#tossawary rereads svsss

[tossawary]

I finished Volume 3 of SVSSS, which encompasses the main story, and currently have my bookmark sitting at the first chapter of the Airplane Extras in Volume 4. I took a bunch of quote pics but have yet to review them and add thoughts.

Every time I read SVSSS, I forget how... incredible... the inside of Shen Yuan's head is. He's fascinating.

Like, he's misogynistic (even while criticizing Airplane's own misogynistic writing), he's homophobic, AND he's transphobic. Not in a way where I think he thinks anyone deserves fewer rights than anyone else (I think he's generally a nice person, although, holy shit, I would not trust this man to craft policy of any kind) or would prevent anyone from living however they chose to live, a lot of his problematic bullshit stays inside his own head as he tries to understand the world around him using the stallion novel formulas he was given, but he's carrying around SO MUCH unexamined bias that supports his refusal to examine himself and his own desires.

Some of it reads (presumably intentionally) a LOT like the kind of conflicting, problematic bullshit a lot of queer people carry around inside their heads as they struggle to untangle themselves and their beliefs.

And while I do wish that Shen Yuan had been forced to confront and address his misogyny and transmisogyny even further than it does come up (in part because it is DEFINITELY affecting the way he thinks about gay men as well, including and especially Binghe), I do kind of... appreciate on some level that he thinks this way? From a character standpoint? Because I think it's probably realistic for a privileged young man spending a lot of time on the internet reading shit like PIDW to look at the world this way. And it's clear even through his own narration that his blindness in certain areas is causing him a lot of trouble. While I do have criticisms and personal wishes, I do appreciate the depiction of personal character development that is just... a cringeworthy mess of internalized bullshit the whole fucking time.

Also, it's SO funny to me that he reads as SO aro-ace-spectrum to me (probably gay, but generally detached from sexuality and possibly also partially from gender) AND he actually knows... the word asexual, I don't think he has a very broad understanding of asexuality... but he knows the word and yet doesn't personally identify that way. He mentally accuses both Luo Binghe (main story, before finding out Binghe is into him) and Liu Qingge (Succubus Extra) of being asexual for showing no interest in women, only to fail to reflect on how he ALSO demonstrably has no lasting personal interest in the women around them, which doesn't read as very genuine to me.

(EDIT: Again, I am not against a bisexual Shen Yuan interpretation either! I am willing to be persuaded by any author who wishes to tell a particular story. But Shen Yuan's attraction towards women often reads personally to me as very shallow and possibly insincere.)

"I willingly read PIDW, that proves I'm straight!" he sincerely thinks to himself, even though his favorite wife is the one without explicit sex scenes and he also admits to skipping over a lot of them.

"I'm able to tell when women are beautiful, that makes me straight!" thinks the guy who mentally censors nudity whenever demon women lose their clothes, and keeps telling us how "the average reader" of PIDW would react to these beautiful women instead of conveying his own attracted reactions. His actual reactions are generally centered on a woman's narrative significance. The only people he personally seems to find attractive are Luo Binghe and maybe Liu Qingge.

Though my interpretation was that he does probably experience sexual arousal and have a sex drive (see his username), which probably helps with his conviction of straightness, I'm not sure that there's any mention of Shen Yuan even masturbating at all in the entire main story of SVSSS? He never tried to hook up with anyone. Sex is apparently not a priority for him.

(EDIT: He does seem to enjoy sex with Binghe in the "Bing-mei vs. Bing-ge" Extra. He loves Binghe and likes the closeness and the physical pleasure. I appreciate the indication that they're working on moving on from the AWFUL intercourse pushed by Xin Mo's possession and possibly also the System's Scenario Pusher.)

