had been plaguing him during his most angry/violent moments, so with all that anger suddenly gone it makes sense for his feelings to shift. and deep down, he really does care about sqq!

sqq fuckin DEAD and finally binghe is sharing his feelings,,

i do think that lbh should be allowed to feel mad about what og!sqq did to him in the past though? like. it was wrong, and though sqq may feel like he’s made up for it, i do think he owes lbh a proper apology and (if possible) an explanation. there’s much more work (and communication) to be done between them but i’m glad they’re finally getting somewhere...

but of course i don’t think they’re gonna be seeing each other again anytime soon :]

#svsss #svsss spoilers #my post #analysis #oh god this is so fucking long. sorry #after i finish the novel i might come back to some of this analysis and clean it up and post it as its own thing #because i have a lot of thoughts #finn reads scum villain

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youareunbearable · 3 years

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Catch me not having a clue who any of these gods(?) and people are, but still sitting here like, "I ship that pretty one with the gruff one, and that brown haired one with the other(?) gruff one?" without knowing names or what this is except the fanart I see you reblog, because this fandom apparently has lots of nice art

Fam i have no idea what ur talking about or when u sent this im so sorry asfkjhfkjhf but i thiiiinnnkkkk??????? it’s “Heavens Official Blessing” or Tiān Guān Cì Fú (TGCF for tagging stuff) its originally a chinese gay novel that is soooooooo long by the author Mo Xiang Tong Xiu (MXTX) who wrote 2 (two?????) other novels that I know of that are also gay historical fantasy but i personally havent actually read TGCF???? im just watching the anime and looking at the wiki and reading fanfics so i have a vague idea whats going on but not really???? so i cant really give a good review BUT i LOVE THE CHARACTERS MXTX WRITES SO MUCH AFHAFKFHKFAKF IM SO SORRY IM SHIT WITH TAGGING SO U HAVE NO IDEA WHAT IM HYPER FIXATING ON BUT

LISTEN

Pretty one and the gruff one im THINKING is He Xuan (or Ming Yi/ Ming-Xiong/Ming Bro) for the grumpy one and Shi Qingxuan for the pretty one and both are kinda gender fluid?? (more Shi Qingxuan but they both change their forms to be both women and men which is Iconic and the anime put her in the TRANS FLAG COLOUR instead of her canon white and green which is ICONIC) AND THHEYRE SO TRAGIC AND HOT AND I CRY JUST THINKING ABOUT THEIR STORY LIKE AFHDFKJAFDSGS like i want to kinda read the book just for them, the two super minor characters, but i also read somewhere that their story doesn’t really have a clean ending so im also holding back from just getting Emotionally Hurt because im a cancer and i know it’ll wreck me

I think The Two Gruff Idiots are Feng Xin (dark haired gruff boy) and Mu Qing (brown haired gruff boy) and theyre both martial gods and both knew each other for over 800 years and both tried to take care of Actual Human And Heavenly Disaster Xie Lian, failed, and tried to do it again 800 years later but with stupid glasses with moustaches in hopes that Xie Lian cant figure out that they care about him but OOPS Xie Lian does in fact have the braincell of the three of them fajfafjajf

Heres the link to watch the anime, there are 11 eps rn but it updates every weekend (I dont actually know when but i watch it on sundays) Make sure u have ur ad block on tho lol there is a manga too and the art style is TO DIE FOR like its GORGEOUS but its roughly at the same pace as the anime so eh

Heres where to read the whole thing online, just a warning its BIG AS FUCK like 244? plus extras I think??

I’d also recommend MXTX’s other books!

Mo Dao Zu Shi (or Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation/ The Untamed/MDZS) is both a Book as well as an Anime (the whole thing is on youtube) , a Live Action which you can watch on Netflix (look up Untamed, also a warning, the plot is a little different from the book and anime cause of uhhh censorship?? also i guess to make it more live drama friendly, my friends an i binged it and really liked it, but some of the fandom doesn’t), a manga which is not finished I think???? idk im not caught up, and a fucking chinese AUDIO DRAMA LIKE BITCH ITS SO WELL DONE but i have to stop listening sometimes cause like there is a difference between watching/reading characters kiss, and then like just hearing them, i get so embarrassed i have to skip the kissing scenes and god forbid i accidentally click on the smutty extras alfjajlfjalfjaljf u can find it on youtube, i linked the one i listen to but i havent finished it and i don’t think it’s all of it, but you can find other episodes/chapters easily

