#rather than just haitang all the time | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

cooliogirl101 · 5 months

Note

sayuri and tiny feral shen jiu!!! i am so interested in what their dynamics would be like

“What are you waiting for? Get rid of the girl already,” Wu Yanzi demanded impatiently.

Shen Jiu stiffened.

“There’s no need. She won’t tell anyone,” he answered, keeping his voice carefully even. “Shizun, the authorities will be here any moment. We should leave.”

“All the more reason to kill her quickly, then,” Wu Yanzi sneered. “She’s a witness and if you’re too stupid to see what a liability she is—”

The remainder of Wu Yanzi’s words would forever have to remain a mystery, however, because the next moment he was staggering back, both hands clutching the knife lodged in his throat, voice trailing off into a wet gurgle. Shen Jiu gaped, then whirled around to see Qiu Haitang standing up, apparently not unconscious after all, casually brushing the dirt off her clothes.

“Haitang,” Shen Jiu managed. His tongue felt slow and heavy inside his mouth.

“A-Jiu,” she returned. If she was at all bothered by the fact that she’d just killed someone (and he still couldn’t wrap his head around sweet, innocent, bright-eyed Tangtang taking a life), she didn’t show it. “I suppose I owe you a great deal for uncovering this scoundrel’s scheme and arriving in the nick of time to save my life. It’s unfortunate that the rest of the household didn’t make it but at least their souls can rest easy knowing their killer was caught and killed in the middle of executing his plan.”

She said all this very blandly, with about the same level of emotion as someone reading last month’s budgetary reports out loud. Shen Jiu vaguely wondered if he’d hit his head on his way out of the burning building.

“Haitang, I promise you, I wasn’t— this isn’t— I can explain. Your family—” He stuttered, stumbling over his words in his rush to get them out.

The look of absolute hatred that crossed Qiu Haitang’s face at that moment made the words dry up in Shen Jiu’s throat.

“They’re not my family,” she hissed, icy fury saturating every syllable. “My family would never have done the things they did.”

Shen Jiu swallowed.

“You knew.” All this time, he’d thought—

“A recent development,” she admitted, the coldness in her eyes receding and reverting to its prior emptiness.

“I never wanted you to be involved,” he stated, the closest thing to an apology he could bring himself to say. “I should go.”

“Don’t be a fool, A-Jiu,” Haitang huffed. “There are few ways to make yourself look more guilty than by fleeing from the scene of a crime.”

“But the authorities—”

“Haven’t we already established that you were the one to uncover that murderer’s plan and arrive just in time to save my life?” she said blandly. “You’re a hero, Xiao Jiu.”

“You can’t possibly believe that’ll work,” Shen Jiu said incredulously. There was no way it could be that easy. It couldn’t be that easy, could it?

“Lucky for us, the only other witness is in no state to provide a credible statement at this time,” Qiu Haitang said, aiming a rather vicious kick at Wu Yanzi’s corpse.

Shen Jiu looked at her for a long moment. All this time, he’d thought that she’d been the one person ignorant to his situation, blinded by her own naïveté and love towards her father and brother.

He didn’t know her at all, he realized with a faint note of wonderment.

“Why?” He asked, desperate to understand. Why give him an alibi? Why help him cover up the murders of her own family? Why help him?

She was quiet for a long moment.

“Because if I don’t have you, I don’t have anyone,” she said finally. “Isn’t that enough?”

Shen Jiu thought about Yue Qi and broken promises, about staying behind on a sinking ship long after he should have swam for safety, all for the tiny glimmer of a hope that he still had someone in this world who cared about him. Who would come back for him.

“Yes, I suppose it is,” he answered.

#tlm!au #murder cat au

58 notes · View notes

kukuandkookie · 5 months

Text

wip titles meme

RULES: post the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them, and then post a little snippet or tell them something about it! and then tag as many people as you have WIPs.

Tagged by @crimsonrainseekingflower! 💕💕💕

Thank you for the welcome surprise—another one I finally discovered once I looked at my notifications and stuff! Fortunately this time I’m remembering to make my own post haha. 😆

I hope you don’t mind if I also divide by fandom, and these only vaguely include a couple art wips!:

SVSSS:

Grave Matters

Cinderella III: A Twist in Time AU!?

Just a Dream (is this unfortunately a lame-ass title 😔)

Haunting You

Singles’ Day

TLJ/ZZL/LBH/SXY ADDAMS FAMILY AU??????????

Bingqiu White Snake (animated movie) AU

Waiting for the Tree Branches to Bloom Again

Safe from the Storm

I See in Both Your Eyes (Something Indigo)

AU: The Lion King II??

Family Meal Goes “Wrong”

TLJ’s Lament

LBH²

狗哥狗哥，你真了不得 (Gou-ge, Gou-ge…)

Slavic Vampires…

CNY Dumplings Competition

Enchanted (because we’re doing this now, I guess)

Limb Regeneration What If?? 🤔

Of Costumes and Candies (Something Orange)

Something Old, Something New, and… (Something Blue)

SV OTGW AU

I Ship My Rival x Me AU

I Have to be a Great Villain AU

Happiness Just Out of Reach

Lost and Found

Words to Heart

Breathing Smoke Into the Lungs

HORRIBLE NEW IDEA: Maybe title: Just Enough. Just Enough for Me

Love Letters (that’s all I got so far *insert deepfried emote here*)

Daycare AU???

Hmmm. Prince x Princess AU?

Xi Yang Yang AU

Gongzhu

Followers Milestone Celebration

Teacup scene

I Think My Uncle Ships Us Help

Unattainable

I’d Like to Try Staying Awake (for You)

Breaking the System (aka Fuck the System? Literally or—jk jk lmfao)

Bonuses include the latest chapters for I’d Rather Spend My Whole Life Asleep (With You) and To Tame a Beast, except the former doesn’t have a wip title. The latter does in the sense that the chapter title is Pixiu!

Erha:

Putting the Musing in Amusement Park

This Venerable One Will Not Be Outdone

What You Left Behind/Do You Also Miss Me?

[The] Romance of Wolf/Husky and Haitang

Ghost Bride (Corpse Bride but Chinese?? And Reincarnation)

Reconciliation

Fifteen Growing Up Flirty

Out of the Closet (and Into Your Arms)?

The Prince and the Pauper (but based on The Princess and the Pauper because I’m a criminal who hasn’t read the original 😂)

Wo Jia Dashixiong Naozi You Keng but with an Erha Twist

TW WARNING FOR THIS ONE but Passive suicide ideation fic

IDK WHAT TO WRITE FOR CWN’S BDAY… GOD SOMEONE SEND HELP GFGKDFHGKSDFHG (this one has a more polished but still wip version titled CWN Birthday Fic: Past, Present, or Future, I Want to Celebrate With You 😆)

Jiaoren CWN

Priest CWN & demon MR…hehehe (now a Dianran AU?)

More Than Just Puppy Love

Flower Shop…Redemption…Thingy?

From Wanton Wants to Wonton Wonders

A Taste of What Could Have Been

Screwdriver

First Bow to Heaven and Earth

Hidden Love AU

Mo Ran pulls a Bing-ge

Mind(-Reading) Games

Stone Lion

Swallowed Flowers

Confessions (Role-Swap AU)

TXJ Week (help we’re way past that now 😔): De-Aged Fic

A Tear in My Heart aka Read You Like an Open Book aka To Leave a Piece/Page of Me in the Nooks and Crannies of You?

Shi Mei Jiaoren Fic: [I’m] Afraid to Live Without Breathing

I also have a lot of Erha and SVSSS fic ideas that are unfortunately just blurbs in my ideas document right now and not full-on wips so they don’t have any titles I can share. 😔

Misc:

First Times, Second Chances, and Third Time’s the Charm…s (?) (Link Click)

Missing a You of Another Time (Link Click)

Danmei, xianxia-esque story (Link Click)

Suriel/Sariel

Call of the Wolves (specifically chapter 78)

Chuju the Chou

Papillon and Akuma’s Story

Papillon and Akuma Role Reversal AU Story

Circinus and Pyxis

Smoke & Mirrors

Dimension Hoppers

Take Me Back to Hell (All Saints Street)

I’ll Love You Until All the Stars Fall from the Sky (The Legend of Luo Xiaohei?)

Fengxi like Shade in Firewing (The Legend of Luo Xiaohei)

Mafia AU Xuanli x Laojun (The Legend of Luo Xiaohei)

Continuation of Falling for You (White Cat Legend)

How Could I Ever Ask You to Love Me? (White Cat Legend)

My Shadow It Follows Me

The Us of the Present Could Perhaps Be Just as Tender as the Us of the Past (Scissor Seven)

A Conversation With a Dead Man (MDZS)

Magical Girl AU (MDZS)

Xue Yang’s Regrets (MDZS)

Ao Bing and Nezha in a shoujo high school AU… That’s it. That’s the whole idea (Nezha 2019)

Surprising the Un-Surprise-Able (I Have to be a Great Villain)

Xianxia AU (Kiss the Abyss)

Breathing New Life (Kiss the Abyss)

I Will Chase You to the Ends of Time and Space (Kiss the Abyss)

A Family Outing (Beryl and Sapphire)

Just Some Gay Little Dudes (Beryl and Sapphire)

Steven Universe AU (Beryl and Sapphire)

Something as Sweet as You (I Ship My Adversary x Me)

A Present to be Cherished (I Ship My Adversary x Me)

I Ship My Adversary x Me and 严禁造谣 Crossover? AU Swap?

Additional misc wips I haven’t touched in forever are the latest chapters for The World Doesn’t Deserve You (MDZS) and Frostbite (All Saints Street). 😅

And as a bonus, these aren’t at all “official” yet but the more I read for some manhua the more I’m tempted to write fics for them… For example, a fic for Blemishing the Contaminated or My Lovely Troublemaker season 2 would be so cute, even if I don’t exactly have any clear or obvious ideas for them. 🥺

Phew, wow. I had way more wips than I expected AKFJSKFHSJS. Some are honestly just super half-baked documents tucked away in a folder with only a title and outline, but I hope something here was of interest to you guys. 😆💖

As for tagging…

I also don’t think I’m capable of tagging as many people as I have wips otl. So I hope you guys don’t mind if I tag just a few of you!

@ezrathesplit @levia-kun @yumichanhamano @softdekus @rongzhi @azunshi

(Of course, if you would rather not, feel free not to do this!)

13 notes · View notes

violetdisasterzone · 1 year

Text

I just finished rereading the succubus extra, and I'm reminded of some thoughts I had after reading it the first time. The first time I read the novel (including all the extras), I hadn't really been in/around fandom spaces yet, so I was very surprised to learn that people shipped Shen Qingqiu and Liu Qingge. And since this extra is prime source material for that ship (apparently), I want to talk about it. First of all, I really enjoy this chapter. It contains the scene where we find out bingqiu are fated! soulmates! deeply in love! And this is immediately followed by Shen Qingqiu kicking Liu Qingge into a rose pond. It's priceless.

I've seen Madam Meiyin's fortune be interpreted by liushen shippers as describing Liu Qingge rather than Luo Binghe, so let's unpack why that doesn't make sense. The very first thing she says is that his fated one is younger than him - Liu Qingge is (at this point in the novel, prior to the 5 year nap) already around 15 years older than him. If this was connected to the age of his body (i.e., Shen Jiu), however, this one could be plausible; considering Madam Meiyin first sees the broken thread of either Yue Qi or Qiu Haitang, she could very well be referring to Shen Jiu's age. Liu Qingge also doesn't have the "noble blood" Madam Meiyin describes- or if he does, it's never mentioned in canon. Then, of course, we get Liu Qingge adamantly insisting that this mysterious fated one isn't "deeply in love" with Shen Qingqiu. I've seen people say that this is Liu Qingge being tsundere and denying his romantic feelings, but if he was that deep in denial why would he assume that he was the fated one being discussed at all? And finally, we end the scene with Madam Meiyin saying to his face, "You aren't his fated partner."

