#LOOK UNFLINCHINGLY AT WHAT YOU'VE WROUGHT

[oleanderedits]

Hi,.....if you don't mind me asking, can I ask your top 5 (or top 3) favorite characters from SVSSS? And why do you love them? And your top 5 favorite moments from the novel? Sorry if you've answered this question before....Thanks....

Top 3 characters from SVSSS:

Airplane/SQH - the little rat man author has wormed his way into my heart and now I live and breath his meta the way traces of himself are in every bit of PIDW and SVSSS. I like that he is unabashedly a coward but still unflinchingly loyal to those he cares about. I like that he built a world that is so clearly a reflection of his own hopes and dreams and nightmares and everything in between and came out of it going 'I like this place. I like this story' which comes across as 'I like myself'.

Mobei-jun - SQH's literal dream man that he still doesn't understand even after decades of being friends and also, literally writing him into existence. Superb. Wonderful. I love the way he actively tries to love SQH despite not understanding how to get that across properly and that he learns from his mistakes even when they hurt him emotionally and he wants to run from them and they seem too big to deal with. He still forces himself to do so. Love that he's a tits out kind of man.

Gongyi Xiao - the man who could have been the protagonist in another a story. He's a good person striving to live true to his morals in a sect that keeps ignoring that morals exist. Unlike most of the characters in the book, he saw one instance that implied some sort of abuse and immediately decided to help them get away from their implied abuser. He deserved better.

Top 5 moments from the novel

SQQ hearing the song about him and LBH for the first time. I know it's mostly the english translation that does this, but the translator nailed the bit with the number and variety of euphemisms for papapa that they squeezed into that description,

I really like MBJs first appearance at the Immortal Alliance Conference. Great entrance. Exactly how an enigmatic future-second-in-command should be introduced. Special shout out to SQQ following this whole sequence up by throwing the demon spiders at SQH's prone body in a petty attempt to get back at him for causing the IAC to go badly.

"Fuck! He can't fly!" was such a sudden turn of the apparent narrative for SQH and MBJ's relationship that it stands out as an 'oh shit!' moment for me. It's very powerful as events go once you get into all the extras, but even before that it stands out as being so outside the norm that you know there's something deeper involved than what SQQ had been seeing and thinking and telling the readers through his narrative voice.

The (terrible) sex to save the universe. Love that trope being turned on its head and it being a bad experience all around and it not really solving anything because it wasn't the sex that saved the world it was SQQ accepting his own feelings and repressed desires that allowed for it to happen in the first place. So really it was the 'coming to terms with who he was and not rejecting it or running from it' that saved the world.

I liked most of the Sower arc. It was a very interesting look at what SQQ expected of the story vs the changes his actions had wrought as well as the acceleration and adjustments of various arcs to try and fit the new narrative. Also, the mystery of the sowers and how the sickness spread was really well written.

From the Extras

All of the Airplane Extras

[cobrajuincy]

I JUST NOTICED YOUR TUMBLR USERNAME IM GOJGDKJKGDKGJDJDKFGJKGLGDKGJ

DUDE it’s been this way for a WHILE......that comment shook me to my core