dankodes | SVSSS Read Along

x_los posting in

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.

Tags:

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

x_los

人渣反派【Scum Villain】
受虐男主【Abused Male Lead】
炮灰当道【Cannon Fodder in the Way】
暗助男主【Secretly Assisting the Male Lead】
初级任务【Beginner Level Quest】

From:

x_los

出师不利【Unfavorable Beginning】
一坑男主【Backstabbing the Male Lead, No. 1】
坑完给糖【Giving Sweets After Backstabbing】
百战峰主【Bai Zhan Peak Lord】
魔女挑衅【Demon Girl’s Provocation】

From:

x_los

二坑男主【Backstabbing the Male Lead, No. 2】
狂刷好感【Favor Farming Frenzy】
装B遭劈【Posers Draw Lightning Strikes】
恶俗设定【Vulgar Setup】
梦魇副本【Nightmare Instance】

Edited Date: 2021-02-05 04:05 am (UTC)

From:

x_los

拿错剧本 · 1 【Wrong Script 1】
拿错剧本 · 2 【Wrong Script 2】
随身爷爷【Portable Grandfather】
谆谆教诲【Earnest Instruction】
艰巨任务【Arduous Task】

From:

x_los

仙盟大会 · 1 【Immortal Alliance Conference 1】
仙盟大会 · 2 【Immortal Alliance Conference 2】
突生惊变 · 1 【Abrupt Change 1】
突生惊变 · 2 【Abrupt Change 2】
无间深渊 · 1 【Endless Abyss 1】

From:

x_los

无间深渊 · 2 【Endless Abyss 2】
无间深渊 · 3 【Endless Abyss 3】
同乡认亲【Friends from the Same Hometown】
白露森林【Bai Lu Forest】
露湖蛇男【The Snake-Man of the Dew Lake】

From:

x_los

瘟城疑踪【The Mystery of the Plague City】
师徒重逢 · 1 【Master and Disciple Reunite 1】
师徒重逢 · 2 【Master and Disciple Reunite 2】
鬼畜如斯【Like an Evil Beast】
冤罪加身 · 1 【False Accusations 1】

From:

x_los

冤罪加身 · 2 【False Accusations 2】
迷宫水牢 · 1 【The Labyrinthine Water Prison 1】
迷宫水牢 · 2 【The Labyrinthine Water Prison 2】
逃离水牢【Escape from the Water Prison】
花月逃杀 · 1 【Fleeing Death in Hua Yue 1】

From:

x_los

花月逃杀 · 2 【Fleeing Death in Hua Yue 2】
店中口角【Altercation in the Tavern】
主角卒，全剧终【Main Character Dies, The End】
手动重生【Manual Rebirth】
魔族文化【Demon Culture】

From:

x_los

大闹魔窟【Commotion in the Demon’s Lair】
八卦江湖【Gossipy Jianghu】
相逢不识【Meeting Without Knowing】
性向真相【Truth of Orientation】
三观尽碎【Worldview Completely Shattered】

From:

x_los

此梦堪怜【This Piteous Dream】
春山遗恨【Eternal Regret of Chunshan】

Here the Faelcity translation (a WIP) stops and we switch back to the second of the three translations:

Chapter 53: Master and Disciple Meet Again
Chapter 54 – Unhappy Reunion
Chapter 55 – Life Under House Arrest

Edited Date: 2021-02-01 12:21 am (UTC)

From:

x_los

OG Thread: https://twitter.com/ehorakova/status/1355329572561149954

- ‘Because he’d been drifting along the Luo River, and it was the season when it was filled with thin ice, he was given that name. Luo Binghe—‘ this, you don’t footnote? No, come back here, is his name THIN ICE? If his name is THIN ICE I’m fuckin rioting

- Superborb says: i'm dead, no it means "icy river" (actually it is the word for glacier, but i think you're supposed to read it as the constitutive parts here)

- To be fair tho nothing could be more in the spirit of this novel than to have a giant argument with this novel

- ‘Here at the conference, Luo Binghe fell victim to Shen Qingqiu’s scheming, and fell into a crack in the boundary’ is it a *scheme*, or is it just ‘Binghe go whoosh!’?

- ‘Prior to her death, she let her son off the lone ship she’d birthed him on’ if she’d only planned ahead she could have birthed him on like 6 ships

- ‘Don’t misunderstand, Shen Yuan didn’t enjoy degrading himself.’ w o w you have got a LONG novel ahead of you kiddo

- I'm gonna need a BIG old explanation of Saintly, Saintess in the context of xianxia bc I feel like that does not map at all onto English usages of the term

- How rich IS Shen Yuan's family, that he's a THIRD SON and they had a daughter after? Like did they pretend to all be farmers what HAPPENED here

- In svsss ppl get called their swords' names as a professional title, but in MDZS only Wanyin does. Unless Wangji the qin counts? Is that a Thing in xianxia or?

- Here we are in chapter 3, and I still want a good explainer on sword glare and Killing Intent as a function of gaze. Actually Molly K has explained to me there was an entire discrete model of the mechanism/properties of Gaze in the early modern era, which shows up in Shakespeare. Thus it's not very surprising that another culture would have divergent phenomenological models (especially in its Medievalism), because even our internal conception of this has changed hugely in the last few hundred years.

- I didn’t quite get it just from the donghua, but this ch 4 thing directly substitutes the charmed leaf for the lost pendant, Watsonian-accidentally and Doylist-on purpose shifting Shen Qingqiu into the vacant throne of Binghe’s Oedipal mom-shaped Neediness.

- And though Binghe can’t know it, Qingqiu is gambling with his own life (via the still uncertain mechanics of the b point threshold) to protect him from harm—strongly paralleled with his mom and the protective pendant

- Would the system actually kill Shen Yuan like this, or does the system need him?

- It’s also (productively, I think) not clear that another transmigrator in Shen Yuan’s position would be as TAKEN with Binghe as he is. Yuan firmly believes it’s a function of Binghe’s protagonist status/the world, but Yuan also lies to himself/rationalises shit away constantly.

- Psychoanalytic readings of SVSSS when?

- How does Shen Yuan even know how to get dressed in Shen Qingqiu’s complex pseudoMedieval clothes? In the absence of explanations, I will believe Yuan has done embarrassing Cosplay as Binghe in the past.

- Verity says 'hanfu revival', so he does not need to have gone to these tragic places, in his life.

- 'who would be able to guess that this was Qing Jing Peak’s miserable flower bud that had been ravaged by winds and rains for many years.' maybe Shen Yuan's internal monologue is less HI KIDS IM GAY in Chinese? if not I'm judging him for not having his gay awakening A LOT sooner

- Yuan sweetie you're going to need a word choice that is a lot less--whatever this is. 'miserable flower bud'. Even people on the international space station know you're gay.