In my personal opinion, I think Liu Qingge realized who Madam Meiyin was actually referring to in her divinations. There are very few people who fit that description, and he would be one of the few people who have been around Shen Qingqiu and Luo Binghe enough to see first hand how close they were, pre-abyss. Of course, Binghe is supposedly "dead" right now, as far as Liu Qingge knows - maybe he would have assumed Madam Meiyin couldn't know/see that. Or maybe I'm pulling this interpretation out of my ass. One of the two.

In regards to the repressed sexual frustration that many people view Liu Qingge as having: whether or not you interpret his character as asexual is a personal choice, as when asked directly he did avoid the question, so neither opinion can be canonically incorrect. With how unaffected he was during the fight with the naked succubi, it's logical to assume that he's either ace or gay. But then when he's hit with the aphrodisiac, he becomes visibly distressed and asks Shen Qingqiu to help - by allowing him to beat him up to vent his irritation.

So aside from liushen necessitating a wild misinterpretation of Shen Qingqiu's character and an outright slap to the face of Luo Binghe's entire existence in the narrative, I also think it does Liu Qingge a disservice. Faced with a soulmate divination of the person he would hypothetically want romantically and he adamantly denies the love part? Literally drugged with sex mist, is offered assistance, and he wants to fight him? This doesn't read to me like he's out of touch with his emotions to a herculean extent - it just reads like he doesn't want that.

#liushen shippers this post is obviously not for you #ship what you want #it's none of my business #I've just had WAY too many experiences with liushen shippers that are avidly anti-bingqiu so now I have a grudge #bingqiu #svsss #svsss meta #mxtx #人渣反派自救系统 #scum villains self saving system #liu qingge #柳清歌

80 notes · View notes

fistfuloflightning · 11 months

Text

crocodile tears pt4

ao3 here

Shang Qinghua had thought—wrongfully, in retrospect—that the worse he’d have to face that day was returning to Cang Qiong to find half of it demolished by a demon attack. With An Ding Peak—and the other peaks as well—working around the clock to repair the damage done to the rainbow bridge there was little opportunity to assess damage done elsewhere. There had been few casualties, he’d been told. Fine by him. So long as no one he knew died, there was little he could do about it. So he’d done his best to ignore the grocery list of repairs that seemed to keep unspooling whenever he turned around. He could feel the headache bloom behind his eyes.

But that was before he returned to his office to find Shen Qingqiu sitting at his desk, helping himself to his wine, and looking like he wanted to kill something. Preferably Shang Qinghua.

He turned around, hoping the Qing Jing Peak Lord hadn’t heard him, but the sharp crack of an unfurled fan made him freeze. “Shang-shidi,” Shen Qingqiu said smoothly. Shang Qinghua turned back with the air of a man facing the executioner. The Qing Jing Peak Lord was watching him like a hawk. “I’m glad you were able to return to Cang Qiong on such short notice, considering your mission was meant to take much longer.”

“A recall summons to the sect because of a demon attack was more pressing,” Shang Qinghua couldn’t help the bite out of his voice. Only a day back and he was dealing with this shit. Let it not be said that he was a slacker when it came to his sect duties. He’d had enough of that in his first life and he’d worked hard in this one, damn it. He didn’t know what Shen Yuan saw in the guy, and he wrote him!

He stared blankly at Shen Qinghua. His bastard son had always been something of a problem child when he was writing him. Always changing every time Shang Qinghua tried to pin down his backstory. All those unfinished snippets on his laptop of the guy’s background that never made it into the final book. After a while he’d eventually just given up and slapped together the Qiu Haitang story just to tie up the plot threads. “Would you care for tea?” Ignoring his martial brother, he moved to start the little brazier and ready the tea things out of habit. It was nearly ready by the time Shen Qingqiu decided to break the icy silence.

“I believe you owed Shen Yuan something of a favor?” Stew Qing Jing Peak Lord was examining the painted wall scrolls, his voice soft and menacingly conversational.

Shang Qinghua felt uncomfortable at the abrupt change in topic. “A favor? You—how did you…” His eyes fell to Shen Qingqiu’s hand, a piece of paper held between two fingers. His IOU. He paled. “How did you get that?”

Shen Qingqiu rose to his feet, almost a foot taller than Shang Qinghua. “There is little that I do not know when it comes to matters pertaining to my peak and my disciple. I am also aware of your rather… unorthodox friendship you share with Shen Yuan.”

It was odd. To outsiders, an intergenerational friendship between a Peak Lord and a disciple from another peak was unheard of. But they didn’t know about that awkward first recognition of a fellow transmigrator, or the anger and frustration of their subsequent meetings. In a way Shang Qinghua still didn’t understand, they had somehow become friends.

He frowned. “Wait—what does Shen Yuan have to do with—"

“Were you aware,” Shen Qingqiu interrupted in a light tone, “that Shen Yuan had been poisoned? I’ve heard that Without a Cure is rather aptly named.”

The sound of shattering porcelain made Shang Qinghua flinch. He looked wildly from his empty hand, to the puddle of tea and shards on the floor, and back up to Shen Qingqiu’s thin face, too perversely calm for what he think he just heard. “Wha—What do you mean? Who got poisoned?”

“My foolish head disciple. Surely if you were such good friends, you would have heard about his condition.” Shen Qingqiu’s eyes glittered with malice. “During the attack, he defended one of his martial siblings and was subsequently poisoned. Whether it was a necessary sacrifice remains to be seen." Thin lips curled in a derisive sneer. "I must beg shidi's help, as I know you would do your utmost."

Shang Qinghua gaped. “B-But I don't—I don't know, Shen Yuan was the one who had it wr—oh god.” He clamped his mouth shut but it was too late.

There was a predatory glint in Shen Qingqiu’s eyes and he leaned closer. “He had it written down?” he finished carefully. Shang Qingqiu could feel his grave yawning at his feet. “Where? In his journals? What does he know?”

“I—I don’t know.” It was little more than a squeak. Absolute bullshit, but there was no way he was letting Shen Qingqiu anywhere near the field guide he and Shen Yuan had put together the first few years after they’d found each other. Considering it detailed everything they could collectively remember about the plot from the thousand plus chapters and Shang Qinghua’s rough drafts, it would be… bad if it fell into the wrong hands. And Shang Qinghua felt in this moment that his bastard son was definitely in that category. There was no knowing what he would do with the information. “He—He just mentioned a couple things to me, that’s all I know, I swear!”

Shen Qingqiu smiled. It was not a nice smile. “Is that so? And what, exactly, does shidi know from the ‘couple things’ he was told?”

Shang Qinghua felt a trickle of sweat down his back. This was bad. This was very very bad. He shifted backwards, the backs of his legs bumping into a chair. But Shen Qingqiu kept coming and he toppled backwards in an uncomfortable sprawl.

He hunched in the chair, trying to make himself as small a target for his shixiong’s wrath as possible.

“It ah… that is, I-I—” Shen Qingqiu loomed over him, radiating murderous intent. The message was clear: if Shen Yuan dies, you do too. “—I only heard that you have to have sex with a Heavenly Demon!” he practically shrieked. Why why why had he written that stupid subplot? And now he could hear Shen Yuan’s insufferably smug I told you so. There was probably a dissertation attached as well.

But he hadn’t really bothered with fleshing out that particular aspect of the poison. Sex sold, so any worldbuilding had been ditched in favor of a hurriedly last minute papapa scene. And that meant—to Shang Qinghua’s knowledge—this was the only cure. And the only thing close to a Heavenly Demon was a young Luo Binghe and that thought was… just no.

Shen Qingqiu’s thin lips curled in a sneer of disgust. Shang Qinghua didn’t know if it was in response to his whimpering, or the thought of Shen Yuan sleeping with someone, and at this point he was too afraid to ask. Their relationship was ambiguous at best, and Shang Qinghua did not want to open that particular can of worms at the risk of his own life.

“That’s all I know, I swear,” he said weakly.

Shen Qingqiu rose to his full height, letting Shang Qinghua breathe freely for a second. Those leaf green eyes were merciless. “Then I suggest you find out more if you value Shen Yuan’s life as much as you profess you do. If I find that you lied to me and toyed with a life that is not yours, then I shall personally send you on your way to the Yellow Springs.”

The fan flicked open and Shen Qingqiu regarded him with one last murderous glance. Only once he was gone did Shang Qinghua crumple the rest of the way into the chair.

Then he surged to his feet and began tearing open drawers and cabinets. “I know I put it with the…” he muttered, frantically rifling through scrolls and books before finally what he was looking for shoved behind his Peak Lord meeting notes. Boring enough to never attract attention.

“Where did you write it?” Shang Qinghua mumbled, frantically leafing through the mockingly dubbed ‘field guide to PIDW’. But it had everything they could collectively remember about the plot, and Shen Yuan had supplied information on important artifacts and plants that they might encounter that Shang Qinghua had totally forgotten he’d even created. “Without a Cure—how the hell does he remember so much of this?”

Only in the safety of his own thoughts did he willingly admit that Peerless Cucumber knew more about Proud Immortal Demon Way than the one who wrote the stupid thing. But he didn’t even have his friend to rely on in this instance. He didn’t have time for fucking around, not with Shen Yuan lying in a coma and Shen Qingqiu breathing down his neck for results.

Shang Qinghua stopped, flipped back a few pages and skimmed the contents. Everything was written in English as a safeguard against it falling into the wrong hands, but that wouldn’t ensure complete safety. They had changed things already, starting with Shen Yuan somehow replacing the Qing Jing head disciple, so there was no guarantee the plot would unroll as it had in the past.

The answer had to be in here somewhere. Time was of the essence.

Shang Qinghua sucked in a deep breath and got to reading.

#svsss #jiuyuan #shen qingqiu #shen jiu #shen yuan #shang qinghua #crocodile tears au #my writing

18 notes · View notes

i-bring-crack · 2 years

Text

What if Luo Binghe, not bingge or bingmei but rather the little child Binghe after his mother's death, [went back in time somehow] is saved by Shen Jiu and Yue Qi and accidentally gets Shen Jiu in trouble which causes him to be brought by the Qiu state.

Xiao Jiu resents him for this, Qi-ge does not yet he still wants to find a way to get Xiao jiu out of that household. So in the middle of the night he tells Shen Jiu that he will go on to become a cultivator and get him out of that place as soon as possible.

Binghe isn't informed of all of this of course, so he never knew why Qi-ge suddenly left the other at the Qiu house despite the fact that he always saw them both together, and no matter what they had never been separated [In truth, he was also a bit jealous of that them, always having someone who could support him, just like his mother had done before she died.]

Either way, out of guilt, Binghe tries to find a way to help Shen Jiu out during these times, considering there was nothing else he could do. Shen Jiu doesn't want his help, but with the current way that Qiu Jiangluo has been treating him and how many things he has to do to pleace the household, he slowly starts to give in to Binghe's kindness as the smaller one cleans his wounds and tries to give him decent meals.

Almost three years go by without any decent news of Qi-ge, two years have passed and Luo Binghe has been ever more clingy to Shen Jiu, even sometimes going as far as hiding in the rooms of the Qiu state to access Shen Jiu's room better and take care of him from there.

Qiu Haitang and Luo Binghe have been his only lifeline by now, as well as that crumbling hope he still had for Qi-ge. But unknownst to him, Luo Binghe has grown ever more worried about him and what the other men in the household had done to him. Behind the holes of the doors, the thin walls and the cracks on walls, he saw it all, and so many emotions swallowed his heart as he kept looking at what could have happened to him had Shen Jiu not stepped in.

Luo Binghe was the one to make a plan first. Shen Jiu only had his patience broken after watching Luo Binghe being brought inside the Qiu manor as a servant, thinking he was a naive, foolish boy who had sticked closer than he intended to him. Enraged, he does whatever he can to throw Binghe back in the streets, a safe place than this hell is, but the boy persists to save his gege before he can't hold it on any longer.

Shen Jiu's pain only worsens with his anxiety. Binghe has more feminine traits than he can see, the Qiu's had talked about it during dinner, how little their wives had lasted, how much Haitang has grown.