Its about 1 Dumb Yet So Smart gay/bi man (Wei Wuxian) who honestly tries his fucking best, fucks up everything, dies for over a decade, and then is forcefully brought back to life to solve a murder mystery with the guy who has been in Super Gay Love with him since they were teens (Lan Zhan), a bunch of teens Who Are Just Honestly Here For A Good Time And Yet (Lan Juniors, Jin Ling, and Best Boy Ouyang Zizhen ) while badly hiding his real identity from all the people he knows, including his foster brother (Jiang Cheng) who is out for blood and hunting his ass down with a whip and also Lan Zhan who is travelling with him. Also the Killer. There is a killer on the loose and is willing to murder whoever to keep their secrets. Also Nie Huaisang. I adore him and his brother Nie Mingjue, if there is one bitch u gotta remember from this summary it’s this little twink (he and his brother also have a fucking spin off movie from the live action drama THAT I HAVENT BEEN ABLE TO FIND A ENGLISH SUB VERSION AND ITS BEEN KILLING ME SINCE I STARTED WATCHING THIS SHOW LAST YEAR. GOOGLE GIVE ME MY FAVOURITE TWINK AND HIS BEAR OF A BROTHER HAVING A FUN FAMILY ROAD TRIP!!!!!!!)

My Personal Current Favourite is Scum Villain’s Self Saving System (SVSSS) which is SOOOOOOO FUNNY Like it’s not as popular cause the comic was discontinued, and the anime looks like its from 2005 with the weird 3D animation but its my current comfort media!!!

Its basically about a spite reading millennial (Shen Yuan) who died after reading a REALLY awful popular cheesy smut harem novel (think like 50 shade series but worse cause the protag had 600 wives) and was forced into the body of a minor but important villain (the protagonist’s teacher, Shen Qingqiu) from the novel who was fated to die with all his limbs cut off and his eyes and tongue plucked out and is told he has to fix the story so its not trash, he reasonably freaks the fuck out and hugs the protagonists (Luo Binghe) thigh so hard he turns him gay without realizing. Sadly, he does have to make sure certain plot points happen, which fucks him over a lot, and he thinks Luo Binghe still wants to kill him instead of love him cause he has the Emotional Intelligence of a Rock, but its so funny reading about him handling all the awful tropey stuff, like imagine u have to be a character in My Immortal But With Porn?????? without breaking out of character too much?? I wouldn’t be able to handle it ajhakfkfhjfj He also finds out that he’s not the only transmigrator in the novel either, but it doesn’t matter cause theyre both So Fucking Stupid Collectively but everyone would honestly die for the both of them

warning for this story though, the main relationship is a teacher/student relationship, but nothing happens until the student is in his 20s and also kinda not his student anymore cause he’s running hell??? but if that squicks u out i totally understand and offer you to PLEASE still enjoy some of this media, and instead of the BingQiu ship, I offer you the LiuQiu one, where both me and the main character cry over how a beautiful man/fellow immortal lord loves the main character so much that he literally fought every day for 5 years to be by his side and I Think Thats Beautiful and I kinda like this ship more than the main one tbh PLEASE just look at the art for Liu Qingge because i love him so much, he’s like if you took Lan Zhan and Jiang Cheng from MDZS and mashed them into one beautiful man the author is trying to tell me is straight but u take one look at him And Tell Me Otherwise

#anon #answering asks probably really late but i live on mobile and i dont get notifications a lot #FHAKJAKFJFAFJA SORRY FOR INFO DUMPING ON U ANON BUT PLEASE LOVE THESE #I LOVE THESE #AND MY IRL FRIENDS DONT CARE ABOUT THEM #theyre like yeah amber ill watch the drama and maybe an anime but its ok no we dont want u to keep sending us tikoks its ok #LIKE IM WEEPING PLEASE ENJOY THIS CONTENT!!!!!!!#but for real if u want a love story for the ages read TGCF i've heard its really good #SVSSS is like the less serious and shortest novel of the three but so good #and MDZS is like the most popular successful middle child that every and their mother has seen and enjoyed #MDZS #SVSSS #TGCF #MXTX #also im once again sorry about how i never tag anything im just convinced no one actually goes on my blog #but i'm always surprised when i get asks like this asking me to tag things or asking about a thing im enjoying #and therefore flooding their dashs with lol #Anonymous