- I'd prefer a different word for the lap-desks than just desks, because we've already established Qingqiu's siting in a carriage but Desk in English is almost universally a big stationary piece of furniture, so it generated some whiplash re blocking

- Super fucking awkward that Yue Qingyuan didn't reassign the skinner demon quest when Qingqiu fell ill, given people could have died in the interim. Is that a character note for him or part of how the world works?

- (It wouldn't happen that way because Yuan the new sort-of-protagonist is sick, so *nothing* can happen until he's ready to Quest.)

But maybe I'm supposed to view the Peaks more as Graciously Deigning to Help than as civil servants?

- "The System: 【Warning…】

Shen Qingqiu: “Warning rejected. I wasn’t OOC.”

The System: 【‘Shen Qingqiu’ would never do anything to alleviate Luo Binghe’s troubles. Verdict: OOC level 100%.】

Shen Qingqiu said, “Have you carefully examined this character’s complicated state of mind? Of course he would never if it was purely to alleviate Luo Binghe’s troubles. But right now my goal is to not disappoint Ning Yingying as her Shizun. Ning Yingying is my dearest little disciple, and she pleaded with me, how can I let her plea be for nothing?”

The System: 【…】

Shen Qingqiu: “So my actions are completely in line with ‘Shen Qingqiu’s’ character’s logic. Your warning is invalid!”

With the exchanges from the last couple of days, he’d gradually figured out several working methods. The System had rules, but these rules were not rigid. Since that was the case, then it left leeway for bargaining.

As expected, for the time being the System couldn’t think of an argument for deduction. Soaring with gratification, Shen Qingqiu couldn’t help a laugh."

So this is interesting as it positions Yuan's critical ability to read the text&construct arguments as a key survival skill in-world, &on a meta level Yuan's critical engagement is what's rewarded with transmigration, coupled with his investment&empathy

- You could arguably read this situation as SO plastic that different things retroactively become Always True of this world as SQQ sells them. He pulls his reading off, and suddenly SQQ was never trying to get with Ning Yingying, tho before the transmigration that wasn't the case

- (A random example that may or may not have been true of OG SQQ, just--can they change what happened pre narrative by selling a convincing lived present? My instinct is no, but you could argue otherwise?)

- 'Especially Shen Qingqiu, who already had some fondness towards the male lead. He was very fond of how the male lead killed decisively, and of how black-and-white and clear-cut he was with his kindness and hatred.' does SQQ admire decisiveness bc HE is ambivalent?

- He could also like how driven/purposive Binghe is because at 17-25, however old he actually is rn inside this body, he has no clear DIRECTION

- That’d be interesting bc death/outwitting the novel/the Peak Lord gig/Binghe himself arguably give Yuan the opportunity his situation (I think it IS situation, rather than character, even w/out illness fanon) didn’t to do something meaningful/find out who he is or could be

- I don’t think the problem was just Financial Comfort, I think he was so estranged from his genuine desire/caught up in performativity he spent his time reading books he believed he hated, like that Proust line about when you’re planning to ACTUALLY do anything unironically?

“For what other lifetime was he reserving the moment when he would at last say seriously what he thought of things, formulate opinions that he did not have to put between quotation marks, and no longer indulge with punctilious politeness in occupations [that] he declared at the time to be ridiculous?”

- Shen Yuan has such an estranged relationship with his own desire that he can’t tell who or what he wants, or even process other people wanting him. He’s painfully self-aware, but then it just cuts off as a weird self protective thing. I don't think that's unrelated, I think the lampshading-as-personality makes a lot of sense and is also talking back to the narrative mechanisms of novel-writing and criticism.

From:

x_los

Chapter 56: The Person in the Coffin
Chapter 57 — Holy Mausoleum
Chapter 58 -Hall of Delight, Hall of Fury, Hall of Sorrow
Chapter 59: Ice Disappears, Snow Melts
Chapter 60 – Huan Hua Palace Master

From:

x_los

Chapter 61 – For the Single People (Part 1)
Chapter 62 – For the Single People (Part 2)
Chapter 63: A Trip to the South
Chapter 64 – Rendezvous in Enemy Camp
Chapter 65 – The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System
Chapter 65: This Friend Circle is Really a Mess

From:

x_los

Chapter 66 – Circle of Nobles, Wanton Disorder
Chapter 67—A Three-Man Journey
Chapter 68 – In Zhao Hua Temple
Chapter 69 – In Zhao Hua Temple 2
Chapter 70 – In Zhao Hua Temple 3

From:

x_los

Chapter 71 – The System’s Penalty
Chapter 72: The Person Named Shen Jiu
Chapter 73: Extra: Airplane’s Fortuitous Encounter
Chapter 74: Right on Schedule
Chapter 75: Flurry Arrives on Greedy Winds

From:

x_los

Chapter 76: Return to the Abyss
Chapter 77: Maigu Demonic Ridge
Chapter 78: Past Faces Long Gone
Chapter 79: Former Affection is Lost Forever
Chapter 80: Key Item
Chapter 81: The Story Begins

From:

x_los

Start threads for the specific extras you'd like to discuss below.

From:

x_los

Over-arching stuff, stuff not tagged to a specific chapter.

From:

excaliburedpan

I have nothing smart to comment just: Luo Binghe how are you like this????

From:

excaliburedpan

I need someone and explain a few words and how they're used in a danmei context. Arrogant is one, saintly is the other, masochistic is the latest addition. I can feel a gap in my understanding and context

From:

hopqer

My favorite MXTX novel personally! I hope you guys have a ton of fun reading it. Would love your thoughts over at

mxtx too!

From:

excaliburedpan

Having just read the snake man backstory extras: We really need to have a larger conversation about MXTX use of the sins of the father/sons overcoming their fathers' faults/going through the same situations with different results? There's some very interesting multi-generational growth happening both with the Lans in MDZS and with Luo Binghe in this.

From:

x_los

Yeah this is where I am in a way with my conduct fiction/moral novel bullshit, bc I think also in the same generation she'll stage reactions to events from different, defensible and DEFINED povs, like this is Extreme Filial Piety, this is Extreme Legality, this is Extreme Justice, this is Extreme Social Cohesion, and you're supposed to sort of read these simultaneously as character beats and as letting different strategies run the same scenario?

From:

x_los

Thanks for letting us know about the com! :)

From:

x_los

- ‘He didn’t even want to pretend to meditate, and lay on the bed just pretending to be dead.’ Mood (Chapter 6)

- There's s blink and miss it line that could read transphobic in this chapter, which raises an ethical question. Should a translator just cut or gentle such things and provide an explanatory footnote? For my money if it's not SIGNIFICANT&can be easily cut&glossed for full disclosure, there's no reason not to.