"And isn't it about time she has a husband?"

Binghe almost dropped the plates as he heard the wedding arrangement that was going to be done for Qiu Haitang and Shen Jiu. On the outside it seemed like a nice lovely story of a family treating a slave like a human being. Binghe knew better, and so his plan was set in motion the next day.

A tranquil scene, the same one as every supper, the aroma is strong and enticing, everyone is gathered, women, men, children alike. The family smiles, hiding hiding true intentions behind perky lips and rough laughs, but Shen Jiu sees through it all. When midnight hits, so does the drug, odorless, senseless, its poured away in the wines of the men while the women have already sent the children on to sleep. He is careful about every step, every drop to not be mixed between men and women whose drink would only send them into a dream instead of of paralyzing them before they get the chance to notice it.

Wu Yanzi had left him with a few inquiries, often pointing out in his talks with others about what kinds of plants they could find out in the woodlands, how dangerous it would be if someone where to mistakenly drink it. He knew he had been listening, watching, and he was sure that he would be waiting outside after killing all the men in this overly exaggerated cell called home.

Each step was done so cleanly, each step should have been done so cleanly. Yet the moment he stepped away from the banquet room to finally grab a dagger and dip the poisoned herbs into it, smoke filled the air.

Burning ashes, the men had already woken up from that smell, that drug wasn't as potent as he had thought it would be, neither had the other sleeping pills worked as the women started running outside and pulling on their husband's arm, Qiu Haitang even wrapped her arm around him.

"We are trapped around a fire."

"No one here could have made this."

They counted the servants before the smoke got to their lungs, one was missing. The youngest.

"How dare he!"

"That brat. And for all thr things we have done for him!"

The fire flickered over Shen Jiu's eyes, alongside the sight of a sword left to him in a small hiding spot, the he would throw Binghe in before the Qiu's noticed him.

"Why did you do it?" The words fell out of his mouth as he saw the boy wipping off the smeared blood all over his face, the black sleeves turning red before being soaked in water again.

"Ah, please don't be mad! I accidentally let the fire go out of control!"

Liar. He didn't think much of it anyways, the fire couldn't have killed as many as wanted them to be, but it was a good way of getting rid of all evidence. Besides, due to him, all men had perished that night anyways.

"Where is Jiu-ge going now?"

"Mn, somewhere."

"Can I go too?"

The other didn't respond, simply walking away, it was always his own way of saying yes.

#god i gonna sleep now #scum villain's self saving system #scum villain #shen jiu #a shen jiu and Binghe shenanigans AU #and they where murder mates #idk man kinda want some fic like that cuz i dont get to see a lot of white lotus binghe or Binghe's past –past Cang Qiong mountain exams–#explored #luo binghe #qiu Jiangluo or smt like that idk #shen qingqiu #timetravel au #without reason #fic with no plot :/

23 notes · View notes

friendodo · 2 years

Note

pleaseeeeee tell us more about papa shen jiu modern AU im so obsessed with it too

I think I've got the backstory down from SJ's PoV. This is kinda long so a lot of it is under a read more. Here we go!!

SJ and YQ meet in a children's home.

Yue Qi's parents left him orphaned and Shen Jiu was taken away from his family by the authorities as they weren't considered fit to raise a child. Shen Jiu has a really hard time adjusting and doesn't have any friends so he often gets in fights. Yue Qi is a calming, friendly presence who will actually talk to SJ and listen to him when he speaks. Yue Qi loves reading. Shen Jiu was never given any books before he arrived at the home, but YQ infects him with the same reading bug and together they devour hundreds of books.

After a few years of close friendship, Yue Qi is adopted by some distant family of his. He's met them before, very briefly, and he can't understand why they would adopt him now rather than later but decides to be optimistic. SJ and YQ have a sad goodbye but YQ promises that he'll keep in touch and that SJ will get adopted too one day.

But SJ doesn't get adopted. And of course, YQ breaks his promise. SJ doesn't hear a single thing from his friend.

As he gets older he acts out more and runs away frequently. He gets moved to a different home and spends more time on the streets after he gets approached by a local gang leader/drug dealer/generally Bad Person, and gets taken under their wing. SJ agrees to it because of the promise of money -- he knows he's not going to be adopted, and Qi-ge won't be here to help him so he needs to make sure he can live independently once he gets old enough to leave the home.

Years pass and SJ is a teenager. He sees Yue Qi hanging out with his friends, all dressed in the uniform of the most expensive private school in the city.

SJ realises that YQ ascended so high in society that he decided not to associate with him, and that he's probably just another part of his embarrassing and shameful past that he hides from his friends.

He leaves.

Yue Qi spots him and calls out to him, but SJ knows the streets well and disappears into thin air. Over the next few days SJ hears about YQ running around the same area after school hours and in the early morning, asking about him. SJ doesn't come out to see him, but he keeps tabs on him until he sees YQ being robbed at knifepoint.

SJ runs in to get YQ away from the attacker but gets hurt in the process. He falls unconscious from blood loss and the last things he remembers are a hysterical Yue Qi calling for help and repeating his name.

Shen Jiu wakes up alone in the hospital. Yue Qi doesn't show up again. He's not surprised, and it feeds into SJ's terrible sense of self worth.

Ironically, Shen Jiu realises that he values his life too much to keep working with WYZ. He works very hard to get into a good high school and eventually gets into the most prestigious university in the country.

But Qi-ge is there too. And he's very persistent, even though he refuses to explain why he never came back or what happened to YQ after SJ got hurt. They develop an on-off relationship that eventually ends in failure. It makes SJ insecure and he just can't forgive him.

They both graduate. Yue Qi goes abroad to do a very expensive MBA and SJ works on his Masters/PhD at a smaller university with fees that he can barely afford with a scholarship.

SJ's cousin, Qiu Haitang, dies tragically and leaves behind a small infant child. QHT was the only family member that SJ ever liked. They don't know who the father was and SJ refuses to leave a child in the care of QJL so he adopts the child and raises him as his own. SJ's life becomes even more chaotic and he just barely manages to hold it together at the expense of sleep and his own health.

Yue Qi comes back and gets a job in the same city as SJ. He seems to be a much lighter and happier man, as if he's been freed from something after doing his MBA, and wriggles his way into SJ's life once more. He's shocked that SJ has a child but doesn't ask about its origins.

SJ and YQ tentatively reconnect with each other and after they dance around each other for years and SJ begins to trust YQ again, YQ takes great joy in making SJ's life easier by looking after his adorable and obnoxious son that reminds him so much of SJ.

And then the hypothetical fanfic begins... Will SJ and YQ reconcile? What happened to YQ that he refuses to speak about? Will A-Yuan get another Dad who will buy him ice cream every day instead of just every weekend???

Hope you enjoyed this way of telling it with shitty doodles lol, feel free to ask me more questions :D

#papa sj modern au #svsss #scum villain #qijiu #yue qingyuan #original shen qingqiu #shen jiu #svsss fic #scumbag self saving system #blood cw

380 notes · View notes

janecrockeyre · 3 years

Text

scum villain is a greek tragedy disguised as a regular tragedy disguised as a comedy disguised as a danmei

this is going to be long, and this is only PART ONE.

a.k.a, Analysing the plot of Scum Villain’s Self Saving System through Aristotle’s Poetics, because I Have Mental Issues

Part One: Introduction and the Tragic Hero

Scum Villain’s Self Saving System is a tragedy disguised as a comedy, unless you’re Shen Yuan, in which case it’s a mixture of a romance and a survival horror. It's a fever dream. It's a horrible, terrible book that made me feel new undiscovered emotions when I finished reading it.

The thing is... SVSSS shares characteristics with some of the most famous tragedies in the West, such as Oedipus Rex, Medea, Antigone, the Oresteia... if you haven’t read these, I’ll explain everything. But the gist of my argument is this: SVSSS is the perfect tragedy. In triplicate.

Tragedy as a genre is old as balls and so it has meant slightly different things to different people over the last few thousand years. I'll be focusing on ancient Greek tragedy, which was performed at the yearly Festival of Dionysus in Athens during the 500-350s BC (give or take a hundred years). Aristotle, when writing about this very specific subset of tragedy, had no idea that one day Scum Villain would be written, and then that I would be using his work as a way to look at Shen Qingqiu’s Funky Transmigration Mistake. Anyway!

Greek tragedy greatly influenced European dramatic tradition. I have a lot of opinions about white academics idolising and upholding the classics as the "paragon of culture" but I'll withhold them for now. I have no idea if MXTX has read Greek tragedy or not, so don't take this as me saying they are writing it.

In my opinion, tragedy is a universal human constant. We are surrounded by pain and hurt and none of it makes any sense, so we seek to process that pain through drama, art, literature, etc. We want to understand why pain happens, and how it happens, and try to make sense of the senseless. The universe is cold and cruel and random. Tragedy eases some of that pain.

On that note: Just because I am analysing Scum Villain through a Greek lens doesn't mean that it was written that way. I'm pasting an interpretation onto the book when there's probably a very rich and deep history of Chinese tragedy that I just don't know about. If you ever want to talk about that, please, god, hit me up, I would love to learn about it!!

Anyway, tragedy. MXTX is excellent at it! Mo Dao Zu Shi? Painful dynastic family tragedy. Heaven Official's Blessing? Mostly romance, but she managed to get that pure pain in there, huh?

But in my opinion, Scum Villain holds the crown for the most tragic of her stories. MDZS was more of a mystery. TGCF was more of a romance. Neither of them shy away from their tragic elements.

Scum Villain would fit right in between the work of Sophocles, Euripides and Aeschylus. How? Let me show you. Join me on my mystery tour into the world of "Aristotle Analyses Danmei..."

Part One: The Tragic Hero

What is a tragic hero? Generally, Greek tragic heroes are united by the same key characteristics. He must be imperfect, having a "fatal flaw" of some kind. He must have something to lose. And he must go from fortune to misfortune thanks to that fatal flaw.

There are two (technically three) tragic protagonists in SVSSS and all of them are tragic in different but formulaic ways. Each protagonist has their own version of “hamartia” or a “fatal flaw”.

Actually, hamartia isn’t necessarily a flaw - rather, it is a thing which makes the audience pity and fear for them, a careful imperfection, a point of weakness in the character’s morality or reasoning that allows for bad things to happen to them. For example, in Oedipus Rex, the king Oedipus has a “fatal flaw” of always wanting to find the truth, but this isn’t exactly a flaw, right? Note: this flaw can be completely unwitting, as we see with Shen Yuan. It can also be something that the protagonist is born with, some kind of trait from birth or very young.

Shen Yuan

Shen Yuan’s “hamartia” is his rigid adherence to fate and his inability to read a situation as anything but how he thinks it ought to be. He believes that Bingmei will grow into Bingge, and it takes several years, two deaths, and some truly traumatising sex to convince him otherwise.

Shen Jiu

Shen Jiu’s fatal flaw is his cruelty. It is his own sadistic treatment and abuse of Binghe which directly leads to his eventual dismemberment. This is kind of a no-brainer. Of course, it isn't all that simple, and as an audience we pity him for his cruelty as much as we fear it because we know it comes from his own abuse as a child. This just makes him even more tragic. Delicious.

Luo Binghe

Luo Binghe’s fatal flaw is a complicated mix of things. It is his position as the “protagonist” which compels him to act in certain ways and be forced to suffer. It is his half-demonic heritage, something entirely out of his control, which sets in motion his tragic reversal of fortune when he gets yeeted into the Abyss. He also, much like Shen Yuan, has the propensity to jump to conclusions and somehow make 2 + 2 = 5.

As well as having their respective “flaws”, all three protagonists match the rough outline of a good tragic hero in another way: they are in a position of great wealth and power. Even when you split the different characters into different “versions”, this still holds true. Yes, Luo Binghe is raised a commoner by a washerwoman foster mother, but his dad is an emperor and he also ends up becoming an emperor himself.

Yes, Shen Jiu is an ex-slave and a victim of abuse himself, but Shen Qingqiu is a powerful peak lord with an entire mountain’s worth of resources at his back.