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llycaons · 3 years

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final thoughts on mdzs pt. 1/2 - pros, cons, and my understanding of novel wwx/lwj. major spoilers for both the novel and cql drama. overall? i feel conflicted about this novel, but I found it very troubling and hard to read with some strong good points.

see trigger warnings under the cut

before starting I do want to note that I am, obviously, not Chinese, I really don’t know a whole lot about Chinese history or culture, and in this novel there are absolutely nuances and subtleties and references I have missed, and I apologize in advance for any judgements I make out of misunderstanding or misinterpreting the cultural or linguistic context. I do not know what it’s like to live in China, especially as an lgbt person, and it is not my place to judge how Chinese lgbt people relate to mxtx works. these are just my own reactions and opinions, viewed through the lens of my own experience.

tw for discussion of abuse, ableism, suicide, homophobia

I encourage anyone considering reading the novel, who wants to know what to look out for, to check to the summary at the bottom of this post, below the bolded warning. nsfw text and discussion of rape/sexual assault in that section

Pros

VERY good concept. thrilling compelling horrifying electrifying fascinating a multi-generational tale of war and love and sacrifice and revenge and identity and family and healing and devotion. genuinely the plot was excellent and the themes were really well done - reputation, alienation from mainstream society, corruption, legacy, ambition, hypocrisy, politics

i like the exploration of mob mentality in mdzs and the demonization of the other running back to corruption of the wealthy and rich. as in cql, I wish the protags actually could have changed the system instead of just separating themselves from it (or joining it to change from the inside)

the level of worldbuilding, giving each sect a distinct character, each sect a unique political leader - these are really solid as a foundation for a complicated and realistic fantasy world! it makes for a massive and dynamic setting with a lot of moving parts

i complain about her complicated plots but nie huaisang. holy shit. credit where it is due. and I liked how long it was! if a story is good enough I’m willing to read through a lot. and the details are really cool

i’ve read some analyses of the names and from an English speaker’s perspective, she nailed it. the use of courtesy names to indicate levels of intimacy/formality, whew. I wonder how common that is, in the genre. tgcf doesn’t do that.

commentary on the arrogance and small-mindedness of the rich and powerful compared to the resourcefulness of the common people! how out of touch the wealthy sects are. the privilege of them all!

it was funny! a bunch of little asides that made me snicker, and wwx as a character was absolutely vibrant. the first couple chapters where he wakes up and you meet him are still among my favorites. it was more awkward in cql and less funny as a whole

wwx taking the juniors on a hunt and then taking them out for food afterward is great. class trip with yllz

some of the romantic scenes were breathtaking. not many, but they were there. by the end it really felt like they knew each other and could speak openly to each other which was huge growth from their first meeting/scenes. some wwx’s internal thoughts while he falls in love are very touching and there are scenes where lwj is so gentle w wwx who had never been treated so tenderly before… also the married domestic comfy scenes were very cute

there was a sense of levity and humor in their later scenes. lwj with the dry wit and the flirting was so funny. and when wwx encourages him to step out of his comfort zone and they work together so well on cases and lwj cooks food he knows wwx will like…

don’t judge me for this but I thought the torture and death of wen chao was horrifying in the best way. i do love some gore. i do love some revenge. i do love some horror

right from my first lb post bc its still true - i really love the poetry of wwx waking up in mxy’s body, with all his old hurts erased and with a new gc and a chance to start again. a clean slate. conceptually i just…find that so compelling

“Face-to-face for only an instant, Wei Wuxian was immediately moved by the slight disdain in its eyes.“ lil apple having a character establishing moment was so funny i need to reiterate it

also - gentry refusing to say the name of wwx’s sword bc its too embarrassing for dignified cultivators to say

novel necromancy fucked. with a few hand movements or whistles or snapping of fingers wwx drew corpses up from the ground to fight for him or give him information. and he INVENTED that shit. nobody else before in the history of the cultivation world had done that. all him. three months in the burial mounds with a cursed sword. what a badass.