- Skinner demons are yet more 'fake bodies that disguise and enable' (here, along gender lines, as well as in terms of predation): every MXTX novel is like 12 of those in a sack

- 'if this were a novel, and not padded like that of “Great Master” Airplane’s, the writing would have been finished in one chapter'

Lmao MXTX girl fuck you

- We get more instances of enabling-performance with SY!SQQ saying over-confident shit to the kids to make them rally&feel safe

From:

x_los

- Third person omniscient where MXTX either CANNOT HELP giving you an LBH POV moment OR she strategically decides to let you double-read scenes and question the narrator all over this book, further destabilising sqq's theory of this world as unreal bc LBH CAN HAVE outside pov

- Why the fuck did no one get Liu PoorPedagoGe out of seclusion when this stupid shit started is the floor LAVA just get fucking reinforcements???

- I guess SQQ indirectly sent Ning Yingying but why not do that—first? Why did no one else— Eugh

- You know why Liu Qingge sucks shit tho and I don’t forgive him? I mean this very literally: it’s bc he’s a bad teacher. PPL GO TO SCHOOL HERE, I DONT CARE IF YOU WANT HIM FOR YOUR THREESOME! PICK A RESPONSIBLE EDUCATOR!!

'Ooooh I don't wanna teach I just wanna fight monsters' bitch it's called retirement

- "Right now, my hands, feet, and mouth still work, and I still have my cultivation; I am plenty satisfied.”

SQQ King of making jokes about own death no one else gets or finds funny

- a wild amount of cultural borrowing from Japan in this book. Maybe it’s like Importance of Being Earnest: women only call each other ‘sister’ after they’ve called each other a LOT of other shit first. Only after two countries have both viciously colonised each other can they be real friends?

From:

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

Edited Date: 2021-02-05 06:01 am (UTC)

From:

x_los

- Here in ch21 qi qingqi thinks she's dealing with SQQ's twink boytoy who brought snacks and is just done

- 'A little while later, someone lifted the carriage curtain, and Luo Binghe smiled while asking, “Shizun, snacks, water, or is your waist sore?”' ...did you get that boy to give you back rubs like 'hope this doesn't awaken anything in him!!'

- '"Beautiful beyond comprehension?”
She isn’t even showing her entire face. No matter how beautiful, can she be better-looking than me?'

I love one (1) absolute bitch child

- "The four great cultivation sects made up the main force of the participants. With Cang Qiong Mountain in the lead, following closely behind were Zhao Hua Temple, Tian Yi Monastery, and Huan Hua Palace.

Of the four sects, Cang Qiong Mountain was the most comprehensive, the twelve peaks each had their own strengths, in multiple fields. Temples3 and monasteries3 were naturally the headquarters of those who had become Buddhist monks and Daoist priests. Huan Hua Palace was more complicated: their sect followed the teachings of various different schools, had an aptitude for the Daoist art of concealment, and interacted the most with the secular world; the level of their techniques was not clear, but there was one point on which there was no doubt: they were absolutely the richest of the sects. They contributed the most money every conference."

Answering one of

superborb's questions the other day about Buddhist cultivation in xianxia

- ‘I just think he should only date QUALITY girls!!’ ok kiddo. Mmhm.

- Also I guess so far LBH has never stopped to consider his obsession object could be straight? I mean granted, it’s not a thing I’d ever think about SQQ either, but.

- SQQ REALLY callous/detached about the first Qin girl’s death. (He’s not good at that when it’s Binghe.) Is this detachment a processing mechanism re his situation/what he’s about to have to do? Or he just doesn’t think they’re real? Or he’s a subconscious jealous bitch?

- 'Nu Yuan Chan was an amphibious creature: after sucking three people dry underwater, it was itching to climb the bank and search for new targets. Luo Binghe’s expression was icily severe; he snapped his fingers, igniting a burst of flames at his fingertips, then boosting them with spiritual energy, flicked them towards the lurking demonic beast. As soon as they touched the hair-like strands the flames surged into an inferno, forcing the black mass of hair to speedily retreat into the water, afraid to come onto the bank. He’d executed the entire set of actions in a single smooth sequence, full of formidable might, utterly relentless. Shen Qingqiu internally held up a sign: Luo Binghe, ten points!'

jfc can you--for five min together, can you not be obsessed with him. I know you don't see it but it is so embarrassing.

relatedly: need post-canon fic where SQQ thinks he's cool but then has full on internal/external 'well MY HUSBAND--' passages of this ilk, as per the text

two wolves inside you: Giant Bitch and Obnoxious Wife Guy

- Any second now Shang Qingha should show up, and I'm reasonably excited to meet Nie Huaisang If He Were a Cringe Post

- Me, nearing the end of the part of the book covered by s1 of the donghua: this is it, mr. Frodo. If I take one more step, it'll be the furthest away from the Shire I've ever been. I'll finally know what fucking happens in plaguey town--

- Arguably if SQQ believed these were real people he had an ethical duty to tell them the conference was going to be invaded even at the cost of his own life/at the risk the system wouldn't let him/tho he probably wouldn't have been believed, so is in part responsible for deaths

- "Though he had made mental preparations long ago, when such an enormous scene of chaos played out before him, Shen Qingqiu realized, with his scalp numb and his fingers icy-cold, that he could not do as he’d previously expected, and just pretend he was watching the climax of an ultra-realistic show."

Ok here we go the freak out I was expecting

Edited Date: 2021-02-05 02:09 pm (UTC)

From:

x_los

- The abyss scene/ch 27 does some neat stuff with unreliable narration

- Airplane: ...wait weren't you a giant hater bitch?
Cucumber: oh, I am THE bitch. I am Princess Massive Cunt. And now you're trapped in a xianxia with me.

- '“Nothing.” Shang Qinghua said, “I’ve already long thought that Cucumber-bro is a faithful reader, just one who doesn’t like expressing sentiments normally. To think you were able to dig up an obscure, throwaway setup that I used only once; I’m very moved.”'

Ffffffff

- SQQ is evidently off using Inedia as an enabler for starving himself for the better part of 3 yrs, like a very normal boy who is NOT going through it (REVISED: maybe just initally). He’s eating around Airplane but this seems in part a flex to make Airplane pay for shit (admittedly with company money), bc he fucking hates this guy.

- Calling the answering machine version of the system the AI indicates it’s normally something alive?? Is this just a weird translation issue? &what DOES it mean that LBH is its power source?

-

excaliburedpan thought SQH straight up had no system, which is how I read that line initially, but two later lines indicate he came to have one—if it’s LBH powered, presumably around when LBH was born

- Gongyi Xiao's hyper polite way of asserting his Sect's territorial control over this forest is really interesting/worth remembering as a strategy, here (ch 29)

- 'you know who this kid reminds me of? perfect perfect Binghe'
'you know what this tree re--'

honey, we get it

- "Shen Qingqiu finally arrived, holding his sword, and blurted out an, “Ah, idiot!”