Shen Yuan is a second generation new money rich kid.

Bingge is a stereotypical protagonist with a golden finger. Bingmei is a treasured and loved disciple with a good reputation and a privileged seat by his shizun’s side.

In a tragedy, having this kind of good fortune at the beginning of your story is dangerous. Chaucer says that tragedy is (badly translated into modern english) “a certain story / of him that stood in great prosperity / and falls out of high degree / into misery, and ends up wretchedly”. If we follow this line of thinking, a good tragedy is about someone who has a lot to lose, losing everything because of one fatal point of weakness that they fail to address or understand.

If we look at Shakespeare, this is what makes King Lear such a fantastic tragic protagonist. He is a king in control of most of England, who from his own lack of wisdom and excess of pride, decides to split his kingdom apart to give to his daughters, favouring his murderous, double crossing progeny, and condemning his only actually filial daughter to death. He loses his kingdom, his mind, and his beloved daughter, all because of his own stupidity.

This brings us to:

Part Two: Peripeteia

This reversal of fortunes is called peripeteia. It is the moment where the entire plot shifts, and the hero’s fortunes go from good to bad. Think of it like one of those magic eye puzzles, where you stare at the image until a 3D shark appears, except you realise the shark was always there, you just couldn't ever see it, waiting for you, hungry, deadly, always lurking just behind that delightful pattern of random blue squiggles.

Each tragic hero has their own moment of peripeteia in SVSSS, sometimes several:

Shen Qingqiu

In the original PIDW, SQQ’s peripeteia presumably occurs when he finds out that Bingge didn’t perish in the Abyss but has actually been training hard to come and pay him back. There’s really not much I’m interested in saying here - as a villain, OG!SQQ is cut and dry, and the audience doesn’t really feel any pity or fear for him. As Shen Yuan often mentions, what the audience feels when they see OG!SQQ is bloodlust and sick satisfaction. There is also the trial at Huan Hua Palace, which I will talk about in Shen Yuan’s section.

Shen Yuan (SQQ 2.0)

One of SY’s most poggers moment of peripeteia is the glorious, terrifying section between hearing Binghe for the first time after the Abyss moment, and getting shoved into the Water Prison.

“Behind him, a low and soft voice came: “Shizun?”

Shen Qingqiu’s neck felt stiff as he slowly turned his head. Luo Binghe’s face was the most frightening thing he had ever seen.

The scariest thing about it was that the expression on his face was not cold at all. His smile wasn’t sharp like a knife. Rather, it showed a kind of bone-deep gentleness and amiability.”

This is the moment of true horror for Shen Yuan, because he knows what happens next: the plot unfurls before him, inevitable and painful, and he knows that death awaits him at Luo Binghe's hands (lol). Compare it with the bone deep certainty with which he faces his own downfall during the sham of a trial later in the chapter (I’ve bolded the important part):

“In the original work, Qiu Haitang’s appearance signified only one thing: Shen Qingqiu’s complete fall from grace. [...] Shen Qingqiu’s heart streamed with tears. Great Master… I know you’re doing this for my own good, but I’ll actually suffer if she speaks her words clearly. This truly is the saying “not frightened of doing a shameful deed, just afraid the ghost (consequences) will come knocking”!”

After the peripeteia is usually the denouement where the plot wraps up and the threads are all tied together leaving no loose ends, but because this tragedy isn’t Shen Yuan’s but the former Shen Jiu’s, it’s impossible to finish.

Shen Yuan cannot provide the meaningful answers that the narrative demands because 1) he doesn’t have any memory of doing anything, and 2) he wasn’t the person who did them. Narratively, he cannot follow the same path as the former SQQ because he lacks the same fatal flaw: cruelty.

This is why Binghe doesn’t kill him - because he loves him, rather than despises him. And this is why Shen Yuan has to sacrifice himself and die for Luo Binghe in order to save him from Xin Mo: because the narrative demands that denouement follows peripeteia, and SQQ’s fate is in the hands of the narrative.

(Side note: I believe that this literal death also represents the death of OG!SQQ's tragic arc. The body that committed all those crimes must die to satisfy the narrative. SQQ must die, like burning down a forest, so that new growth can sprout from the ashes. After this, Shen Yuan's story has more room to develop instead.)

It must happen to show Bingmei that SQQ loves him too. And this brings us to Bingmei.

Bingmei

Bingmei has two succinct moments of utter downfall. The first is a literal fall - his flaw, his demonic heritage, leads his beloved shizun to throw him down into the Abyss. From his point of view, SQQ is punishing him simply for the status of his birth. He rapidly goes from being loved and cherished unconditionally, to being the victim of an assassination attempt.

He realises that he is totally unlovable: that for the crimes of his species that he never had a hand in, he must pay the price as well: that his shizun is so righteous that no matter what love there was between them, if SQQ sees a demon, he will kill it. Even if that demon is Bingmei.

The second moment is when SQQ dies for him. Again, from his point of view, he was chasing after a man who was struggling to see him as a human being. Shen Qingqiu’s death makes Bingmei realise that he has been completely misunderstanding his shizun: that SQQ would literally die for him, the ultimate act of self sacrifice from love: that SQQ loved him despite his demon heritage.

Much like King Lear holding the corpse of his daughter and wailing in sheer grief and pain because he did this, he caused this, Bingmei gets to hold his shizun's cold body and cry his eyes out and know that it was his fault. (Kind of.)

(Yes, I’m bringing Shakespeare into this, no I am not justifying myself)

Maybe I'm a bit sadistic, but that scene slaps. Let me show you a comparison of scenes so you get the picture.

Re-enter KING LEAR, with CORDELIA dead in his arms; EDGAR, Captain, and others following

KING LEAR

Howl, howl, howl, howl! O, you are men of stones:

Had I your tongues and eyes, I'ld use them so

That heaven's vault should crack. She's gone for ever!

I know when one is dead, and when one lives;

She's dead as earth. Lend me a looking-glass;

If that her breath will mist or stain the stone,

Why, then she lives.

[...]

KING LEAR

And my poor fool is hang'd! No, no, no life!

Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life,

And thou no breath at all? Thou'lt come no more,

Never, never, never, never, never!

Pray you, undo this button: thank you, sir.

Do you see this? Look on her, look, her lips,

Look there, look there!

Dies

Versus this scene in SVSSS:

Luo Binghe turned a deaf ear to everything else, greatly agitated and at a loss of what to do. He was still holding Shen Qingqiu’s body, which was rapidly cooling down. It seemed like he wanted to call for him loudly and forcefully shake him awake, yet he didn’t dare to, as if he was afraid of being scolded. He said slowly, “Shizun?”

[...]

Luo Binghe involuntarily held Shen Qingqiu closer.

He said in a small voice, “I was wrong, Shizun, I really… know that I was wrong.

“I… I didn’t want to kill you…”

PAIN. SO MUCH BEAUTIFUL PAIN. Yes, I know Shakespeare isn’t Athenian, but he was inspired by the good old stuff and he also knew how to write a perfect tragedy on his own terms. Anyway. I’ll find more Greek examples later.

This post was a bit all over the place, but I hope it has been fun to read. Part Two will be coming At Some Point, Who Knows When. This is a bit messy and unedited, but hey, I’m not getting paid or graded, so you can eat any typos or errors. Unless you’re here to talk to me about Chinese tragedy, in which case, please pull up a seat, let me get you a drink, make yourself at home.

ps: if you want to retweet this, here is the promo tweet!

#svsss #scum villain #luo binghe #shen qingqiu #shen jiu #greek tragedy #hello followers this account has been silent for a long time but today i bring you whatever this is #long post #i am gonna cross post more art here from my twitter i think #you guys really like my shitposts on here

755 notes · View notes

shinebrightlikeanarwhal · 3 years

Text

If Shen Jiu had a healthy and warm home to grow up in, LBH would have been killed by his peak lord during the IAC.

If Shen Jiu was saved from the Qiu’s (bought by YQY’s master who desperately pleaded for SJ’s release, and SJ showing talent that would be good for QJ Peak), Qiu Haitang would never see freedom post puberty. They would never hear of her nor see her again.

If YQY hadn’t Qi deviated, SJ may have been saved from traumatic experiences that ruined his emotional state and affected him mentally.

If YQY saved SJ from the Qiu’s LQG would have known he wasn’t a prissy noble mans son, rather an abused slave that just wanted a chance.

If SJ was saved from the Qiu’s and never met a certain cultivator, his core wouldn’t be as damaged, instead he would be quite the prodigy of a disciple. This could also not get LQG killed in the cave, possibly a successful assist in his Qi deviation.

If SJ was never traumatized more than YQY needed to save him, he would be much nicer and more welcoming to all his disciples, including LBH, who would intern never burn the sect and slaughter the disciples.

SJ not being bullied by other disciples would help him build relationships and trust better. YQY could very well be able to spend time with him without getting hit.

If Shen Jiu were to be treated carefully, LBH would have gained his sympathy and been coddled by him. An ex street kid/slave bonding with an ex street kid/slaves son. He would be against bullying but promote competitions within the disciples.

#scumbag villain self saving system #scumbag villain #scumbag self saving system #scumbag system #svsss au #svsss #mxtx #shen jiu #shen qingqiu #qijiu #liujiu #bingjiu

148 notes · View notes

eldritch-elrics · 3 years

Text

svsss: the end...

so it’s been a week since i finished sv and i am finally ready to finish my post on it! i have calmed down about it significantly since then and also had some time to think. i have lots of thoughts!!! basically, i really liked the ending :)

here’s a post i made after i finished of all my immediate thoughts/reactions!

first of all, poor shen jiu :( still an asshole but it’s always good to see what backstory makes a character Like That!

it’s really interesting that just sqq witnessing these shen jiu memories - rather than performing an action - counts as filling a plot hole. they should have already existed, right? does that imply that sqq’s experience is being recorded/broadcast somehow? is he the reader for whose benefit the holes are being fixed? or is this knowledge just setting him up for action later (that is, his whole conversation with yqy)?

i’m also kind of wondering what specifically the system knows of pidw. does it know every plan airplane ever made, or just what he typed out? obviously it has direct access to airplane’s mind, so maybe its judgements are specifically based on “what would airplane consider a good story”

this is backed up in sqq’s convo with sqh at the end, where sqq is like “wait is the purpose of the system/world just a product of sqh’s resentment at being forced to scrap his outline”

sad about qiu haitang!

in general i think a weak point of this novel is its lack of interesting/developed female characters. after going off so much about pidw’s lack of the same thing, you’d think sv would be more invested in making more female characters plot-relevant instead of just fodder for the male characters’ arcs. i guess ning yingying got some stuff, and sha hualing is pretty cool but it feels like the narrative kinda forgot about her haha

BABY BINGHE D: and sqq trying to comfort him but being unable to!!

also cool, sqq name lore

sj and lqg hated each other... how the turns have tabled!

binghe messing with sqq after he wakes up <3

poor lbh is so sensitive D: like, just his response to sqq saying he missed him? to be fair though, sqq’s emotions seem pretty impenetrable from the outside, and he often tends towards “being annoying right back because lbh is being annoying” rather than “actually being candid.” god both of them are so bad at Feelings lol

sqq’s “gotten used to the stickiness” haha

i hope the extras have more fluff of them, especially after sqq’s gotten over himself and is better at knowing/signaling what he wants/doesn’t want

i’m so tempted to make another freud joke about binghe but i’m fairly certain the “i don’t have a father, only shizun” is less of a “you are my father now” type of thing and more like “you’re the only protection/close relationship i need to feel like i have a family”

lbh’s suspicious about where sqq gets all his knowledge hehe... i do hope that will come up again!

poor sqq, being forced to choose between cqms and lbh

i hope he finds some way to be with both!

ok so. the merging? all the sects banding together? the fight with tlj? such a fun climax. so exciting!!!

lbh saying “i’m only doing this for one person” should’ve been more suspicious hehe

i wonder if mobei-jun was in on lbh’s whole xin mo plot? i get the sense that he wasn’t but huh. (him freezing the river was pretty cool)

lqg: fuck off to an ding peak if you don’t have fighting skills!!

sqh: :(

SQQ BEATING UP AIRPLANE FOR HURTING BINGHE IN HIS NOVEL WAS SO GOOD

from that conversation, it seems like an implication was that airplane’s thoughts themselves can shift the story? like, him thinking up a way to beat tlj...

are there more problems sqh can solve just by “thinking up a solution” ??

