#i talk about maigu ridge here but i keep things pretty vague so i don't think it needs a cw

[stardust-falling]

Hello.... Can I ask your top 5 (or top 3) favorite characters from SVSSS? And why you loved them? And your top 5 favorite moments from the series? Thanks if you want to answer....

Top 5 favorite characters:

1 - Shen Jiu 2/3 - Yue Qingyuan, Shen Yuan 4/5 - Luo Binghe, Gongyi Xiao

Honestly, it's super hard to decide my favorites, hence the 2/3, 4/5 here lmao. Depending on the meaning of "like" I really don't dislike any SV characters (obviously OPM, QJL, WYZ can go get fucked if we're talking about emotional affection/blorbofication, but I do still enjoy them in a meta sense for their roles in the story). But because SJ is both my favorite in terms of "I feel affection for this character and he is my little scrungly blorbo" as well as "I want to study him under a microscope like a bug" he gets the top spot easily.

Top five favorite moments is pretty hard too, since things are my favorite for different reasons... So I'll pick my favorite scenes for analysis, not necessarily for emotional reaction or attachment, in no particular order. Going under a cut because I rambled, as usual:

I really, really like the entire Holy Mausoleum arc, but I specifically like the part where SQQ and LBH are confronted by OPM and QHT. I feel like it's here that we can really see beneath the unreliable narrator and actually see that SQQ truly does love LBH back. Holy Mausoleum in general just says a lot about Bingqiu without saying it directly, and I do encourage everyone who thinks that SQQ doesn't actually love LBH back please reread that part while looking for it because damn, SQQ's narration tries to hide how much he actually cares for this boy.

Qijiu extras, the scene in the Lingxi caves. Between SJ's paranoid and irrational internal monologue that shows that despite everything, he really doesn't actually see himself as he is or as a legitimate peak lord, Yue Qingyuan's appearance at a critical moment to keep SJ from spiralling past the point of no return (contrasting this to his inability to return to Qiu Manor in time), the fact that even though they are not on good terms, YQY is still able to calm SJ down from qi deviation, and that SJ tolerates both his presence and his touch, it shows a lot that despite his paranoia and his hurt, a part of Shen Jiu still trusts Yue Qingyuan. The fact that it's revealed that they're in the very cave that YQY was trapped in with Xuan Su is just the icing on the cake... the truth is laid out before them, just a step from being revealed, but still isn't... I just think this scene really is so important to show how 79's relationship stands on a deep level, both the trust that is still there as well as the barriers.

Skinner demon confrontation, after they're captured. The irony of the first mission being to take down a demon that's literally wearing someone else's identity as their own is great. There's also Luo Binghe's sexual awakening upon seeing SQQ shirtless, which is honestly quite funny to me as an ace person. But my favorite thing, I think, is the way that SQQ sets up Die'er's defeat by using LBH as bait which, while it is successful due to the genre's conventions, also makes Luo Binghe's trust waver... it sort of sets the tone for the entire emotional conflict of the novel. Despite SQQ knowing that LBH will be fine, since it has all been decreed by plot, he underestimates how much it will hurt him-- and he's thinking about hurting LBH in terms of how it will affect SQQ himself later on, rather than LBH's own pain. Then, afterwards, SQQ leaves LBH behind to go into seclusion, he gives LBH the new manual but doesn't move him out of the woodshed, and there's no indication that Ming Fan's bullying stopped during that time either. When SQQ returns, he ends up sacrificing himself and taking the poisoned hit for LBH... in a way this all just parallels the actual plot of the novel in short-form and I think that's very, very neat.

The water prison arc-- everything from LBH's visit where he stops LPM from attacking SQQ, where SQQ refuses to answer LBH's question because of his inaccurate perception of the situation, LBH's volatile emotions in this sequence, Gongyi Xiao's assumptions that LBH had assaulted SQQ and SQQ's complete obliviousness to that possibility, plus just GYX being the best boy ever tbh, he doesn't deserve to live in this messed up book and certainly doesn't deserve to die. This sequence has so much about how inaccurate perceptions of situations can lead to wildly off-base interpretations and how a lack of proper communication can escalate a conflict where it really didn't need to escalate. The "perceptions and interpretations vs. reality" idea is another major theme in SV, and this sequence really showcases a lot of that in a clear way.

Maigu Ridge. This one's controversial. A lot of people have a lot of opinions about it and let me just make a disclaimer that I'm not including this one because I enjoyed reading it on an emotional level. Maigu Ridge is FUCKED UP!! It's a massively fucked up situation for all parties! It's uncomfortable, and definitely something that warrants a trigger warning before reading the book-- and yet, it's so interesting to analyze from a hypothetical standpoint because the situation is just so, so messy in terms of who gives consent and who doesn't-- and does anyone really have the option to consent here, since both parties are under the complete control of the narrative-- in terms of who hurts who, etc. There are a lot of little details to debate, and of course there's the instant, knee-jerk surface reaction that people get, which I can totally understand especially if you didn't go in expecting this sort of scene and ended up getting triggered by it, but once you start to peel back the layers you can actually find that this scene is way more complicated than 'one party as the aggressor/one party as the victim.' It's a deconstruction and subversion of tropes, but also a really interesting place to analyze themes of consent as a whole, and the effects on the individuals involved. For this, honestly, people just need to remember that these are fictional characters. It's not saying anything about IRL survivors, and I'm a major proponent of considering massively fucked up situations through a fictional lens in order to understand the shades of gray that may exist in similar but less-extreme situations in real life, without the possibility of your deliberations causing harm to any party since in the fictional scenario, since none of the characters are real (I can't even begin to tell you how much of my own trauma I've processed based on extreme fictional scenarios). But on the flip side, if the scene upsets you or triggers you, it's perfectly valid to dislike it! It's also perfectly valid for you to dislike the Bingqiu relationship because of it! It's not for everyone and I completely get that, but also, keep in mind that people analyzing the scene in different ways doesn't have anything to do with how they'd react to real-life situations. It's all about what works best for each person.

Anyway that last one got really long, just because I've seen so much knee-jerk reaction in fandom with it and tbh, I feel like I have to cover my bases these days.

A lot of people say that SVSSS is less well-written than MXTX's other books, and while it does have issues, I wouldn't say that the book isn't well-written. I have no idea how much of what I talked about in those scenes above is deliberately intentional storytelling and how much just sort of happened, but those are just some of the reasons that I really do think it's actually a very good book, genuinely, and not the only scenes at that, I just limited to five here.

I hope you enjoyed reading all my ramblings-- SVSSS brainrot is real and the hyperfixation is going strong haha.