Gongyi Xiao was rather aggrieved. In truth, Shen Qingqiu also knew that the issue was his too-fast reflexes, causing him to move before he finished listening; anyone else would have done the same. But in the past, Shen Qingqiu had sometimes partnered with Luo Binghe, who could understand exactly what he wanted without needing him to say an extra word, and respond perfectly. The contrast was as clear as day; Shen Qingqiu couldn’t help but miss the benefits and ease afforded by Luo Binghe."

if you like him so much why'd you cliff yeet him this is why we can't have nice things

- everything about this mushroom quest is fun competence porn for SQQ

- 'He could never have known, that Shen Qingqiu’s interest in these strange creatures was equivalent to a normal Zhongdian reader’s interest in the hundreds of flower-like maidens, all competing in beauty.'

just say 'monsterfucker' it's shorter

- "Shang Qinghua continued to dig his own grave. “Cucumber-bro, can I ask, how did you see Luo Binghe? I remember you were one of his fans, right: you ranted about a huge bunch of the characters I wrote, but even so you never ranted about him. To you, is he a character, or is he a…”

A chill ran up Shen Qingqiu’s back.

This bizarre interrogation from “Great Master” Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky was basically just like high-school girls gossiping in the dorms after lights-out. “Tell me! Do you have a crush on ___” “N-no, what are you talking about!” “Dodging the question~ Don’t be shy O(∩_∩)O haha~” “I hate you, go to bed!”…

Lightning. Lightning from the nine heavens!

Shang Qinghua was completely innocent. He was actually making an honest inquiry and seeking a discussion, it was Shen Qingqiu who had skeletons in his closet, and was thinking too much."

actual chokelaughing

- ok you didn't kill the innocuous demon but you DID just take his sustenance away with no replacement is he gonna survive without that wtf guys (I think he's like LBH's fucked-face cousin or something so he's actually fine)

Edited Date: 2021-02-05 03:11 pm (UTC)

From:

x_los

- 'Shen Qingqiu helped Mu Qingfang sit down, and glanced at the glittering water by the boat; he could even see several fish happily swishing their tails as they swam by, and said in passing, “This water is so clear.”

Right after saying this, something much larger drifted in after the swimming fish.

Face-down in the water was a corpse.'

even through meh translation you get the sense of some great comedic timing.

- why is Liu QQ a bitch to this kid trying to do the important job of keeping ppl out of Plague Town when his colleagues are trying to explain/de-escalate the situation? He is a bad coworker.

- 'Shen Qingqiu: “In my eyes, this child can exchange a few blows with you and has a pretty good temperament; both are hard to find. He is a moldable talent.”

Liu Qingge: “Moldable is useless, I don’t take disciples. Too bothersome.”'

THEN RETIRE

it is so believable and so enraging that this well-bred 'EUGH wish I could just researchhhhh' shitmunch is tenure-track i hate fantasy wizard academia

- you recognised his voice after *3 words* you gaylord i--

euuuugh i hate him i love this dumb shit

- This whole section is like

HUAN HUA CASUALTY REPORT:
Victim: bird
Cause: thought it was looking at Shizun with covetous, beady eyes. Have since been informed this is ‘just how birds look’.
Lessons Learned: oh I’m not sorry. If those avian *whores* try anything, I’m ready

- LBH

(The thing about birds is, they can attack from anywhere--)

- FFFF out the window you absolute raccoon when you say everyone gets dumb around the protagonist did you mean: you

- The poetry quotation is such a bitch move, pure 'I'm still the best Lit Peak Alumni, btw', I love Binghe, what an asshole

- It's interesting that Binghe doesn't think SQQ suspects that bc he was a demon training under Meng Mo, HE (wittingly or un) was responsible for the confrence's sabotage and the ensuing slaughter? That'd be a natural and SERIOUS accusation.

From:

x_los

- whole papers on the gender-play of this period metaphor. whole entire papers.

- 'Gongyi Xiao said, “Please relax, Senior, I’ve already looked through this letter.”

Then relax my ass?!

Gongyi Xiao continued, “However, I couldn’t understand what it was saying.”

Shen Qingqiu internally let out a sigh of relief. Good, it looked like he had misunderstood; Shen Qinghua wouldn’t fuck up this badly: most likely he’d used a secret code in the letter, so there was nothing to fear even if someone had intercepted it.

Shen Qingqiu shook open the paper with two fingers. After skimming it, his face turned green; after reading two lines, his face turned white. All sorts of colors bloomed and intertwined on his face, in a lively display.

Shen Qingqiu: “…”

This letter was written in English.

Not only that, it was written in error-ridden Chinglish.

The grammar was entirely Chinese, and any word he didn’t know was replaced by its pinyin equivalent.

Great Master Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky, did you not consider, what if I can’t understand your toilet-tier English?'

*entire cast groans at SQH's bullshit*

- This dream-trap IS very cool but I'd prefer to be able to look back and retrospectively be able to figure out when he slid into it? Maybe that's there, but obfuscated by translation.

- the creepy Aeneid vibes of LBH using his remembered child-self as bait

From:

x_los

- ppl wanna write Book LWJ and Book LBH as brick houses but (at least in translation) the tree-jump scene is p clear on LWJ still primarily looking like a scholar, and this adult LBH is still 'a little taller than him, slender and willowy'. (MXTX has a Type I guess)

MXTX, leaning into the mic: lesbians, tho--

- ah, here we get what

aeriallon points out is an Extremely MXTX thing: 'having someone come in, say shit, OBVIOUSLY be themselves, and then having the narrative go: IT WAS NING YINGYING!! like we are supposed to be surprised'

- SQQ: I really really really need to get the fuck out of here to do plot business--but what if my students are mildly inconvenienced in my absence?!?!

- 'The shop became a chaotic battlefield. To the side, Shen Qingqiu saw an old cat lazily curl its tail, licking its fur in the sunlight; he picked it up with a single hand and tossed it into the tavern. Surprised, the old cat screeched and darted back and forth between the two camps of people. Shen Qingqiu lowered his head and followed it, slipping into the circle of battle.

Another person had mysteriously pushed inside, and both sides paused. Afraid to harm an innocent, Ning Yingying hesitated slightly. But the Little Palace Mistress didn’t have so many reservations: picking her whip back up, she kept fighting as before. Shen Qingqiu chased the old cat back and forth through the hall, calling the name he’d given it on the spot. In the chaos of battle, despite Ning Yingying clearly having her hands bound, afraid to make a careless move, she kept feeling as if first someone was lifting her elbow, then like someone was pushing her shoulder; it was as if even without her moving her sword, it still danced, throwing off silvery light. Suddenly, with two smacks, the Little Palace Mistress held her face, dumbstruck and petrified, frozen on the spot.'

omfg

- The pacing circa the self-destruction is really breakneck, and the explication could be better. It's engrossing, but should have sounder infrastructure. This may be the translation, in part.

- "The person in the corner said, confused, “I can no longer understand what’s going on with this master-disciple pair, and those two sects.”