“shizun, take me flying” was so sweet... and AAA HAND HOLD

mbj sure likes kicking sqh into the middle of dangerous scenarios lmao

zzl :((( man i’m so sad about him! the whole thing about his backstory - how tlj and sqq both gave him the chance to become human :( i want him to live and to learn how to view himself as something more than a monster! (i also like how sqq does seem to care about him somewhat)

wu chen: actually tlj, your wife DID love you

i’m not even all that invested in the su xiyan stuff but that whole bit DID make me emo

mxtx and her relationship parallels!! and themes about unreliable narrators ruining other people’s reputation...

speaking of parallels with mdzs. oh my god the xin mo sword is basically just the proto-yin tiger tally huh

POOR BINGHE... SWORD OF GIVES YOU MENTAL ILLNESS

lbh’s just been all over the place and hasn’t had the opportunity to offload the excess demonic energy from the sword into a vessel since sqq was in his mushroom body - i bet that’s a big reason why it got this bad

lbh: you love them more than me so i’m gonna kill them.

yandere ass motherfucker...

but i kind of don’t blame him for feeling that way yknow? sqq’s made many mistakes too, and hasn’t been very good at communicating his feelings/intentions to lbh. even though lbh’s attempts to get sqq to stay with him haven’t been the best, i get why he would feel abandoned :( and his self esteem issues too...

sqh jumping off the ridge to rescue mbj sdkjgsds

IM SO EMO ABOUT YQY. WHAT A REVEAL!!!! OH MAN

man i’m also fucked up over the fact that like... this is one instance where shen jiu being gone is a BAD thing. i really loved sqq’s speculation about what had happened to shen jiu, and his guilt at being the wrong one to hear this information/apology and not being able to explain that to yqy. i think it’s so great that shen jiu’s absence is being addressed... unlike mo xuanyu, who doesn’t get missed at all

and sqq filled the plot holes but... for what. because it’s not about the system anymore! it’s about the people in the story! who he cares about!

and when he pushed lbh into the abyss, he was thinking of him as a character... he thought that plot point was inevitable...

i’ve said this before but sqq’s character arc in this has just been fantastic

OKAY so the sex scene!!!

i have a feeling this is a somewhat controversial take but. hmm. well, i can’t say i LIKED it, because it was horrible and painful, but i think it was exactly what it needed to be and i’m really glad the novel took that direction

much of this take is stolen from this excellent piece of meta but i’m 100% on board with it and a lot of it is what i was also thinking while reading

pidw is all about Solving Problems With Sex in order to be satisfying to the readers, so of course sex would be required to save the world in this story! i actually kind of wish it had been foreshadowed a little more - like maybe if sqq mentioned earlier that the easiest way for lbh to offload xin mo energy was through sex? - but i get the feeling this is playing off a couple firmly established tropes that i might be less familiar with than the typical reader of scum villain. (i know about dual cultivation/human cauldrons/etc, and i definitely know about the fuck or die trope, but still.)

speaking of foreshadowing - the whole thing about the incurable poison being curable only through Binghe Sex! absolutely foreshadowing!

the incurable poison really just completely stopped being important huh? did sqq leaving his body for awhile fix that? or did lbh do something to his body while he was dead that fixed it? (uh oh, what are the implications of that...) anyway it’s like never mentioned again after a certain point and that feels like an oversight

um anyway, back to the sex scene

it’s flipping pidw’s notion of sex on its head! yes, the characters have to fuck in order to save the world. no, it’s not sexy or satisfying at all!! it’s showcasing how horrifying it can be to live in a universe where sex is the ultimate solution to all problems (without regard for the feelings of everyone involved). it just hits so hard

sex is now about empathy rather than power?? sqq doesn’t want this, but he’s doing it because he cares about binghe

and poor, poor binghe when it’s over - he’s the one who wasn’t as able to consent in this situation and i just felt so terrible for him :( the cuddles and hurt/comfort were really good though

i have a feeling after this they’ll both be more conscientious of their consent issues! which is one problem i had with lbh’s actions before. but he is learning...

ok but sqq calling the diameter of lbh’s dick “somewhat terrifying” was hilarious. on a more serious note i actually liked how something that makes lbh More Sexy to some people is actually a huge problem here

parallels to sqq’s faked death, where he “sacrificed” himself to calm the xin mo influence... but this time, he ACTUALLY sacrificed himself to do the same thing...

the advanced function “self-saving” !!! oh i do love a good reference to part of the title <3

the fact that the system calls lbh “the source of all energy” ...

i loved seeing all the system achievements he got hehe

interesting that pidw is now classified as a book for women! the meta linked above has some cool stuff to say about that too

lqg fished bingqiu out of the river <3 but. it was in front of everyone. jsdhgsdsj how many of them know what bingqiu were getting up to...

i love how sqq is like “aww can’t they be celebrating a bit for me too?”

sqq’s whole talk with sqh is so good. sqh is so enthusiastic!!! he’s so proud of sqq for changing the novel in such a good way and so proud of binghe for becoming a better person :) it’s like reading fanfiction that is better than the og work

i love that sqh originally wrote highbrow gay novels but then was forced to write lowbrow straight novels for money

sqq is really the best reader airplane could have asked for <3

i’m really happy that tlj survived! and his “punishment” is talking about the dharma with the buddhist monks hahaha. he deserves some nice things in the future

sqq being like “yeah lbh has some Issues but that doesn’t mean he’s not still lovable” ... LOVE that. his feelings may be complicated but he really does love binghe and you can tell

THE LAST TWO LINES... MAN

i think it’s really cool that the main story of sv isn’t really a romance? a love story definitely, but it’s really about getting these two traumatized, emotionally constipated people into a place where their relationship is healthy and reciprocal enough for them to begin to try a romance. going by the bcnovels comments it seems like many people were kind of confused, feeling like sqq hadn’t really developed romantic feelings for binghe by the end? and sure, i think that’s a valid take, but i don’t think that’s what the ending’s about! it’s about them solving the most pressing issues keeping them apart. it’s not a complete love story! there doesn’t have to be a perfect resolution! bingqiu is bound to be messy for a while, and that’s ok!

i do kinda hope that sqq will get to deal with a proper sexuality crisis in the future lmao, i was expecting him to have one near the end and then he just. didn’t

but again it’s undeniable that he loves binghe (though maybe not in a sexual way quite yet - or if he does he’s very repressed) and i’m excited to read more of the extras to see how their relationship develops :)

(i actually did read a few of the extras a few days ago - i will share my commentary on them soon!)

so overall - really good ending!! i see how it could feel rushed to some readers but i thought it was a good resolution for all the novel’s themes, and gave good and important development to the relationships!

#svsss #svsss spoilers #my post #finn reads scum villain

28 notes · View notes

spockandawe · 3 years

Note

For the ships, Liujiu, Bingjiu or YueJiu ?

Oh man, Shen Jiuuuuuuu

Okay, so my answers for these are going to share some themes, so I’ll try to keep it a bit brief instead of repeating myself x3. Let’s see if I can keep a handle on this without it getting away from me, haha

Liujiu:

Downsides:

So, my biggest logistical struggle with these two is... making it happen. They’re both pretty aloof and standoffish people, and they take a strong dislike to each other early on. I love me some good hatesex, which matters a lot for the bingjiu, but with liu qingge and shen jiu...... getting them to tolerate each other for long enough for hatesex is hard.

And also, even though I love hatesex, for some reason I get really sad in here because they’re both going to take so much damage. Which is a common feature of hatesex? And I’m not opposed to hatesex for either of these men? But together... I don’t know, there’s something about how fragile Shen Jiu is and how bad at people Liu Qingge is, and the way they both amplify each other. I don’t know why this ship in particular makes me so anxious, but they definitely do, haha

Upsides:

Such...... hateful............... hatesex.........................

Like, it hurts me to think about how much they’ll hurt each other, but think about how much they’ll hurt each other! The potential is EXQUISITE. Shen Jiu has a sharp tongue, he’s quick on his feet, and he’s very good at finding cruel, cutting things to say. Liu Qingge is willing to give you his everything, but only if you’re nice to him first, which Shen Jiu is absolutely not willing to be. And Shen Jiu is so proud, and so horribly brittle. He takes damage from someone trying to be nice to him, he’ll react so badly to someone seeing him that vulnerable and trying to be mean.

I don’t know, it’s one of those ships where I instinctively Crave it, but I would have so much trouble figuring out a scenario where I was both satisfied where why they would do it (fuck or die is the easiest scenario, but tbh, i have a real hard time justifying that, even if i enjoy it), and I was confident I wouldn’t exit the scenario just... super super sad. It’s something I would idly like to write, but I’d have to be in a VERY particular headspace :P

Bingjiu:

Downsides:

Okay, now, to be clear-- I do like some well-executed noncon. It can do LOVELY things with character and emotion and power dynamics. And we don’t get much original Binghe on page to draw characterization from, but I’m going to go ahead and assume that similar to how he was hungry for Shen Qingqiu in canon, he was also hungry for something from Shen Jiu. But in a situation like this where one party is clearly and persistently wanting, and the other party is clearly and consistently rejecting, I find straightforward noncon more often... boring.

Upsides:

So what we’re left with is messy, deceptive dubious consent and messy, manipulative hatesex. Which I love. These are some of my favorite favorite kinds of unhealthy ship dynamics, and I live for it. I’ve read some nice liujiu before, and I’ve read some nice bingjiu, and they were both well-executed, but the bingjiu definitely stuck with me more. The liujiu? Even if it was hateful, it tended to be honest, and like........... if I have the option to bring lies and coercion into the situation, why would I say no?

I feel like I’m regularly being introduced to new variants on this ship, but I don’t want to just rehash existing fics that I liked. But there’s the idea of transmigration within canon, where Bingge enters a younger version of himself (or there’s one where older Bingge and Shen Jiu enter swapped bodies for their younger selves). There’s Binghe coming back from the abyss and somehow (angrily, sexily, messily) working things out with Shen Jiu. Or there’s Binghe leaning on his dream abilities and flat-out lying/steering to Shen Jiu to get him into bed. Either way, it’s more complicated that just taking. There’s a psychological/emotional component to the maneuvering that makes it all deliciously interesting to me.

Ah, here’s an angle I think I missed before. With Shen Jiu’s past in the Qiu household, I find a straight-up forcing to be... uninteresting. Shen Jiu himself has so much baggage that unless a fic or whatever is focused on aftermath, I’m very *shrug* about the dynamic, I think canon did plenty well for itself without even fully Going There. For a dynamic as poisonous as this one, I’d much rather see Shen Jiu having all his walls and boundaries and defenses, and being coaxed out into the open (whether he knows what’s waiting for him or not) rather than having his walls just blasted down

(and if you can avoid totally taking out Shen Jiu, it’s so easy to add a mutually assured destruction element to this dynamic, which is ALWAYS a favorite of mine)

(also, Binghe is like the one person in the universe with the power to unlock the secret that Shen Jiu used to hide in Qiu Haitang’s room for safety and comfort, and just....... *grabby hands*)

Qijiu:

Downsides:

None. None? I adore this so much it kills me.

Wait no hold on, Yue Qingyuan cannot fucking communicate. That’s the one downside.

Upsides:

Oh my goddddd, THESE TWO! THEY MAKE ME FUCKING BAWL! They care about each other so, so, so, so much, and they come so close to breaking free of their childhood together, and then it all barely falls apart, and it probably wouldn’t have fallen apart if they didn’t each care so fucking much, and I want to scream.