And Shen Yuan seems to view women as being and behaving Fundamentally Differently from men and gay men as behaving Fundamentally Differently from straight men (as soon as he learns Binghe is into him, he thinks about how Binghe isn't behaving like the characters in his sister's gay, non-con, BDSM erotica novels), seeing everything through the lens of novel tropes, such that he seems to view sex and sexuality and gender as being deeply mixed with a person's personality. So he can't be a gay man, because he's too "Normal", in his mind at first, because he doesn't behave like his own mental image of "How Gay Men Behave" (or "How Women Behave / A PIDW Wife Behaves"), while also demonstrably not being anything like "the average reader" of PIDW and also apparently not caring too much about his own masculinity? Like, I do think he likes being the gentleman scholar of Qing Jing Peak, he does like appearing dignified and strong and cool, he doesn't like losing, he doesn't really like playing "damsel in distress" roles, and I do think he likes being gallant towards women, but he's not too concerned about seriously competing with figures like Luo Binghe or Liu Qingge? He's happy enough to back down and let someone else take the lead if necessary. He puts up with being put into the roles of female leads even if it embarrasses him and he rolls with the punches to his pride easily enough. He seems to have decided his Sexuality By Default, so it does make me have a lot of thoughts about whether or not he's potentially going with Gender By Default / Convenience as well.

Someone get this man some amateur and academic literature on gender and sexuality (and a lot of other stuff), stat, so he can ignore it, probably.

[tossawary]

A quote and thoughts regarding Shen Yuan's opinions on Liu Mingyan and the "sexiness" of the Liu Mingyan versus Sha Hualing setup. He knows what he should be feeling in this situation as a "normal straight guy", but I don't think he's actually feeling it.

"Shen Qingqiu was very fond of this female lead, and it wasn't only because Liu Mingya's beauty points were the highest. It was also because she had great poise. She always understood the big picture and grasped the general situation, and her conduct was fair and honest. Even in Luo Binghe's gigantic harem, a wife with both intelligence and moral character was rare.

There was one more appeal factor. Liu Mingyan was the only female character for whom Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky didn't write detailed sex scenes. Many readers had been highly dissatisfied with this arrangement, to the point that they spammed the comments with their ranting, but this had given Liu Mingyan something no other female lead had: an image as clear as ice and pure as jade!

Can't be helped, the unobtainable ones are always the best.

[Sweatdropping shrug kaomoji that I can't type out.]

This was what made the second match worth watching. An evil demoness naturally demanded a righteous saintess as a rival. Every man dreamed of being caught between an angel and a devil. To watch them jealously vie with each other over him one moment, then risk life and limb for his sake in the next - that was the highest, most sacred, perverted fantasy of every male organism. He could drunk off the wild, untamed charm of the wicked seductress, and at the same time his heart would ache for the austere taste of the pure saintess who kept pulling him closer only to push him away!

One had to admit, "Great Master" Airplane was genuinely good at nailing what people found satisfying. Shen Qingqiu couldn't help giving Luo Binghe another glance.

Luo Binghe found it very hard to not care about that gaze. Why exactly did Shen Qingqiu keep looking at him? Was it possible that Shizun... really had an interest in him?"

Volume 1, Chapter 2, pages 111-112.

I'm not sure where to start with this! It's a lot! I'll just work backwards: it is very funny to have Shen Qingqiu repeatedly looking towards Luo Binghe, trying to see Binghe's reactions to Sha Hualing and Liu Mingyan, and Binghe's just like, "Shizun is looking at me???" I think "interest" in this case just means interest in Binghe as a disciple with potential, rather than anything else. Binghe is not paying any real attention to Sha Hualing or Liu Mingyan's attractiveness.

Oh! A rare compliment towards "Great Master" Airplane! Shen Yuan, don't strain those rarely used muscles!

I do find it amusing that Shen Yuan refers to Liu Mingyan as "moral" and "righteous" and "pure" here. The vibe I got with Liu Mingyan is that she sided with Luo Binghe to take down her brother's murderer, which I would agree is righteous and abides by a set of morals. But the first few pages of SVSSS inform us that PIDW Luo Binghe viciously destroyed the great cultivation sects, which means that PIDW wife Liu Mingyan either helped or stepped aside when a whole bunch of murder happened.