“A grudge as deep as the sea is one explanation, but there is another kind of explanation, and this old Lu thinks this kind is more believable. Let me tell you all…” Lu Liu was just about to launch into enthusiastic gossip, when suddenly, a burst of knocking sounded outside the door."

she is serving GREAT gravedigger low-comedy/greek chorus scenes, alas poor Yorik

- pour one out for random demon Six Balls, literally the second person SQQ speaks to in his new body, who by virtue of existing too near SQQ for 5 whole seconds has to hear all the fuck about Luo Binghe&how amazing he is.

"He asked, “The important person you’re talking about, was it… a good-looking young man?”

He thought for a while, then decided against suppressing his conscience and changed his words. “Not just good-looking, he’s very good-looking, especially good-looking. Fair skin, pretty face, tall; he doesn’t smile often, but when he does it’s very dark.”

Six Balls shook his head, then suddenly blushed."

ABSOLUTELY not paid enough for this

- 'It was only her nails and didn’t hurt in the least, but Sha Hualing’s blood at once went cold. She shouted, “Who’s there?!”

If there was someone here who could cut her nails with ease, then they could effortlessly cut her neck too.

Shen Qingqiu was feeling much more relieved; he released a twig plucked clean of leaves.

In truth, he’d just wanted to scare Sha Hualing a little, and while he was at it, having her nails so long wasn’t good, really. Every time Shen Qingqiu saw he was worried they’d break; it made him extremely uncomfortable. And they would often scratch Luo Binghe’s back into a bloody mess… Even if Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky liked this kind of hardcore flavor, even if Luo Binghe’s healing ability wasn’t human, it still didn’t mean these were proper and healthy lifestyle habits, right.'

*I* am not paid enough for this???

- HEY Liu PoorPedagoge actually did work for once! it's Yang Yixuan, the disciple he wasn't going to teach, back again! being taught!

Edited Date: 2021-02-05 09:23 pm (UTC)

From:

x_los

- one day in the new body and you are seeking out trouble. ONE DAY!

- the decision to translate 跳大神 as 'voodoo dance' is not good. They're not pros, so I don't hold them to that standard, and I'm sure it's just a moment of thoughtlessness, but it's misleading and accidentally racist

- I know why, but why do people not use Sha Hualing more in fics?? it's ALWAYS Mobei Jun: A Man. her fucking Exasperated Employee Energy. how gay she is about Liu Mingyan. I just don't see her as like, someone LBH ever speaks to in fic? and why not when arguably they hang more than he does with Mobei?

- ONE DAY in his new body SQQ baaaaaaarely managed to avoid another bondage scene with LBH, which might well have outed him, in a 'huh I've had this exact boner before--' sort of way

- "Shen Qingqiu was a little moved. Other than his bleeding heart of a Zhangmen-shixiong, he’d never expected to find someone else willing to use the phrase “noble and unsullied moral character” on him. Who’d know that right after, the storyline would take a nosedive. Full of emotion, Lu Liu said, “Who could have predicted that after being rejected, Luo Binghe, in the grip of despair, would be overtaken by wicked thoughts, even losing his mind and becoming abominable: out of lust, he tried to force Shen Qingqiu to submit!”

Shen Qingqiu dug his fingers into his head of messy hair, burying his head in his hands.

Yang Yixuan was already speechless: the gates of a whole new world had just been opened for this young man, assaulting him with new perspectives. Liu Mingyan, on the other hand, just let out a soft “ah.”

She said seriously, “So that’s how it was.”"

RL cackling Liu Mingyan you star you saving grace of the Liu family

- SQQ: it's ridiculous, bc who wouldn't happily sleep with Binghe? no one on earth, that's who. ...what? WHAT? I mean even As A Straight Man, I can see that--WHY ARE YOU BOOING ME?!?

- "As the tumbled around, locked in combat, the loose clothes on that body slipped completely down to its waist, and Luo Binghe’s palm directly pressed against that fair skin. With bloodshot eyes, Liu Qingge said, “Beast, no matter what he’s still your Shizun!”

Luo Binghe calmly said, “You think I’d do this with an outsider?”"

Ahahahah he's the worsttttt

- The pacing of 50 is still WILD fast, and I'm not sure whether it's a translation issue or what. This could stand to breathe more.

From:

x_los

- 'Shen Qingiu’s worldview that had already been set for the past twenty-plus years' this is interesting, bc he's spent like 11 years here (3 teaching Binghe, 3 Abyss/Huan Huan period, 5 body maturing), so '20 plus' rather than '30 plus' puts his death pre-20?

arguably, he's not counting the maturation period--how conscious was he during that, if at all? And the book ran over 4 years, and was done when he died. Did he START reading this at like 15?

- Whelp I’ve reached the end of this whole first partial translation, and with it, the embarrassing ballad, which is the height of comedy

- Can’t believe he RAN to a brothel to try and fuck the gay away (his pretexts are such shit—what reputation protection, ppl already thought you went to brothels??), only to get ballad blocked

- 30 year old gay virgin, this walk in closet of a man

- yeah that worm was indeed Binghe's fucked-face cousin, who has since unfucked his face. Still not sure how he knows this is SQQ in a different body, but ok.

- 'Who wrote this ballad? What mountain was Chunshan referring to?

Qing Jing Peak?

Cang Qiong Mountain?

The Cang Qiong Mountain sect can wipe out your entire family, okay?!'

tfw you were not prepared for the explicit filk

- omfg this brothel snake plot is so good?? bc people don't pay attention to servants/girls/prostitutes. what a champ.

- "A sharp hiss came from the enormous snake’s mouth, and it shook its head and thrashed its tail in the street. Shen Qingqiu decided to draw him away from places where there were a lot of people, and he quickly leaped lightly onto its head. As long as the snake went in the wrong direction or was about to crash into pedestrians or houses, Shen Qingqiu would jab the fan into the side of its head. The snake’s scales were like armor, creating an enormous rumbling noise as it crawled along the floor. Shen Qingqiu often had to pour large amounts of spiritual energy into the fan to make it change direction, and so he forcefully drove the snake outside of the town."

you say you're not gay but then you spend the afternoon riding the big snake's head in public w h a t i s t h e t r u t h

- I never see Qi Qingqi in fic and it's a fucking shame because she is GREAT. qi qingqi came from fucking Meishan, where the bitch factory is, and I love that for her.

- Binghe's ENTIRE 'get shizun back' plan is based on believing SQQ will get away from his captor, suspect/hear the peak is getting fucked, RUN back and intervene. every step is based on SQQ being v proactive: his agency is key, &he constantly downplays it

- 'Liu Qingge said: “You’re afraid of being a burden on Cang Qiong Mountain sect but Cang Qiong Mountain sect isn’t necessarily afraid of this burden.”

Luo Binghe sneered: “How many unbroken ribs do you have left?”'