there was a lot of subtlety in the plot and political and sometimes even romantic dynamics. some of those passages were very graceful and beautiful descriptions of places or events or feelings

i was concerned that the 13 years passing would result in a creepy age gap when wwx came back, but wwx does feel like a mature adult and mxtx didn’t really go in that direction. the romantic scenes in general were sometimes not as bad as they could have been. the massive height difference, forcing one or both into gender roles, and exaggerated personalities are all somewhat based on canon but the fans also make it much worse than what it really is. so…pretty bad but not as bad as it could have been

wwx wanting to show lwj to madam yu and uncle jiang…i firmly believe those bows were meant to be marriage-adjacent in the show too

at the end there was a somber atmosphere and a sympathy for how jgy was torn apart by the eager malice and self-aggrandization of the cultivation world that i missed in cql. there were details and information for characters postcanon I liked to see too

i know it was probably not in good faith as mxtx is a fujoshi but I would like to see wwx in makeup and i liked that wwx expressed an interest in it

its neat to see a slightly different take on the lan clan and how wwx views them and his reluctant admiration of their ways

Cons

obviously the big one is how godawful wx was written because the author is a homophobe who wanted to explore her sick fantasies and used gay men as pawns. often they do not read like real people. more on that below

the women get absolute shit and so does mxy

lord was it fanficcy. writing like this is the reason I hate 99% of fanfiction and fanfiction culture

it is truly astonishing how dry, bland, and emotionless most of the book turned out considering the high-octane angst and drama potential (cql knew. cql milked this for all it was worth. call it corny - and it is - but the writers understood how to shoot an emotional scene)

the flashback sequence was extremely frustrating and confusing. while it was exciting to draw to both finales as once, it seems like she just forgot to write the section where wwx died and left it to rumor and gossip and conjuncture. i did not like the messy rushed pacing of early flashbacks, the sense that we’re getting information relayed to us by passersby and not from a character’s POV, nor the slapdash sense of time passing. I understand gossip is a huge theme in the book but it alienated us from characters we needed to be inside the head of to get the full emotional impact. maybe this is just a taste preference - her goal was not emotion

thematically I get not showing wwx’s death but it really takes the punch out of your story to kill your main character and not even show it. I know that she didn’t show it bc wwx couldn’t remember, but by that point in the novel, the narration was jumping fairly regularly into third person omniscient. thats how we knew about the wen brand on lwj’s chest, among other things

omitting any wwx or lwj pov about sunshot was weird to me. really, the plot was as convoluted as any of her smaller mysteries. and that’s not even a bad thing it’s just that the execution was hard to follow

this was perhaps a problem in translation but most of the scenes felt awkwardly written, the pacing was often very rushed, and the lines were sometimes difficult to understand. there were definitely good chapters throughout and the entire novel took an upswing in quality at about the halfway mark, but overall it was not a pleasant or enjoyable read, not even considering the content I talk about below

i didn’t care very much when most of the characters died. we had little attachment to anyone because barely anyone had any screentime besides wwx and lwj (and almost all of lwj’s scenes revolved around wwx)

this is 100% a personal taste thing but i don’t really care about the culpability of wwx? i do think his guilt and his responsibility for many deaths, including jzx, is a better writing decision and more thematically appropriate but that benefit was overshadowed by the other issues. i think the morality questions are neat! just not what im here for

also the novel does have timeline issues - how can jin ling be 14-15 when wwx died three months after his birthday, thirteen years ago? unless that was a 3-month celebration and so wwx dies when he was 6 months old. and we never get clarification on lsz’s age either except that he’s close in age to JL but that also doesn’t make sense! i feel like she just did not care about developing most characters who were not wx and like, jin ling and maybe jc.

relatively minor but i hate how the narration talks about how lwj’s scars ‘ruined’ his ‘perfect’ body. that’s something that bothers me a lot on a personal level

the scene where fairy literally plays charades with the forehead ribbon is really stupid

the way lwj and wwx ended their journey was simultaneously deeply anticlimactic and disturbing

novel wangxian - sfw section

in mdzs one of the big tropes is miscommunication (the other big trope i talk about below) so lwj is in love since they were 15 or so (for some reason…) and wwx maybe has a crush but doesn’t see it and doesn’t realize until he dies and comes back in a gay man’s body which is apparently a bl trope? for someone not to realize they’re gay for a long time and then realize it and immediately jump into a relationship with someone who’s been in love with them for years? wwx at one point wonders if being gay is contagious. yeah.