There’s something about a ship. Where one party is a complete unrepentant asshole who loves one (1) person in the entire universe, and would give them the WORLD, and cares exactly 0% about anyone else... It kills me every time. Especially in the flashbacks, okay. It’s like hua cheng, only Shen Jiu is also still absolutely vicious with Yue Qi, but! Yue Qi cares not at all, he just adores Shen Jiu right back and doesn’t even register the meanness. He’ll maybe, maybe tell Shen Jiu to play nicer with the other kids, and everyone involves knows that he will do nothing to enforce that.

The Qiu household thing... breaks my goddamn heart, I swear. Yue Qi promising to come back for Shen JIu. Shen Jiu waiting and enduring and finally thinking that Yue Qi must have died, or he would have definitely come back. Their reunion, where Shen Jiu is like ‘oh.... I’m an intrinsically terrible person’ because he realizes he would prefer that Yue Qi was dead rather than knowing Qi-ge abandoned him. Yue Qingyuan’s emotional confession in canon that he didn’t abandon Xiao Jiu, he never wanted to abandon him, he trained too hard and too fast and almost destroyed his body and his teacher locked him in the caves for a year.

The downside is that they love each other so much they can’t deal with the idea that Yue Qingyuan abandoned Shen Jiu! They can’t deal with it to such an extent that they can’t even come close to resolving the misunderstanding! The downside is that Shen Jiu loves Yue Qingyuan enough that he pushes him away, just for a chance that he can save him from Bingge, and that Yue Qingyuan loves Shen Jiu enough that he came back for him anyways, knowing that he was walking into certain death, whether it was for the chance that Bingge would take some mercy on Shen Jiu, or because he couldn’t bear the idea of abandoning Shen Jiu again!

The downside is that Shen Jiu quietly dies, Shen Yuan quietly slips into his body, and that Yue Qingyuan goes on loving Shen Jiu without ever realizing he’s already gone.

#ask memes/#spock replies #liujiu #bingjiu #qijiu #liu qingge #shen jiu #yue qingyuan #luo binghe #long post/#noncon mention/#dubcon mention/#Anonymous

125 notes · View notes

vermillioncrown · 3 years

Note

ooo a nyy transmigration! that sounds very interesting!

i.. i had to take a breather bro...

z!nyy is like ‘wow! this is the first time i’m... cute. objectively, really cute.’

... >:3

no, no. i’m operating on pidw-level meta, not svsss-level bc that would literally be watching from the sidelines and picking your nose. so learning is actually interesting and fun, she’s not standing for that bullying crap but is less... ditzy about it. very sly. may not be the boss of the disciples on the peak, but she knows everything and lets everyone forget it

(fun fact, the supervisors have just realized that i’m the person who knows all the noes in my lab bc it’s not my fault that i have friends in every project and every division and they like complaining to me bc they enjoy the performance i put on to mock the subjects of their complaints)

anyways, sj!sqq adores her, but with his complexes, he’s upset that’s she’s much more mature than before (ruins the innocence he feels like looking back at qiu haitang) and she only knows what she’s read in PIDW so it’s just... heartbreaking on SJ!SQQ’s part that NYY is distancing herself, and Z!NYY is living in sheer terror at this end.

Meeting LBH also grosses her out bc on one hand, sad shidi! needs to become his pillar of support, the System declares!

No! I’m not gonna get wifed! z!nyy yells back

her punishment protocols are not gory, but terrifying all the same. in fact, she’d rather mindnumbing gore than the fucking endless hallways of the merged realm palace, buxom women with soulless eyes and stepford smiles walking after her, pining her down, cajoling her into ‘doing her duty’ with her husband. feeling her self and consciousness being drained out as ... yeah. as it happens.

so she tries to keep her distance but still is nice. tries to be professional, and not too warm.

Ends up spending a lot of time on other peaks, meets lmy.

and then the plot goes to shit when sy transmigrates

(because she’s a disciple and not a peak lord, she never has the opportunity to catch either sqq or sqh as transmigrators until much later, pre implosion death. but she’s really really fucking sus, especially after the immortal alliance conference)

and while that’s happening and the realm is going to shit, z!nyy is colluding with lmy and shl to try and get both realms under control since lbh has let it go sideways as he’s committing soft necro for five years

and because it’s not svsss without sexy stuff, bc she got to know lmy and shl as actual people and they are truly the only ones she feels comfortable around, it’s a lesbian ménage à trois

hmm. how z!nyy and the two bros meet as transmigrators.

while sqq and sqh are colluding to avoid death, they kinda... let slip. so she looks at the schedules. knows when sqq and sqh are meeting next. she catches sqh before sqq arrives, and pretends to be doused in some fake papapa sex pollen bs, and ‘oh, shishu, begging shishu’s guidance to help this yingying~’ because making fun of cheesy hentai-esque dialogue is infinitely more entertaining than watching it straight. lets her obscenely short ‘uniform’ do its thang

sqh stutters out a ‘z-zett-tai ryouiki s-school girl attack’

z!nyy: i knew it, you fucking NEET slime

sqh: (surprised pikachu face)

sqq walks in and sees the situation but didn’t hear the words and “airpla- Shang Qinghua you degenerate-” and death match wrestles sqh away from z!nyy

who sits and watches until she counts an adequate amount of blows on sqh’s head before she gets their attention and admits the truth.

z!nyy is supposed to hold qing jing together while sy!sqq fakes his death, but no one foresaw the rest of sv.

#Anonymous #inquiry #zyx au's #svzyx #im gonna take a rest my guy

38 notes · View notes

hunxi-guilai · 4 years

Note

This is just a small thing, but I'm wondering if there's any significance to the positioning of the hands when someone does the formal joined-hands bow? Nearly everyone does it with their left hand in front of/covering the right. But not everyone--Wen Qing and MianMian both do it the other way, right hand in front. Is it a gender thing, or is there some other significance?

(like, a spiritual follow-up to this post on bowing, maybe?)

Giving y’all a heads-up now, the information in this post is coming almost exclusively from the baidu-baike page on 作揖 zuoyi, which is the verb for that particular slight-bow-with-hands-clasped-in-front. It’s also worth noting that 作揖 is a Han Chinese custom, and shouldn’t be taken as ‘universally Chinese.’

So! Any time you have a form of social ritual/etiquette, its variations are going to be almost as important as its original form, and boy howdy are there a lot of variations in how you can deliver a bow.

In CQL, we mostly see the open palm, left-hand-over-right-hand bow, accompanied by an incline of the torso:

anon points out that gender seems to be a factor in whether you perform the bow left hand-over-right or right-over-left; baidu-baike tells me (and I haven’t been able to corroborate this in any older ritual texts, but also I haven’t looked very hard) that Duan Yucai, a Qing Dynasty philologist, writes in his 《说文解字注》that women would do the opposite -- right hand-over-left.

Baidu-baike also suggests that a possible explanation for the left-over-right tendency is similar to the right-over-left/left-over-right crossing of hanfu that gets talked about in this post -- apparently, during mourning activities, both genders are supposed to reverse the right-over-left/left-over-right clasping of hands, so:

men during normal life: left-over-right

women during normal life: right-over-left

men during mourning affairs: right-over-left

women during mourning affairs: left-over-right

Another possible explanation for the left-over-right business is that if someone’s about to attack you, they’d probably do it with their right hand, so layering your non-dominant hand over your violent hand would be read as a subtle declaration of non-violent intentions.

Side note: I find it kind of hilarious that baidu-baike includes multiple sections on “the benefits of 作揖 bowing,” including but not limited to: hygiene, convenience, elegance, and self-motivation (no more awkward ‘go-for-the-‘shake-oh-just-kidding’ moments!).

What I find particularly interesting with the deployment of 作揖 zuoyi bows in period dramas is how they communicate gender/power dynamics, as well as a certain degree of nationalism/in-group-out-grouping. I did write an essay about etiquette and ritual in 《琅琊榜》Nirvana in Fire for one of my term papers once, which has a lot of my thoughts about the interaction between narrative and ritual (massive, massive LYB spoilers though, beware).

Gender and Social Ritual

Sometimes, rather than the hands-clasped bow, we see female characters folding their hands (right over left) at their waist and bowing/curtseying:

Jiang Yanli, hands folded right-over-left at her waist, bowing to Jin Zixuan.

Fan Xian (left) with the traditionally male, left-over-right-hands-clasped bow vs. Haitang Duoduo (right) with a more feminine-coded, right-over-left-hands-folded-at-waist bow in《庆余年》Qingyunian / Joy of Life.

Gong Yu (center) curtseying to Xiao Jingrui (left) with her hands folded right-over-left at her waist in 《琅琊榜》Langyabang / Nirvana in Fire.

(shout-out to Yan Yujin on the right, j chillin’)

I’m bringing up all these screenshots of female characters and more feminine-coded social greeting ritual because remember what I said earlier? That the variations on social ritual are going to be almost as important as their original form?

I find it fascinating, then, that we almost never see Xia Dong and Mu Nihuang in《琅琊榜》/ Nirvana in Fire perform the feminine-coded curtsey, which I’ve always read as a subtle nod to the fact that both of them can kick the asses of most of the men who share a screen with them.

(not that women can’t kick ass! Gong Yu does, in fact, a lot of ass-kicking! but that’s definitely part of a longer conversation about gender-coded spheres of influence, which this post does not have the time to get into)

Xia Dong (second from the left) with the right-over-left hands-clasped bow, and the back of Nihuang’s ridiculous(ly beautiful) head.

I haven’t actually looked into this enough to make any definitive or well-researched statements on how social ritual/etiquette plays into portrayals of gender onscreen, so you’ll have to make do with me just pointing at screenshots and making excited faces for now.

Otherness and Social Ritual

Sometimes, your period drama is set during a time when there are multiple small, warring states at each other’s throats, which means that we get to see international diplomacy and ambassadorial envoys at play. One of the key ways to distinguish a side character from another state is precisely by how they perform the ritual bow:

Bai Liqi, performing the Beiyan ritual of greeting, with an open-palm left hand, and right hand clasping the wrist of the left (《琅琊榜》/ Nirvana in Fire).

Same deal with this diplomat dude from Beiyan, whose name escapes me and honestly might never be mentioned (《琅琊榜》/ Nirvana in Fire).

Shangshan Hu from 《庆余年》Joy of Life performing the Beiqi ritual, of two hands crossing but with fingertips angled upwards.

Do I have any real conclusions to this? Not really! I just think it’s neat that the production departments on all these shows think this deeply in the worldbuilding of their fictional, occasionally fantastic, sometimes even futuristic settings. It really lends a three-dimensionality to their portrayal of fictionalized culture onscreen, and communicates loads of information through a visual-kinetic that’s so unique and particular to film.

#this post went so far beyond the scope of the ask whoops #what can I say 庆余年 has me thinking a lot about what loyalty to one's state means #and I do love a good opportunity to promote 琅琊榜 #ask and ye shall receive #CQL worldbuilding

211 notes · View notes

orthogonals · 3 years

Text

生不如死| torture worse than death

Rating: M Fandom: 二哈和他的白猫师尊 - 肉包不吃肉 | The Husky and His White Cat Shizun - Meatbun Doesn't Eat Meat Word Count: 1608 Pairing: Chu Wanning/Mo Ran | Taxian-Jun Summary: Chu Wanning lay sprawled haphazardly on the floor, strands of black hair fanning behind his head in a halo. Pale veins decorated the light pink of his closed eyelids, two haitang petals set against the paper white of his skin. His breaths, slow with unconsciousness, came softly through parted lips, the rise and fall of his chest almost imperceptible. --- OR: Set directly after MR's flashback in Ch. 89. What happened after 0.5 Mo Ran and Chu Wanning's first time?

[read on ao3]

Chu Wanning lay sprawled haphazardly on the floor, strands of black hair fanning behind his head in a halo. Pale veins decorated the light pink of his closed eyelids, two haitang petals set against the paper white of his skin. His breaths, slow with unconsciousness, came softly through parted lips, the rise and fall of his chest almost imperceptible.