THIS CUNT

- "Shang Qinghua started. “You really have some good eyes, truly a faithful reader of mine. I’ll tell you, originally, I planned on unfolding the framework of the plot to set Bing-ge’s dad as the BOSS, but as I was writing, my computer died and I lost my outline, and a ton of the details were lost. And at the time the reviews section all wanted a different plotline, the battle of Bing-ge invading a hundred flowers, you understand. A whole hundred sacred flower spirits who had never seen a man since birth, and he dealt with all of them. Cucumber bro, you know how much I suffered to write the hundred flower buds blooming in concert section, but you still roast me…”"

...all this from poor back-up habits.

- I love that any time SQQ does anything cool like the sword hold Binghe is just fucking jazzed like 'yes, threaten my life baby, VERY hot--'

From:

x_los

I think it's interesting that in his original world, Yuan was really alienated from his own desires: an intelligent person rendered detached and quite unambitious. IN SVSSS, however, he grows out of a lot of his laziness (and much of that wasn't quite quite laziness so much as a lack of purpose) and grows up: this transmigration absolutely gives Yuan himself.

He does well enough as a teacher that NYY and MF are both way more trained than they ever used to be and fervent in his defence. We know from the dream sequences that SQQ trained Binghe extensively. (Mari suggests there was a fair amount of group training as well, because in the extras other students know his teaching methods.) He 'read a lot', and a lot of what he read was: bestiaries, which come into play. (Mari comments that the time skips make it very easy to undermine SQQ's work.) He launches himself back into the pitch of cultivation world drama the second he has a new body, on behalf of Peak students.

I feel we can't trust the majority of SQQ's commentary on himself, about his feelings or his actions. Instead we're left relying on the evidence of the text: how the world reacts to him, and the consequences of his actions. For me, the whole crux of the narrative is that SQQ doesn't know himself well and constantly underplays his own importance. I struggle to think of plot events where he's not very engaged and active, except while in mourning (he's even a bit mad at NYY for not mourning LBH enough) and, arguably, in denial about what's coming directly pre-Abyss. If he's deeply in denial about his feelings/others' feelings for him, I think you have to accept that as a phenomenon with a lot of other related ramifications for him.

Even a thought like 'oh I can get Binghe to cook for me' is always sliced through with guilt and embarrassment, and something of a joke at his own expense, even as it's earnest: something he wants, and something Binghe wants to do, and potentially a good idea to build a bond between them and make him safer (people are compassionate towards those they've helped--there's a chance Binghe would later feel taken advantage of because he'd done this, but largely people are inclined to be kind to and see good in others' they've aided).

Edited Date: 2021-02-06 02:30 am (UTC)

From:

x_los

- well in the last 24 hours I read chapters 17-56 I guess. so.

'how long is this novel?' like 300k, 81 chapters and a score of extras x____x

- "At first glance, the great beast appeared to be some sort of rhinoceros, a single horn curved like the crescent moon atop its head. But, opening its mouth and trumpeting, it spat out a giant scarlet python from its blood-red maw. The rhinoceros’ call mingled with the snake’s hissing cry, creating an especially shocking clamour.

Really? Black! Moon! Rhinoceros! Python!"

I'm so fucking jazzed this stupid shit is here it's only been a 40 chapter wait also welcome back Binghe too I guess, who the rhino is wearing like an angry hat

- "Tianlang-Jun raised an eyebrow, this expression also bearing a remarkable resemblance to Luo Binghe. “And he wouldn’t hesitate to capture two hundred Black Moon Rhinoceros Pythons to break the wards around the Holy Mausoleum. Peak Lord Shen, this son of mine really does hold some extraordinary feelings towards you.”"

I don't think you can root for your son's relationship while you're trying to steal his body to prolong your unholy life like its a conflict of interests

- Meng Mo shows up to bitch about how he's totally neglected by the narrative.

- Some truly random plot threads being tied up here today with Old Palace Master: Stick Edition and Shen Jiu's Dubcon Exgirlfriend. More great competence porn for SQQ. Still no regular porn for SQQ.

Edited Date: 2021-02-06 04:12 am (UTC)

From:

x_los

- HE FED YOU BLOOD! YOU FORGOT THE BLOOD!!!

https://images.app.goo.gl/MNPGvHEDoAzsTnsH8

- They’re fighting Binghe’s absentee dad, who has apparently heard ALL ABOUT the humiliating gay romance ballad about them and has Questions. Ideal. All I want from a novel honestly.

- Two chapters of dumb bed trick comedy at the height of the plot, just, great okay fine

- Binghe got his intelligence from his mom, the heavenly demon side is just *sees people emerge from fighting in tent* 'o a threesome?'

- (Clearly the oversexed desperate romantic who jumps to conclusions shit is demonic, tho) (weirdly the Ruthlessness might also be a mom thing)

- I was wondering why the Shen Jiu backstory didn't come up more/weigh on this relationship, bc how could Binghe resist Rare Shizun Lore, but the way it comes up in canon super decentralises it&renders it suspicious, so it's not something I can see Binghe super worrying about

Edited Date: 2021-02-06 06:13 pm (UTC)

From:

x_los

- SQH will truly tell anyone anything he doesn't even need paid that information is *free*

- Binghe is WEIRD quiet in this explication scene at the end of 66, esp given he might not have previously realised he was fighting his own deadbeat dad

- 'One did not know if Luo Binghe was doing this on purpose.' THERE WAS ONLY ONE BED? Of course he--you know what kid you're on your own

- 'That’s right, Shen Qingqiu still considered himself to be straight! To read a stallion novel like Proud Immortal Demon Way was the very proof of his sexuality!'

Even the narrator is Tired

- when last we left this dream team, Binghe was like oh I'm sooooo tired lol can we stop at an inn?? &then insisted on 2 rooms instead of 3&when Liu Meatman moaned was like 'sorry aha did YOU bring any money? oh--oh is it--MY money? then GOSH--'

&turned on a dime to be like oh Shizun I'm SO sorry I only! have enough! for one bed!!
&beautiful, perfect SQQ was like fine u 2 enjoy your bedroom, this one's mine.
Binghe: ...aha that's not quite... my Vision, for this evening
SQQ: no, I imagine it's not. night night.

- every time Binghe is an insufferable bitch, my love for him increases. so as you can imagine, it's now ocean-vast.

- SQQ: you have GOT to say sorry for laying siege to your uncles and aunts' houses and burning down half the mountain that was SO rude of you--
LBH: counterpoint: fuck my sect-uncles

- this couple's one bad day away from an enemy busting in while LBH is cooking, getting a morning star to the face&LBH being like 'but Shizun, the recipe called for mace?'
SQQ: *trying not to laugh, not to make any kind of lip quirk* *failing* I--hate you--
LBH: oh don't say thaaat

- "Luo Binghe said, “Won’t Shizun know if he goes? Let’s go while Liu… Liu-shishu hasn’t returned.”