there are littler things too - individually many of her writing choices are like, fine but as a whole they paint a picture of relationship colored by a fetishist’s biases. any nice moments they have are in my mind overshadowed by the more troubling tropes that define their relationship

wx do not form a friendship in gusu, their interactions are repetitive and grating, they are barely on speaking terms, they fight a ton in sunshot, they barely talk in BM, lwj tries to save him and defends him and wwx dies without realizing it. wwx realizes he is in love postres, they have some sweet trusting scenes, he confesses with a heavy emphasis on sex, they end their post-temple retreat in legitimately one of the most upsetting and disturbing notes (more below), and that’s that. well, three months later lwj tells wwx the name of the song and he laughs. also they get married

in general there’s very weird overtones to the writing of that whole section. relationship. novel, actually. i do not like novel wx. more below

novel wx - nsfw text, pedophilia and rape m

Please read if you want to know what to expect in the novel - I want to emphasize that an important aspect of the relationship between the two main characters is literally a rape fantasy, and that the author romanticizes sexual assault. There are a lot of character interactions at play and a lot of plausible deniability and scenes/lines that really are up to a reader’s interpretation wrt consent but the fact is that the main character canonically has a rape kink. There are numerous instances of sexual assault from each mc to the other, all later forgiven/condoned by the narrative, and the second sex scene essentially treats rape as romantic. The Dafan mountain kiss and the sex scenes in chapters 96 and 111 are the most egregious examples of this writing, but the sexual harassment, violation of boundaries, and physical entrapment occurs repeatedly throughout the story from both leads towards each other.

details and more thoughts below

a relatively minor issues first of all - REALLY wish the bi mc didn’t tell a toddler about porn

i’ve said before I don’t like the terms “noncon” and “dubcon” because I think they’re easy outs for fans who try to pretend they aren’t just talking about rape. “dubcon” especially is a bullshit term bc there’s no such thing as dubious consent, consent by definition cannot be unclear and fans use it to excuse shit like what’s in this novel

so novel wx has two sides and one of them is this really sweet tenderness and attentiveness and loyalty and gentleness and support and the other is just fujo bainrot glorifying men sexually harassing and assaulting each other

i actually didn’t mind the wwx obliviousness as much as i thought I would, or the huge gap in between lwj falling in love and wwx falling in love, though it was annoying and detracted from the love story

much more concerning to me about their dynamic is the fact that throughout the story, from the beginning, one of the foundational aspects of this relationship is the treatment of sexual assault, the rape jokes throughout the book, rape jokes adults (presented as responsible) make in front of minors, the fact that the protag has a rape kink. there’s a constant underlying theme of imprisonment and silencing and escape, a strong emphasis on the love interest’s social/physical invulnerability and the mc’s relative weakness, and the love interest has a strong possessive streak. any one of these alone wouldn’t be cause for me to make this warning so strongly but it all plays together with the overall dynamic of the assault fantasy

it’s not that I think portraying SA is inherently bad, of course not, but you need to do it respectfully and sensitively and mxtx uses her characters as outlets for her and her reader’s fantasies. i do not think this woman cares about conveying nuanced commentary on consent or on relationships and fans singing her praises and going on about her genius have no critical thinking skills and treat mlm sexual violence as entertainment

novel wwx is such a brilliant character and you hate to see the author putting this on him. i don’t like calling these scenes ooc. the author had a plan for the dynamic and she went with it. thats not ooc, thats just a character written with bigotry. conscientious novel fans might omit these interactions from their understanding of the characters and proceed from there but i really don’t know if i can do that. this is their canon dynamic

im grateful cql completely revamped them. and i know part of that was censorship, but for whatever reason the characters from cql were written in such a way that we know they would never do these things to each other, and for that im glad, as I don’t want to associate such scenes with characters i love a lot

i know the scene on dafan mtn and the drunk scene in 96 were purposefully written as morally wrong and i know that both characters genuinely felt awful about what they did, but here’s where she really fails. i would have been able to accept those scenes (I would never LIKE them) if they sat down and recognized they hurt each other, set up boundaries, and agreed to treat each other with respect. maybe take some time away from each other to work on their individual issues. or work together on them. like partners do. like people who love each other do. like, please communicate! but she writes it so that neither of them are mad at the other for the assault bc, what, it’s okay to do whatever you want to your partner because they won’t mind? because they love you? and everything will be forgiven or accepted? because boundaries don’t exist? what bullshit

later on in 111, and i know this is complicated and real relationships are messy and won’t be perfect and sure there’s a lot of subtext i may missed as a non-native reader but that scene ends with a character going “we are going to have sex every day whether you like it or not” using his partner’s previous words against him because consent given once is what, always standing? and this is treated as romantic, this is considered THE big romantic moment and the climax to their love story. not even touching the textual rape and pedophilia fantasy in the extras which i am so thankful I was warned about and did not read