Taxian-jun adjusted the last few ties of his robes and stood back to admire his work, gazing almost pensively at Chu Wanning’s prone figure. All of Chu Wanning’s clothing had long since been feverishly torn away, and garments cluttered the room sporadically, thrown atop furniture or heaped in piles on the floor. Some unfortunate articles lay tattered and useless, ripped apart in Taxian-jun’s cruel haste to access the intoxicating warmth of his Shizun’s body.

His eyes raked across the smooth canvas of skin offered by Chu Wanning, pausing at each bruise, each crimson mark interrupting the pale expanse of flesh. Chu Wanning had slipped into exhaustive slumber on his back, with his arms and legs splayed as if to present the evidence of his degradation. Dried bits of fluid, tinged pink with blood, had tracked streaks down Chu Wanning’s inner thighs, a watercolor of debauchment painted between his legs. Taxian-jun’s irises darkened, a vicious expression frightfully twisting his handsome features. Hunger, malice, and perverse satisfaction flickered across Taxian-jun’s face in turns.

Suddenly, as if struck by a memory or the onset of a nightmare, Chu Wanning’s long lashes trembled against his cheek, and a soft murmur escaped from his lips. His sharp brows scrunched, forming a wrinkle that creased his forehead. His face stayed like that momentarily, troubled even in sleep, before gradually smoothing out once more.

Unbidden, a sharp wave of pity rose within Taxian-jun. To see his Shizun, Yuheng of the Night Sky, the Beidou Immortal, reduced to this, nothing more than a whore writhing beneath the prowess of the First Emperor of the Cultivation World— Taxian-jun almost felt sympathetic. Of course, so thoroughly humiliating Chu Wanning had brought him a grim sense of sadistic pleasure, but his gratification still seemed to fall short somewhere, like an arrow that had missed bullseye by a few marks. This faint unease churned within him along with the pity, leaving Taxian-jun feeling strangely out of sorts, as if he were a lost traveler who had somehow stumbled his way into Wushan Palance, stumbled into standing over the naked body of his ruined Shizun.

Taxian-jun shook his head to dispel the filmy wisps of his thoughts. He had originally planned to call an attendant to drag Chu Wanning, naked and debased, away to some corner of the Palace. Physical conquest wasn’t enough to slake his animalistic thirst for vengeance; he wanted to irrevocably tarnish Chu Wanning, to incinerate his pristine, austere image into wisps of ash. Taxian-jun had even imagined Chu Wanning’s reaction upon awakening to four unfamiliar walls, picturing with a sort of vicious glee how his Shizun’s face would blanch white upon finding himself so unceremoniously carried away and dumped aside.

But now, just considering the idea of someone else having the privilege to lay eyes on Chu Wanning like this, so completely fucked out, ignited a possessive rage that burned like forest brush up his esophagus. Mine, he thought. Chu Wanning belongs to me.

Letting out a puff of a sigh, he stooped down to pick up Chu Wanning, maneuvering Chu Wanning’s head to rest on his shoulder. Chu Wanning’s lashes flickered; he seemed to make a grumble of protest, but he eventually burrowed closer into Taxian-jun’s chest, an unconscious effort to seek warmth, like a sunflower tilting to catch rays of light on its petals. His hair splayed down in rivulets and framed the elegant lines of his face. The strands reflected the dim candlelight in a dull luster, like shimmering black pearls.

Before he was even aware of the impulse, Taxian-jun dipped down to catch Chu Wanning’s petal-soft lips in a chaste kiss. The faint taste of dew permeated his mouth and melted like candy on his tongue.

A servant, shakily bowing, brought a tub of warm water and some linen towels to the room. Taxian-jun shot him a glare in dismissal and turned back to face the bed, scarlet-gold curtains drawn closed around the mattress. Steam licked upwards from the water and filled the room with a smoky, intangible haze.

The curtains swished open under Taxian-jun’s hand, revealing the figure of a man still sleeping, wrapped up in an animal pelt.

Taxian-jun extricated Chu Wanning from the covers, hoisting his pliant body into his embrace and bringing him to the tub. When the warm water submerged Chu Wanning’s listless limbs, his eyes blearily cracked open. He affixed a distant, cloudy gaze towards Taxian-jun, dazed and unaware.

“Mo Ran?” He asked, leaning against the wood of the tub.

“Go back to sleep.” Taxian-jun responded roughly. His voice rang hoarse and gravelly in the still air.

Perhaps Chu Wanning had truly suffered beyond his limit, or perhaps, in the realm between sleep and clarity, he had forgotten his current situation. For rather than his usual intransigence, Chu Wanning instead obediently closed his eyes and drifted back into unconsciousness.

Taxian-jun felt as if something blunt had cleaved a groove into his chest, heart raw with wound and spurting fresh blood. He reached out as if to touch Chu Wanning, to stroke his hair, but then abruptly retracted his arm and fisted his hand at his side.

Taxian-jun genuinely never knew how to regard this Shizun of his. The gulf that bridged them spanned vast and had only grown throughout the years. Its gaping maw stretched wide, a welter of contempt, loathing, and pain brought to boil in its abysmal depths. His entire being ached to see Chu Wanning completely and utterly subjugated, yet a small part of him still felt fourteen, like he would pick down the stars in the sky just so Chu Wanning would direct him with a hint of a smile.

The wood beneath Taxian-jun’s grip creaked. What a pitiable disciple, what a despicable teacher. Chu Wanning had whipped him bloody, and a piece of Mo Ran still wanted to turn like a docile lamb and present his other cheek.

“You’re a bastard, Chu Wanning.” Taxian-jun spat at Chu Wanning’s unperceptive figure. As expected, Chu Wanning remained silent in the onslaught. He had soaked for so long that the tips of his fingers had pruned. Yet unmoving and unaware, with lurid marks littered across his body, he still managed to radiate an ethereal sort of beauty.

Taxian-jun’s anger receded as fast as it had surged, leaving him oddly deflated. He bit his lip and finally picked up a linen, wiping away at Chu Wanning with all the care of a collector cleaning his most prized figurine.

Somehow, Taxian-jun ended up spending the night with Chu Wanning. They were in his personal bedroom, after all, and though Taxian-jun didn’t want someone to take Chu Wanning away, he also couldn’t very well let Chu Wanning oust him from his own room. So, after drying Chu Wanning from the bath, Taxian-jun, a bit begrudgingly, laid him down again on the bed.

The night had deepened to an inky obsidian, and fatigue blearily lapped at Taxian-jun’s consciousness. Chu Wanning, that selfish ingrate, had blissfully slept for the better part of a shichen while This Venerable One assiduously waited on him on hand and foot!

Even so, when Taxian-jun slipped beneath the covers, he curled himself around Chu Wanning possessively, holding him tight against his chest. Like this, the crisp haitang scent that lingered on Chu Wanning overwhelmed his senses, heady and soporific. He nuzzled into Chu Wanning’s neck, pressing kisses atop the bite marks he had left earlier, sighing with something close to contentment.

Eyelids growing heavy, Taxian-jun allowed himself a final kiss on Chu Wanning’s parted lips, tongue gently grazing across the pink mouth, tasting his delicate flavor. He pulled Chu Wanning’s soft body even closer into his embrace, and the First Emperor gradually stilled to the steady rhythm of Chu Wanning’s heartbeat.

Chu Wanning woke up subsumed in an oppressive heat. He scrunched his nose and opened his eyes, registering the hard muscle pressed against his back, the arms wound around his waist. Like a bucket of cold water, sharp clarity drenched him in an instant, and he shot up in a rage, pushing Mo Ran off his body.

With his cultivation gone, though, Chu Wanning’s violent shove barely registered in Taxian-jun’s sleep, and he only mumbled a bit, turning around and kicking the sheets off the bed.

Chu Wanning stared down at himself in a daze, the cruel events from the night before slicing him open like thousands of blades. He wasn’t familiar with how Taxian-jun had rearranged Wushan Palace, so slipping away now would chance his intrusion into unwelcome spaces. Still, Chu Wanning thought he would rather die than meet Taxian-jun’s gaze when he woke up, so he salvaged whatever pieces of his clothing he could, hurriedly arranging himself to appear somewhat presentable and striding to the door.

Yet before he left, with a hand still hovering over the doorknob, Chu Wanning turned back to look at Mo Ran’s form on the bed for a long, long time.

Taxian-jun awoke to an empty bed, the sheets wrapped firmly around him.

He didn’t truly think about the way he had been so carefully swaddled, the top edge of the covering folded down two inches and tucked around his body, until he was thirty-two, as pear blossom white burned a searing trail of bitterness down his throat.

#2ha #erha #the husky and his white cat shizun #mo ran #mo weiyu #chu wanning #ranwan #taxian jun #0.5 timeline #2ha fic #二哈和他的白猫师尊 #二哈 #燃晚 #*goswrites #*2ha

18 notes · View notes

hamliet · 5 years

Text

Reflections of Su XiYan in Scum Villain’s Female Characters

I did not realize it was MXTX ladies week until yesterday. :( So I want to do a post/meta on the amazing women in each novel (not without critique), so let’s start with MXTX’s first one!

Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System, which while it may have more obvious narrative flaws than TGCF or MDZS (it sets up some plot points it kinda drops later, whereas TGCF and MDZS pretty much maximize every single aspect of potential), I actually think is just as rich, clever, and coherent thematically as MXTX’s latter two novels.

The plot points that are dropped, though, are actually almost entirely related to the set up the female characters as deconstructing the idea that they were just things for Original!Luo BingHe to collect. While it does do this to an extent with Su XiYan, Ning YingYing, and Sha HuaLing, it kinda… dropped the arcs halfway through for Ning YingYing and Sha HuaLing, and sets up but never really begins Liu MingYan’s and Qin WanYue’s.

Su XiYan’s arc, though, despite it taking place in the past and being told to us, is entirely about refuting the role the men in her life ascribe to her... and all of the other female characters--all members of Original!Luo BingHe’s harem--represent a part of her. You could get, like, really Oedipal if you wanted to, but I’d rather not beyond simply saying it’s a pattern in stories that is definitely present here. Aspects of her story and character are reflected in each of the women who are love interests in Proud Immortal Demon Way.

Our first refutation of how men treat and categorize Su XiYan is through her foiling with Ning YingYing.

Shen Yuan notes that Shen Jiu sexually harassed Ning YingYing:

the original Shen Qingqiu had designs on Ning Yingying... [he] had dirty thoughts towards his lively and well-behaved disciples. Several times he tried to lay hands on them and almost succeeded at that.

Which is what the Old Palace Master did to Su XiYan:

He turned to focus his stare on Luo Binghe’s quietly sleeping face... nThe Old Palace Master gazed at him for a long while then sighed: “When you close your eyes, you resemble her the most. And also when you’re being cold.”

His eyes traveled over Luo Binghe’s face greedily. If he still had hands, he would have reached out to fondle as well.

However, the Old Palace Master never got anywhere with Su XiYan, because she fell in love with someone else and thereby refutes the idea that she’s his tool. In the original, Ning YingYing is rescued by Luo BingHe in the original. In the novel, Ning YingYing’s arc is about her discovering self-sufficiency. She doesn’t need rescuing from Luo BingHe; she can rescue herself, as is shown when she leads Ming Fan and the other disciples into a fight to protect Shen QingQiu’s honor after his arrest. When someone slaps her, she slaps back, twice--but Shen QingQiu gives her the energy. I would have liked (and think her arc was heading towards) her to grow to be competent on her own as well.

Next, Sha HuaLing.

Sha HuaLing represents TianLang-Jun’s assumptions about Su XiYan: that she was a deceptive seductress who would betray him for her own desires. However, in reality, like Sha HuaLing does in Proud Immortal Demon Way, Su XiYan betrays her race (for her, humanity, for Sha HuaLing, demons) for love.

Sha Hualing was a pure-blooded demon, cruel and ruthless, cunning and artful, but fell irrevocably for Luo Binghe. After getting together with Luo Binghe, don’t even speak about killing for him; she even dared to do an outrageous thing like betraying the demons for him.