Before his words had fallen, Liu Qingge returned, kicking the door open with a bang. Though the door had been kicked over, Shen Qingqiu felt that this was the style and entrance method the normal Liu Qingge should have, so his expression did not change. Liu Qingge didn’t spare Luo Binghe a glance as he said to Shen Qingqiu, “Change of plans. We’re not returning to Cang Qiong Mountain today; we’re going to Zhao Hua Temple.”

Shen Qingqiu stood up. “Did something happen?”

Liu Qingge said severely, “Something happened. The news came midnight last night. Today, many sects are going to discuss at Zhao Hua Temple on the head cultivator’s invitation. Cang Qiong Mountain Sect is included. This city’s cultivator clan just got ready to set off.”"

charmless Jiang Cheng with less interesting backstory is occasionally--if not funny in himself, a source of comedy for others. he can come out of the bin bi-annually, for a little walk.

- 'Only after looking closer was Shen Qingqiu able to discover that both his lower legs were wooden prosthetics. With these, he would be able to stand and walk as normal.' a p fresh treatment of disability actually, it's not just GONE, adjusting for it's part of the magical world

- this is a GREAT use of dream-powers, well fucking done Binghe, you should indeed get a head pat

- it's very funny how OFFENDED SQQ gets if anyone suggests Binghe is not the most handsome man in the entire universe SQQ just wants Facts to be Recognised!!

- the conversation about why LBH's mom carried him to term when he was half demon that LBH just has to LISTEN to is--a lot? a lot.

- I LOVE that Wu Wang isn't particularly STRONG but is relentlessly reasonable--again we have a huge MXTX scene of reputation-shifting where what actually happened is immaterial in the face of perceptions; the second after the Jinlan City accusation of SQQ

- 'Stranger still was that their maidenly shyness seemed to be directed at Shen Qingqiu…..' ahahah

- Huge kudos to Binghe for being like fuck y'all, my mom was a washer woman.

- 'Luo Binghe tugged at his arm, as if seeking proof and validation: “Shizun, Tianlang-Jun is not my father. I don’t need a father.”' --this is such an Oedipal move to centre SQQ in that spot, tho honestly I think SQQ is still a mom replacement/love object primarily

MXTX dads are a weird accessory--like a sword tassel, but less important

Edited Date: 2021-02-06 07:52 pm (UTC)

From:

x_los

- "Shen Qingqiu finally knew how the original Shen Qingqiu’s ‘fawning on the surface but spiteful behind people’s backs’ character developed. It was most likely acquired and influenced by Young Master Qiu"

christ that's really brutal for Jiu

- "#9 Peerless Cucumber 【Expert】:
I understand what OP is thinking. Lately, I’ve been reading this book straight through, it’s so damn long, long and pumped full of filler."

"At least the portrayal of the male lead was alright, the transformation from innocent and upstanding to hateful and sinister was detailed and natural"

I could read Shen Yuan's bitch forum thirstposts all day, tbh why has no one written like, chapters of PIDW as fic/artefact fiction with Shen Yuan's hateration?

- so if Airplane died cursing Cucumber, it could be why Cucumber transmigrated--also bless Yuan trying to de-escalate the forum fight, born to be a Tired magical hs teacher

- It's got to be p fucking creepy to watch a body you've occupied for the better part of a decade, which is maybe the only adult body you've known, younger than you ever were in it, not controlled by you, killing a lot of people

- Jiu's torture arc is very oblique. are there implicit or explicit prohibitions on even discussing the options, here? sadism, CSA, cultivational abuse (like as a cauldron?)?

- 'Luo Binghe buried his head in his shoulder, saying stuffily, “I don’t have a father. Only Shizun.”'

this is what I mean the Freud this has--

- 'Luo Binghe’s hands paused. “Why is it that I have to go and they don’t??"' THIS IS NOT HOW YOU 'HIDE OUT'??

- maaaaaaan tho they are extra extra the 'defend each other' couple and the Cuddling couple, like they are ALL IN for being physically comfortable with each other

- god and when BingGe tears his fucking arm off in the dream what he IMMEDIATELY WANTS is for Binghe to make him feel safe and/or not to spoil his opinion of Binghe?? he's like GOSH I HOPE THIS DOESN'T CAUSE ME TO UNCONSCIOUSLY RESENT BINGHE--

Edited Date: 2021-02-06 09:55 pm (UTC)

From:

x_los

- 'Qi Qingqi placed her teacup down on the table rather heavily and raised an eyebrow as she spoke. “Of course. How could that be indeed? If Luo Binghe dared to return to Cang Qiong Peak now, you’ll see just how we take care of scum like him!”'

this is a bitch who knows what's up

- "Mu Qingfang, sitting off to the side with his hands in his sleeves, commented casually, “Well you’d have to be able to take care of him first.”"

huge kudos for Qingfang for being the only one capable of pointing out 'to be fair, he'd just kick all our asses. yet again.'

- "Qi Qingqi didn’t let the opportunity to lecture him slide past."

no, never. not fucking once. that's how you get ants/Binghes.

- oh OH the punishment dream was plot information???? What BingGe was saying about not recognising the place?

Also I've been seeing why she time-skipped over the bamboo cottage period&while I don't love the decision I get it? it's so you can drip-feed the info to shift tones

- the existence of a sub-sect full of Officials is actually great, and very 'let's all have an Imperial exam!!'

- this set piece of the Big Battle is fucking. great? Like the VISUALS are here.

- "Wu Wang’s face continued growing paler, and the Great Master Wu Chen, seeing his continued silence, could only reply and explain. “This…it’s really too difficult to speak of. It was not our own strength that saved us, but rather that which we borrowed from another who lent us their aid.”"

THE UGLY LAUGH I JUST--bc you know, right, you just fucking.

- 'This one wouldn’t dare accept any gratitude for that which we have provided. If anything must be said of the matter, I was only trying to help Shizun.”'

YOU DARCY ASS BITCH

- "Crammed in here were all cultivators with five senses that were keen and acute. Whether or not they were in close proximity, all of them now turned towards Shen Qingqiu; hundreds of pairs of eyes, with varying gazes, enveloped him from all directions.

Spreading open his fan, Shen Qingqiu silently hid the lower half of his face behind it.

Luo Binghe sauntered in, the hem of his black outfit fluttering as a breeze wafted across; the sword suspended on his waist was surprisingly Zheng Yang1. Behind him, Mobei-Jun was on the left with his head held high, while Sha Hualing sashayed seductively on the right. Huan Hua disciples, who have long been missing in action, trailed closely behind them. "

I flopped back on the bed from the finale energy I cannot

- Politically, gotta be a weird time for the demon realms? The ppl supporting LBH are actually really YOUNG, with evident grievances with their parents' generation. LBH is only half-demon, but his dad's been awol for decades, the throne in chaos, his current plan an ambitious mess

no option for traditionalists but abstention from the conflict, LBH's integrated alliance via his human mother's Sect inheritance/personal strength have netted Sha and Mobei but NOT Sha's father--LBH is tough to subordinates in the exact ways Sha&Mobei are: is that performance?