I’ve always avoided yaoi/bl and most fanfiction for treating gay relationships like this and seeing it condoned and romanticized in a popular original work is very upsetting. so my dni applies double now i do not want the rabid mxtx fans on my posts or in my inbox defending their fantasy with “don’t kink-shame” (an actual thing an ExR translator wrote) or some other bullshit excuse

i may reread the other translation of the novel when it’s finished (it will probably be about a year) but I am never reading any of her explicit scenes again

#mdzs lb

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eldritch-elrics · 3 years

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svsss: the (not so) grand return of peerless cucumber

so a LOT happened in the chapters i read last night (44-49) and i have. SO many thoughts

not as many as i had right after i read but i really had to go to bed so i couldn’t write them all up.....

i put some reactions in individual posts but i’ll repeat them here!

first of all. shang qinghua. fucked off to the demon realm. like, good for him? but also. i want to see my boy

binghe keeping sqq’s body??? xue yang vibes OFF the charts

so I’M IN LOVE WITH THE MUSHROOM PLOT

i love how every so often sv will hit me with a twist that is SO up my alley that i just. lose it a little bit

HE MADE HIMSELF A CLONE BODY OUT OF MAGICAL MUSHROOMS AND TRANSPORTED HIS SOUL INTO IT.

i love mushroom shit and i love bodyswapping and. my god.

the fact that sqq has died twice and been forced to inhabit 3 different bodies??? wei wuxian wishes he were this cool

sidenote but the mental image of sqq doing radio calisthenics in the forest is really funny. or maybe it’s just funny to me because of the associations i have with this one time in japanese class?

sqq’s new body looking like a cross between shen yuan and shen qingqiu is really interesting and perhaps... symbolic....?

also hey does this mean he doesn’t have to deal with the cureless poison anymore. i assumed that it would be cured in his eventual sexytimes with binghe but hmmm i guess not!

the point where i really lost it was when he realized he was disconnected from the system. i know now that it wasn’t permanent but that was just so interesting, how much he hates it and wants it gone. which makes sense! even though it has helped him get out of bad spots at times, it’s a sign that he’s not really from this world. now i’m just really curious what’s gonna happen to the system at the end of the novel. maybe it’ll shut off once he achieves the “goal” it’s seemed to have set for him and gets together with lbh?

also i’m glad that sqq seems to have matured a little bit in terms of his people skills / problem solving skills? though uh. remains to be seen how he’ll act in front of binghe when binghe realizes who he is

it also seems like i was completely wrong about sqq’s motivations for sacrificing himself lol. lot more selfish than i thought? but it makes sense! fun twist

mxtx sure likes to have her protagonists execute plots that they don’t tell the reader about until after they happen lol (i’m thinking of the golden core transfer)

uhh back to plot reactions

love the running joke about peerless cucumber. also the demon names... six balls <3

also hold on a minute, peerless cucumber is a dick joke? lmao

thank you airplane for making it clear binghe has a big dick. absolutely vital character information

so i’ve said this before but sqq’s narration really CARRIES this novel. here i’m thinking specifically about his diatribe against sha hualing’s nails

shl is pretty fun. sexy evil lady!

sqq can turn his fan into a blade. nie huaisang get ON that smh

yang yixuan my beloved!

also HAHA i predicted that sqq’s super mushroom powers could help the xin mo thing and i was RIGHT

so sqq is just. SO invested in getting the plot back on track. like with all the harem members and stuff. it’s so funny because like bro. surely you’ve noticed by now that things are going very differently than in pidw. and also... you don’t WANT to go back on the pidw track bc that would kill you!!!

so the system reactivates when binghe turns up right? i am thinking about. the fact that when it tries to reboot it’s like “contacting customer service”

WHO IS CUSTOMER SERVICE.

it’s so interesting because like... obviously the whole system thing is so much bigger than just A Book? it’s even got airplane trapped inside it. and he’s the fucking author! who is running this thing? and for what purpose?

sqq listening in on the gossip about how lbh is DEFINITELY obsessively in love with him was SO funny. poor man

so binghe. he has become so COLD

i don’t like it :(

once more. my dude go to therapy.