And the "my favorite wife is the one with no (or limited) sex scenes" is a classic Shen Yuan moment and one of the reasons he reads as being strongly on the asexuality spectrum to me. The way that he talks about heterosexual "male" desire gives me the same vibe. Like he's separated from it. Like he knows this is what he's "supposed" to feel and he just... doesn't... and it's possibly hard for him to recognize what sexual desire feels like (as opposed to, say, general sexual arousal that doesn't necessarily have a target) if he's never actually experienced it himself. He knows what he should be feeling if he was the "every man" reader of PIDW.

Even when he talks about Sha Hualing and Liu Mingyan's appeal, he says "wild, untamed charm" and "pulling him closer only to push him away" as the key components of the fantasy. Like, "being flirted with" and "being fought over and fought for" and "appreciating a distant beauty" are more important than "having sex". "The most appealing thing about Liu Mingyan is that she wouldn't actually go through with trying to have sex with me," says Shen Yuan.

He's like, "Oh, I can recognize that Liu Mingyan and Sha Hualing are physically attractive, that probably means I'm an Ordinary Straight Man." Even though the way that he talked about Liu Qingge's looks in the Ling Xi Caves was... not very heterosexual... and here, he mostly seems excited just to see one of his favorite characters.

Admittedly, Sha Hualing appears 15-16 here and I think Liu Mingyan is around the same age (she doesn't have her spiritual sword yet), so Shen Yuan is probably also not attracted to them just because they're teenagers. (I do not interpret him as sexually or romantically interested in Binghe at all at this point in time.) I headcanon Shen Yuan being 20-ish at this point in time, so he's probably not that much older than SHL or LMY, but they're probably around his younger sister's age (Shen Yuan's younger sister was old enough to be reading non-con, gay, BDSM erotica.) Sha Hualing shows up half-naked and Shen Yuan is just like, "Where are your shoes? Did you walk here like this? Wasn't that painful?"

In my opinion, Shen Yuan seems a little... relieved... to think that no one could be sexually or romantically interested in the scum villain. He does lament that it's hard to get a girlfriend like this, sure. He does think that he's going to die and that he'd eventually lose any woman to Binghe, so there's no point in trying. But he really, really does not try. "Oh, I can't pursue anyone because they'd never be interested in me! How frustrating! ...Anyway! Moving on to enjoy the many other little pleasures of life! Like food and monsters!" I think the closest he comes to flirting with anyone is when speaking to Liu Qingge in the Ling Xi Caves, while Liu Qingge is coughing up blood, and that did not seem intentional.

I think if he had transmigrated into any other character, who wasn't an "unappealing" villain, Shen Yuan still wouldn't pursue women. I think he'd be like, "Well, I want a beautiful woman, because I have standards! But all beautiful women belong to the protagonist, and no one is better than Binghe, there's no way I'd win that competition, so there's no point in trying!" At which point, it's just like, "Shen Yuan, anyone becomes beautiful when you love or like them; I don't think you actually want to fuck women."

I think if Shen Yuan had transmigrated in as Luo Binghe, he still wouldn't try to pursue women. He'd be like, "I'm just raising my standards for the harem! Some of those wives were not very intelligent or in possession of good moral character! Nearly three-digits is disrespectful to the better wives! I'm only interested in especially beautiful and skilled women, like Liu Mingyan, who's perfect! (And also won't try to have sex with me.)"

Like, I am not against a bisexual Shen Yuan. I am willing to be persuaded to go along with many different interpretations! But he does read to me generally as a gay asexual / demisexual who hasn't yet realized that a desire to be fawned over and an ability to recognize beauty is not necessarily the same thing as sexual attraction. (I do think he is attracted to Binghe after Binghe gets back from the Endless Abyss, but his feelings there are tied up in his very real, reasonable fear of murder and mutilation.)

[tossawary]

"Seeing how much he was suffering, Shen Qingqiu lightly clapped him on the back.

Liu Qingge instantly assumed that Shen Qingqiu intended him harm, but he was helpless to avoid the touch. Only after the palm connected did he feel a clear, steady stream of spiritual energy enter and flow through his body, smoothing his circulation.

Liu Qingge was more aghast than he would have been if Shen Qingqiu had stabbed him in the back. After all, he was used to the backstabbing.