You get some of the western conception of fairies here, with a lot about them fundamentally interlaced with humans and kind of parasitic. Demon craft industries suck a bit, they're over-reliant on this tough prey as a foodsource.

SQQ notes at the border-town that someone could make a REAL killing actually working out better-integrated trade, so like economically LBH could be VERY attractive to Hauling and Mobei: Mobei esp, bc they're Siberian essentially, &DON'T eat humans, so: what's their food source?

(what if lbh is THE HOPE of the Sha-Mobei generation bc he's been using Huan Hua resources to run trade? We know his dad's also trying to solve a famine w sowers--is that vying for power? whoever solves the problems is King?)

- also if LBH saw, when they were both 15, what Hualing did to display Strength... is he copying her? like if that's HER 'shore up my new position' playbook

- MAN tho the reoccurring 'traumatised ppl becoming bad fathers and traumatising their kids who in turn--' this has.
LBH's dad's trust is abused (at least he thinks so), he STEWS on it decades&goes nuts. (LBH might see that as a huge personal failure: didn't trust his lover/preserve their priorities, he makes a POINT of his own refusal to despair.) Meanwhile Shen Jiu kills his torturer&burns down the house, &LBH goes on to do *exactly* that.

- I am a huge sucker for the absolutely public ballads&statecraft level of devotion? no need to ask who Binghe bows to, everyone knows what god he worships

- 'Faced with Shen Qingqiu alone, Luo Binghe was now no longer the overbearing and arrogant man. He said bashfully, “Recently, I’ve been using too much demonic energy and too few spiritual energy. I’ve kind of forgotten how to use it."'

Bullshit you just want a public hug

- P fucking great that Tianlangjun was actually WELL DISPOSED as a ruler&willing to make a marital alliance&then OG Huan Hua pissed him off SO MUCH they’ve caused this whole problem themselves

- Holy fucking Shakespeare we’re doing the monk marriage plot death reveal??

- Btw also the intentional paralleling between LBH/SQQ &LBH’s Mom/her Shifu

- It’s super interesting that SQQ /gets/ how Xin Mo is using LBH to glut itself on energy/using his instability to take over, like there’s no necessary reason he should UNDERSTAND his choice at the temple as having added to that

It makes authorial sense for MXTX that he would bc she wants you to get what’s happening with the plot at this point, but then for SQQ it represents this open, hyper-attentiveness to LBH, like knowing him /as a character/ as well as a person, ‘reading’ someone IRL

- We also get into the interesting question of exactly when Binghe started to get INFLUENCED&how bad it is&which decisions were Pushed by Xin Mo: essentially Xin Mo functions textually as a parallel System--IS his dad right that he gave him the sword like oh, you want it? then ROT.

- 'Great Master Wu Chen said solemnly, “If Peak Lord Shen is willing to face him calmly, then that would be ideal.”'

THIS GUY i love Friar Lawrence sanest man in the Middle Kingdom

- I super need to know how like, Popular Shakespeare, Austen and Dickens are in China, versus are these just full fledged accidental parallels, bc no English writer COULD have done that 'Much as I respect them, I believe I thought only of you.' beat without Austen hanging over it

- 'Originally, there were hundreds of thousands of interconnecting caves extending in all directions, but now, half of them had collapsed because of the quake' I guess your karst landscape is now a curst landscape

- also I guess we're gonna do a very literal violent plundering of the subterranean passages. i guess we're there, now. I guess this is who we are, and what we represent.

- 'Tianlang-Jun replied, “I’m used to this. Zhuzhi-Lang, not so good.”' looooool just 'eh, more of the same tbh'

- 'Tianlang-Jun curiously asked, “I thought Peak Lord Shen knew? Isn’t he always behind you?”' oh my GOD hi Binghe. hi.

- BOOM a direct self-parallel between SQQ and Su Xiyan. whelp, we've been Building to it.

- AUGH I can't believe Shen Yuan's Critical Reading Skills are what's saving the fucking day

- re the Mobeijun 'economics' theory, I think a bit about this theory the Mayans had a conflict with a nearby tribe to steal their prince to fill the religious/admin role of THEIR Prince, &the retention of huge tiers of Admin in various conquests of India

Under that logic it makes complete sense to recruit&retain SQH: because he's a trained /administrator/. &his 'plot'-juggling skills as a webnovelist/spy/civil servant are all the same skillset.

- omggggg SQQ whiiiiiining to himself about LBH going for medicine rather than sitting vigil this Princess

- oh wow it's a LOT for SQQ to do an understated Declaration where /everyone/ can hear

- 'Mingyan, let’s go! Why are you watching?!'

i think we all know why mingyan is watching.

- AUGH I'm done with the main novel I loved it fuck

- how much did Binghe know tho, re the Old Palace Master--like that's SERIOUS hatred, he has to have /known something/ re his mom, unless it was an attempt to assault HIM or revenge re SQQ

- *crawls out from under debris* so I've finished SVSSS, in large part in 2 days

it's NOT like I did nothing else either?? i did chores, played maracaibo w Katy, read some fic, posted a fic, made complex food, &INHALED this novel&compiled a livetweet, DRIVEN ON by pure hyperfocus

- also unless he does A LOT MORE in the extras I utterly nothing Liu Qingge, &am a bit annoyed at him specifically bc fandom did that inevitable thing where ppl fell in looooooove with a character with all of 20 lines&wrote a million fics&he's just a ham sandwich

loyal fighty hamman: attractive? that is it that's the best I can do for him. but naturally: loaded down with shipfic like a laden silver-boat headed back to Spain after a rich round of Caribbean pillage

- Also consider that whenever SQQ talks about Liu Mingyan’s role in the narrative as the righteous Empress who’s clever, a good cultivator, at all moral&artsy: he is unwittingly talking about his own narrative position

- also: every MXTX novel contains a major anabasis arc

Edited Date: 2021-02-07 01:56 pm (UTC)

From:

x_los

- Formally, the plot line and extras format is VERY forgiving, &I wonder if there's something Genji-ish in that flexibility about chapters of the text/through-lines?

- further as a commentary on the unsustainability/lack of pleasure in toxic masculinity, how unkind 'masculinity' is to men, it's brutal and hilarious

From:

vorvayne

As far as I can tell this use is borrowed from/influenced by Japanese BL ; I think iirc the word they use is taken from like the BL equivalent of AO3 tags. So it's, hm, explicitly a BDSM thing but with the additional context of the stories and tropes that you get in BL associated with the M-type characters?

Which I definitely don't have a full handle on or anything but. Yeah.