Su XiYan, however, was never given the chance to fight back. In the actual novel, Sha HuaLing does much the same (betrays the demons), but Luo BingHe does not love her and she knows it. I think this is a good ending place for Sha HuaLing, assigned to fight against her father in the final battle (which she does), but we’re told rather than shown her development and we’re not told what led to this decision, which is a shame.

Sha HuaLing is perhaps most directly foiled both in Proud Immortal Demon Way and in SVSSS by Qin WanYue.

Qin WanYue, much like Su XiYan, is considered the perfect disciple of the Huan Hua Palace. Regarding Su XiYan, it’s noted:

“That woman had shocking talent, was intelligent and sensitive when making decisions, and she had the aura of a tyrant. The Old Palace Master loved and cared for this private disciple. He thought of her as a pearl that should be protected in his hands and trained her to be the next Palace Master of Huan Hua Palace. No matter where he went, he would bring Su Xiyan along with him. The importance that he placed in her was abnormal.”

Qin WanYue’s symbol is a pearl that lights the way.

Luo Binghe picked up Qin Wanyue’s Night Pearl that had fallen to the ground and raised it high, as though it were a beacon. It awakened those who had frozen in place.

Not to mention in the original novel Qin WanYue loses a child in a miscarriage caused by someone else (Sha HuaLing) much like Su XiYan almost lost Luo BingHe when pregnant with him. Qin WanYue clings to Luo BingHe after the loss of her sister as something who might be able to offer her happiness. She’s not much different than Luo BingHe growing up parents and clinging to ShiZun: she who lost her sister and then clings to the person who saved her. But in her case, Luo BingHe does not return her affection, and I really had hoped/ expected her arc to end with her finding her own path.

Qin WanYue is also tasked with an action beneath her (much like Sha HuaLing): taking care of the Little Palace Mistress, the Old Palace Master’s literal daughter and hence another foil to Su XiYan. Her defining trait is her pettiness and cruelty, the latter of which Su XiYan is also said to have been capable of, as she began spending time with TianLang-Jun in an attempt to bring him down.

However, the mistress isn’t really set up with the potential for an arc like Qin WanYue is.

From time to time [Qin WanYue] would cast a teary glance at Luo Binghe, as if expecting something...

[Sha HuaLing:] “how many times have you failed to seduce the lord yet still refuse to leave? If you don’t leave that’s fine, but you’re incapable of looking after even a single person. Her cultivation isn’t even as high as yours. You’re her senior martial sister. You didn’t stop her early and didn’t stop her late. All you did was to let her make this unreasonable scene in front of the lord. Who are you putting on this pitiful and wronged appearance for?”

Qin WanYue isn’t weak at all, but she puts on a weak act for Luo BingHe, hoping to attract a rescuer like she needed back then. I initially expected her arc to end with her accepting her strength and moving on form Luo BingHe (and from the little palace mistress). I still think it should have.

And then we have Qiu HaiTang, whom I don’t think is set up as much for development as the others despite having more backstory on her.

Still, Qiu HaiTang she was a woman mistreated and shamed by what had happened with her fiance Shen Jiu--just like Su XiYan was shamed for what happened with TianLang-Jun.

“That’s right, if she hadn’t been so ill-fated as to fall for Tianlang-Jun’s wiles, she would have had such a bright and promising future and be a person of great renown today.”

“I don’t care what fantastic rewards are promised to me━having an affair with a demon and getting knocked up with a monster child is just plain disgusting. This kind of merit, I wouldn’t accept even if it was served to me on a silver platter.”

“Su Xiyan was probably too ashamed to remain, and thus ran away from the sect master.”

The thing is, all these roles--perfect disciple with great potential, brave enough to betray everything for love, endearing and caring, mistreated--none of these really capture the complexity and beauty of who Su XiYan really was... which is represented in Liu MingYan, the noted female counterpart to Luo BingHe, the main female lead. Liu MingYan conceals her face, which is too beautiful to be seen.

Liu MingYan, like Si XiYan, remains mysterious; Shen QingQiu never sees her face uncovered, and the audience never really gets a clue as to what is going on in her head besides the mention that she cares deeply for her brother. Again, this is something I think could have and should have been developed more; she has the set-up for an arc with her conflict with Sha HuaLing being dazzled by her beauty and with her loyalty to her sect and brother, but it doesn’t go anywhere. She said to be “the number one female lead!” after all, and I think it’s entirely possible for her to maintain her aura of mystery and still... have an arc. Su XiYan did, after all, and she was dead before the novel began.

In the end, no one really can define whom Su XiYan was exactly, because she’s dead. What ultimately mattered, what defined Su XiYan’s legacy, was her final choice to save her son (and yes, it’s fair to critique that it’s again about a man, but it’s her choice). That’s why the story, in its penultimate chapter, has Shen QingQiu telling Luo BingHe:

“Su Xiyan risked her life to give birth to you...

“If I were in her shoes, I would not hesitate to drink [the poison for a fetus] regardless of how lethal it is. Then, after escaping from the water prison, I would absorb it all into my own body. Regardless of how agonizing and horrifying the process is, regardless of the price to be paid, regardless of whether it would be a painful death, I would never let this child suffer any harm.

“This is how I see it. You can take it as just an interpretation because there is no one who can tell you what Su Xiyan was thinking before she breathed her last. But if she really saw you as a disgrace, she didn’t need to do anything more. She could have just lowered you into the Luo River, on the coldest days of the year, in a harsh and frozen landscape━how could you possibly survive?... she also need not use the last of her strength and energy to put you in a wooden basin and push you away to safety…… You don’t even need to wait for someone to save you at all since you would have already become a wandering soul who met his freezing end in Luo River.

He’s healed, and he no longer needs to try to recreate his mother figure in over a thousand beautiful women like he did in the past. He can heal.

Imo, it would have been even more powerful if the women then stepped out of these roles more completely, and became their own people. But I really do like all four of the main women I discussed here, and someday I’ll write more for them.

#scum villain meta #svsss #svsss meta #the scum villain's self-saving system #bingqiu #luo binghe #su xiyan #shen qingqiu #shen yuan #shen jiu #sha hualing #liu mingyan #ning yingying #qiu haitang #qin wanyue #mxtx meta #mxtx #mxtx ladies week

853 notes · View notes

sifeng · 4 years

Text

Review: Joy of Life

Not going to lie, when I first started this drama, in February or something, I didn’t really like it all that much, I don’t know why, the first episode just lacked... something? But I tried again this summer and wow! Joy of Life has made its way on my favorite dramas ever! I can’t believe I have to wait 2 whole years for the second season!

Plot:

Fan Xian grew up in a small town by the sea with his grandmother, following a sudden visit of a poison master, his peaceful life quickly morph into one filled with danger and hardship. After becoming rather skilled with medicine, poison and martial arts, he goes to the capital to find out more about his mysterious mother. He ends up on an adventure of marvelling the world, getting tangled in politics, finding true love, figuring out his purpose in life and secrets of his world.

Cast:

Zhang Ruoyun (张若昀) as Fan Xian (范闲)

Li Qin (李沁) as Lin Wan’er (林婉儿)

Chen Daoming (陈道明) as the Emperor (皇上)

Wu Gang (吴刚) as Chen Pingping (陈萍萍)

My Opinions:

Plot (My Rating - A):

The plot is one of the greatest highlights of this show (but then again, acting and characters are also amazing). There are so many schemes and ploys that only get revealed bit by bit until the big reveal of like “whose behind whatever whatever” and you’re just like super amazed. It’s so amazing! The pacing is also great because this show never leaves you bored for a second, every single scene is either super important to the plot, to the romances or to the comedy. It’s one of those shows that once you start, you cannot possibly drop.

Scheming put aside, there’s also a really interesting human aspect to this show. Seeing Fan Xian, a man from modern times, speak with the people of Qing, who care more about the big picture than the moment in front of them, who wouldn’t think twice to throw themselves in front of death in order to save their country. To see him be so upset at a death, while everyone else calmly watches and insists that he ought to be totally happy about it because at least he didn’t die was so interesting, yet heartbreaking. Interesting because it really shows the fundamental difference between times, and heartbreaking because every time someone said “he was just a guard” I want to punch them in the face.

Also the time-travel was explained in such a cool way. So much more complicated and interesting than the simple “it was a dream”. The scene of Ye Qingmei’s arrival in Qing was sooooo cool (fun fact, that was actually the scene that made me interested in this show). There are so many mysteries left to be solved next season and I cannot wait 2 years just to figure out who Ying Zi is! Or what is hidden in the manor! Or what their wuxia skills are if Zhen qi is not real. Or why the godly temple changes according to everyone’s imagination and how it just... disappeared. Honestly there’s too many questions left in my brain to possibly list them all.

Acting (My Rating - A):

I mean, with veteran actors the likes of Chen Daoming and Wu Gang the acting level of this show must be good. Zhang Ruoyun is definitely one of the most talented actors of the younger generation, he manages to be both ruthless and cruel when seeking revenge, yet playful and witty other times. Li Qin is also a great actress! She does better with more complex roles (like when she turned evil in Princess Agents, that was some great acting!) but Wan’er, despite her simplicity, is still very lovable thanks to her portrayal. There was one scene with the emperor that really made me shiver (when he “forgave” that judge). Such good acting! I also really like Li Chun’s portrayal of Si Lili, Xin Zhilei’s of Haitang Duoduo (a very lovable character), Liu Duanduan’s of the Second Prince and Song Yi’s of Fan Ruoruo.

Also Guo Qilin as Fan Sizhe and Tian Yu as Wang Qinian! The two roles basically created for comic relief are not only lovable, but also acted so well! The comedy doesn’t seem forced nor awkward, it just feels very natural. The only problem I have with the acting is that Fan Xian and Lin Wan’er don’t have that much chemistry. Like, they are cute together and will certainly be a great couple, but I just don’t feel the love between them. It’s kind of awkward though, especially when you see Fan Xian with the other ladies that like him because for some reason they manage to have more chemistry than the main couple.

Characters (My Rating - A):

One of Wang Juan’s great talents in scriptwriting is the ability to make every character complex. There are no evil characters that are evil, to be evil, nor any characters that are only pure goodness, because that is how humans are. People have motives to do actions, and all actions have consequences. There is no black and white, only grey space. I found it amazing that, with one line, Cheng Jushu, a character that could have existed to be a tool in the plot, became a character worthy of sympathy and deeper analyzing. All the characters, with some exceptions of course, are so lovable! I love Fan Xian’s sarcastic and cunning personality! Actually, I love the entire Fan family! Fan Jian seems like a cold person on the outside but is actually cares a lot for his children, even Fan Xian, Liu Ruyu also treats Fan Xian like a member of the family despite his illegitimate child status (though it took some time for her to like him), Fan Sizhe is just so hilarious and cute, and Fan Ruoruo is such a great sister!

Cinematography (My Rating - B+): I don’t like the fact that that sometimes the faces look almost like... green? But some shots are really pretty and beautiful. The fight scenes are also quite nice, no overuse of slomo and good mix of doubles and real people.

Sets/Costumes (My Rating - A): The sets for the palace and several streets are really exquisite and seem really realistic. The sets for the brothel and the Qing palace were especially pretty. The costumes are also really pretty! Wan’er’s dresses look like those fit for a princess!

Music (My Rating - A-): There are only two OSTs, but both are so great! Li Jian’s title song instantly brings you into a guzhuang mood (if that is a thing), while Xiao Zhan’s ending song is really catchy. The songs played within the show are also really nicely chosen. They fit with the scenes really well!

Overall Rating: A+

Recommend For: People looking for an intelligent drama that is not only full of suspense and mysteries, but also several storylines intertwined. People who want to see smart characters participate in a battle of the brains with all sorts of tricks and plots. Also if you liked dramas like Nirvana in Fire or Young Blood then Joy of Life is definitely your thing!

#cdrama #Cdrama Review #so good!#this and Young Blood are my two favorite guzhuang dramas ever #also Zhen Huan and NiF of course #庆余年 #Joy of Life #Zhang Ruoyun #张若昀 #li qin #李沁

40 notes · View notes