wait also random but sqq has a beard now and for some reason that’s so funny to me

life at the palace seems terrible lmao no one is doing ok

smh, mxtx protags keep dying and staying dead for huge amounts of time and then coming back in different bodies

the fact that binghe’s happiest memories are training with sqq :(

THE FACT THAT BINGHE IS ABSOLUTELY SHIT AT KISSING

my god. that entire scene

went from “awwww headpats” to “AAAAAAAA”

the fact that the system congratulates him i’m sjkdhgjhsdhgjsds poor sqq.... didn’t ask for this shit.......

after 50 chapters, he’s finally realized he turned the male lead gay <3 say goodbye to all those funny oblivious moments!

i had to stop there because it was way too late at night but wow. we shall see how this relationship progresses

i can’t see it improving anytime soon but at least sqq knows lbh likes him now???

i had a LOT of thoughts last night but now i’m pretty much just like. i really need to see where it goes before i make any judgements on bingqiu

rn i’m not a big fan because 1. sqq is so wildly uncomfortable (understandable lol, even if lbh thinks it’s just a dream) and 2. lbh is very obsessive and that’s not really my favorite trope. but like it’s obviously not meant to be a healthy relationship, at least definitely not right now, and i do like some good fucked up romance! i’m excited to see the developments where sqq realizes what his real feelings are

i’m also fairly neutral on binghe as a character atm. his main personality traits seem to be “obsessed with sqq” and “trying not to die from evil sword qi poisoning” and i don’t find that all that compelling? between him and lwj i have to say that mxtx’s love interest characters are not really my favorite, though i wouldn’t say i dislike either of them.

furthermore i’m slightly concerned with how lbh’s “i’m the main character and i get what i want” attitude is gonna affect the romance. i know there’s some dubconny stuff later which i can’t say i’m excited for but i am excited to see how binghe’s character is gonna develop in general

my aspirations for bingqiu is that they’re both able to eventually break free of the expectations of the system

because, look at this from sqq’s pov. there’s this ai in your head that has, for literal years, been steering you towards a romance that you (at least outwardly) don’t want. isn’t that fucking terrifying? i love it. the system (at least how i see it) has been bending the established plot of the world in order to make this happen. it’s like fate but you can see the gears turning.

and even if sqq does end up liking lbh back, can you imagine the existential crisis of like. wondering if he really CHOSE to get with binghe or if he was somehow compelled to by the system which acts based on binghe’s emotions?

i think that would be so interesting

however what i think is Actually going to happen (based on that one time when airplane was like “hey cucumber, uh, is lbh just a character to you or is there more...”) is that sqq is gonna realize that he’s had a bit of a crush on binghe since reading pidw and is only just now dealing with his internalized homophobia. so him getting together with binghe has less strings attached

i think there’s some opportunity here for a commentary on the soulmate trope? because svsss is just so steeped in themes about agency and fate. i think that would be really cool but we’ll have to see. i feel like the ending is gonna be simpler and happier than i want it to be but obviously i cannot make any judgements yet! i’m just having Thoughts :)

so, i also read one of the extras (the one where he goes with lqg to battle succubi) because the translation i’m reading recommended it! it was pretty fun

sqq SO clueless. like i get it, he doesn’t think he’s into anything other than Pretty Cis Women, but. sqq we’ll work on this

also ASKING LQG IF HE’S A VIRGIN. sqq literally stop

(that was so funny though)

liu qingge ACE RIGHTS

actually lqg’s outburst in this chapter was kind of bizarre and can be explained in a few different ways i think?

i really like the idea of him being aroace. thinks true love doesn’t exist etc

i feel like the intended implication of lqg’s outburst is that he’s realized madame meiyin is referring to binghe and is like “holy shit no sqq can’t be with Him”

maybe lqg is just homophobic?

but i. also kind of wonder if lqg is gay and in love with sqq? and is just putting up the “such deep love doesn’t exist” thing because he really doesn’t want sqq to know

there was that whole line where the succubus was like “well you’re not his soulmate you don’t know” and it made me think

on the other hand i can’t really see lqg liking sqq that way; they seem to have more of a Bro Bond

then again lqg does keep fighting binghe for sqq’s sake

either headcanon is fun! i’d be excited for more insight into lqg in general i think

#my god this is long #svsss #svsss spoilers #finn reads scum villain #my post

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