Shen Qingqiu continued to pat his back. "Liu-shidi, to tell you the truth, lately Shixiong has been in seclusion, and he's come to realize many things," he said earnestly. "Seeing you at death's door, a beauty fading - ahem, dying so young, it brought back so many memories. Shixiong is deeply ashamed and filled with regret."

Liu Qingge began to hack up blood even more profusely.

"From this point on, how about we leave our disagreements behind us and move forward hand in hand as a pair of model sect siblings, full of the affection due to fellow sect members?" Shen Qingqiu suggested, tactfully expressing his goodwill. "How do you feel about this, Shidi?"

Laying his objective straight was a little shameful, but since he hadn't killed Liu Qingge, and had thereby changed the scene and avoided its evil karma, he figured why not go all the way and simply build a good relationship? Maybe Master Liu could even back him up in the future?

Liu Qingge's complexion was abnormally poor. He looked Shen Qingqiu in the eyes for a while. Then, as if he'd finally reached the limits of his tolerance, he said, "You. Go away." "

Volume 1, Chapter 2, page 96.

"A beauty fading"...? Shen Yuan, why... why did you say it like that? "Full of the affection due to fellow sect members"?? "Shixiong is deeply ashamed and filled with regret"???

The other peak lords have been dealing with this shit for at least a few weeks now, but Liu Qingge has been in seclusion and gets the full force of Shen Yuan after the OOC feature is gone. He must think he's fucking hallucinating. Shen Qingqiu is holding him, healing him, and being nice to him. What the fuck.

[tossawary]

Sooo... chapter 1 (page 11) says outright: "Luo Binghe used Xin Mo to release his body's seal on his demonic blood." Direct quote. I now feel very, VERY silly for missing this line when I was writing my essay on how I headcanoned Su Xiyan's seal on Binghe's demon side working, but it's also nice to be proven right in a way!

The Black Moon Rhinoceros-Python's abyss-summoning call (canon) must have only partially broken this space-based seal (headcanon) to reveal PIDW Binghe to the original Shen Qingqiu, and Xin Mo's special abilities were needed to get the seal off fully. Which means that PIDW Binghe was going through the Endless Abyss WITHOUT full access to his demon side, with a broken seal that I feel I can also assume was painful and probably impeded his cultivation.

No WONDER that SVSSS Binghe speedran his way through the Endless Abyss comparatively. Mobei-Jun (with his own weird abyss and portal powers, replacing the BMRP) ripped that seal clean off on the spot! Binghe got slam-dunked into full access to his demon side, but at least he didn't have to suffer the potential horrible pain of a half-broken seal for up to maybe five years.

It makes me want to think about (canon divergence / alternate canon) fic ideas in which Shang Qinghua might have dropped a line or even directly orchestrated this with Mobei-Jun - "Hey, my king, there's a heavenly demon kid at my sect with a really special seal on his powers, I think only you could rip it off? Then he could finally go to the Demon Realm!" - because if Airplane can't prevent his protagonist from going into the tyrant-making pit of suffering and despair (System says it has to happen), then maybe he can make it a little less torturous? Maybe that'll save his ass or Mobei-Jun's ass someday by making Bing-ge a little less insane- oh, shit, Shen Qingqiu is a fucking TRANSMIGRATOR?!

[tossawary]

Shen Yuan really seems to like Yue Qingyuan at the beginning of SVSSS. He's like, "Oh, this guy is big brother shaped! So helpful! I love this guy!" while also talking about how the original Shen Qingqiu was a terrible person taking advantage of this guy. He's right that Shen Jiu was an abusive asshole towards his disciples, but it's funny how Shen Yuan has NO knowledge of the depths of the Qijiu dynamic at this point. He just doesn't know the history! At all!

I'm not saying that Shen Yuan would judge Yue Qingyuan more harshly here if he knew Qijiu's history from the beginning. Yue Qingyuan did his best to help Shen Qingqiu in a very bad situation and the communication failure between Qijiu is very much a mutual issue with severe trauma acting as an obstacle on both sides, and I think Shen Yuan would probably find Yue Qingyuan even more sympathetic. It's just funny to me how Shen Yuan's view of Yue Qingyuan as a more three-dimensional person is currently clouded by his personal, seething dislike of the original scum villain.

