SVSSS Read Along

[x_los]

excaliburedpan and I both happen to be reading this danmei book at the moment, so I thought I'd throw up a post for any comments if anyone wants to read along now or later, and shove my locked-twitter read-along thoughts somewhere more accessible. I'm going to break it up by blocks of chapters, then do an Overall Thoughts subsection. Assume spoilers. 

There are 81 novel chapters, then Extras. 

Comments

Re: Chapters 16-20

[x_los]

- 'For demon women, they must viciously bully the person they like. Only if he didn’t die would she accept them, if he died that meant he was too useless, and not worth having lingering affections for.' Why does this cast OG!SQQ as a pigtail pulling girl x_x

It's p funny, coming as it does right after LBH telling SY! SQQ that his recent actions made LBH retrospectively see his earlier actions as testing&care. Arguably demon instincts have Confused this child.

- A fun part of SY!SQQ's referentiality is that he uses both anime bullshit and hyper formal chengyu, even early in the book.

- I also like that he enjoys the hell out of this fantasy world even as he's whinging and legit afraid for his life.

There so much Buffy 'wish I were a normal girl!' Reluctant protagonist innocent of narrative in Western shit rn that having someone not lampshade hate their own protagonism/disclaim their agency to disavow responsibility for their choices is refreshing

'How can little baby me be queen Victoria empress of the white dominions I'm just a baaaaby qq I don't know what I'm doing also my mom was mean??' hate this shit

- It’s not that clear whether this Meng Mo dream sequence is exactly the same but instead SQQ is subbed in for NYY, or whether the whole thing has shifted? What SQQ alluded to expecting doesn’t quite happen.

- It’s interesting tho bc we see in this dream sequence where LBH learned to lie really well/be interested in pleasing people—he’s trying to prolong his mom’s life by lying to her about how bad the situation is&simultaneously lying to himself about it so he doesn’t despair/can keep moving

You can see how he’d develop a tyrannical over-valuation of his own will? that kind of BELIEF is all that keeps him going&continues into his time as a disciple. &everything he has, he has to take from ppl who’d just as soon see him dead, if they’re not actively gunning for him.

Swording? Qi-ing? Anyway boy has issues and you can absolutely see why he’d slip into this ‘scoring my life to the moody Beyoncé Survivor’ cover mode

- I’ve said it in fic re s1 of the donghua, but re the book as well, it’s ofc really significant that he wants to feed his mom and SQQ the same food, that he’s keen to provide for them both (SQQ in part bc he failed with his mom), there’s a whole fantasy here of being Sustaining. A good provider and protector, enough in himself—the gender stuff gets interesting bc he wants to be capable of martial, butch protecting but you get the idea that’s an ancillary necessity, &before that what he WANTS to do is high femme cooking shit

- You sort of wonder whether the OG harem (founded on a weird comphet layering: what people wanted from the novel, imperial image, imperial politics, Xin Mo) in addition to being about filling a frantic insatiable need for affirmation/affection was about being an ULTIMATE provider

you keep hundreds of women in their pumpkin shells, very well, and you cook for them and keep them Safe from the world, keep them happy when you’re with them, keep them oddly near chaste bc there’s one of you and more of them than days in a year—like I could buy it as reparative

Also weird gender shit in that he’s girlish looking&this is a hugely female space, there’s no palace eunuch system mentioned, like NO MEN are here but him. Is that ‘safe’ for him (closeted, abused by Jiu)? He passes from apex masculinity into something like ‘one of the girls’.

I guess the people pleasing femme coded stuff also comes from being poor, having to charm where you can’t command to survive (wheedling for the food), and no distinct male figure ever having impacted his life pre SQQ

- It’s funny that Airplane/MXTX has pinned getting out of the Meng Mo trap on resolving your issues, that’s so narrative in a post 19th c novel/post Freudian way

- excaliburedpan observed that the whole book is very Northanger Abbey, &in re that we have LBH falling in love with SQQ in part bc SQQ has shown he cares for him (SQQ thinks these incidents are Weird Accidents/driven by narrative necessity, but SQQ is largely lying to himself)

- A whole scene here that SQQ is unconscious for, answering some of the inherent ambiguity of the book’s theory of mind (tho SQQ can’t really know that)

- Bitch you seriously didn't set any chapters in the initial bamboo house years? I'd have spent five on that to build the relationship and give ppl the fluff before the storm! What are you DOING?

- Also it's interesting that SY!SQQ managed to suppress his worst fear/guilt SO HARD that he was Surprised by the conference invitation showing up, like. That is NEXT LEVEL suppression, you only just had a nightmare about that&reaffirmed it was: your worst fear.

- also odd: he CAN do Six Arts shit, and enjoys doing it? Is that just the SQQ body? Feels like it couldn't be, fully. He has muscle memory but there's a LOT more than that to painting, qin&calligraphy.

- transmigration/airplane set up does a LOT to get the audience on side. That's not a knock to the novel, it's just a VERY effective strategy for inculcating sympathy in readers