It seems to me that in AU cases where Shen Yuan is wandering around at the same time as Qijiu (fanfiction AUs where Shen Yuan is not Shen Qingqiu), he would 100% be on Yue Qingyuan's side in any disagreement even if he didn't know what the disagreement was, just because he really doesn't like Shen Qingqiu. Yue Qingyuan would not be able to ask Shen Yuan for relationship advice even if he wanted to - and he would not want to, partly because he's pretty private and also because he's predisposed to view the situation as his own fault, both due to personal trauma.

Shen Yuan immediately @ Yue Qingyuan about his shitty boyfriend in every situation: "DUMP! HIM!"

[tossawary]

Shen Yuan might have been a bit of a shut-in in his past life, but he's actually also a very friendly and social guy! I think he ended up in a somewhat toxic environment on the internet in part because he has a genuine passionate interest in these stories and extremely low ambition regarding his family's business (understandable, bro), but this is also a form of socialization and he was EXTREMELY involved in it, and his family made up the remainder of his social life, leaving him moderately content. When transmigration takes away his family and his ability to talk to people on the internet, Shen Yuan HATES it.

"In his previous life, Shen Yuan had been well-off growing up, and he'd basically qualified as a modest example of a second-generation rich kid. His two older brothers had been set to inherit the family business and he'd doted on his little sister. The entire family had been very close."

Chapter 1, page 21.

"And now when he finally got a break to take a trip down the mountain, he was still trapped in his room because of the System's stance that "the original Shen Qingqiu liked quiet and would be unwilling to mingle."

Shen Qingqiu didn't even want to pretend to meditate, so he lay on the bed, just pretending to be dead.

Shortly before sunset, Ming Fan entered the room that deliver a report.

Finally, someone had come to talk to him - to keep him company. Shen Qingqiu couldn't help but want to weep for joy. Every perk belonged to the male lead, every loneliness to the cannon fodder. Accompanying young girls to view colored lanterns and such - none of that was for their lot."

Chapter 2, pages 64-65.

I think Shen Yuan is probably viewing hanging out with Ning Yingying the same way that he would view hanging out with his sister, in which he probably gets to play the indulgent older male relative figure. I think he likes being generous and friendly and having fun. And the System is like, "STOP IT! Stop being nice to people! Stop having fun and enjoying life! No smiling! It's OOC and you haven't even completed the first mission yet!"

[tossawary]

"There was no sense of time within the caves. Shen Qingqiu felt like he hadn't done anything at all when he day to end his seclusion arrived.

Shen Qingqiu sat cross-legged on a stone platform, eyes shut. He kept them closed until the last wisp of spiritual energy had finished circulating through all his limbs and bones.

Having intensively cultivated for several months, he could freely control his spiritual energy and had risen one level above his original cultivation base. This told him that he had obtained one hundred percent command over this body, and even the last shreds of discoordination had been annihilated. Both his eyes shone brightly, and his immortal figure now felt distinctly different from how it had been.

Shen Qingqiu jumped down from the stone platform, his body all the more graceful - as if his four limbs had been instilled with a breeze and filled with vigor.

Of course, it was possible this was only his subjective feeling. After all, the days in seclusion had passed so quickly, as if he'd jumped ahead in the video progress bar. If this were a novel, and not one padded out like that of "Great Master" Airplane's, the plot would have finished in one chapter.

Before leaving, he thought he ought to greet his neighbor, and so he knocked on the stone wall.

"Shidi, how is your situation over there?" he asked. "Shixiong will be leaving first."

His voice echoed in the empty cavern. While not loud, it could be clearly heard by a cultivator like Liu Qingge.

As expected, he received no response. Shen Qingqiu didn't mind."

Volume 1, Chapter 2, pages 98-99.

I'm glad that it's explicitly mentioned time is weird here, and I assume focusing on cultivation helped, because I feel like someone as social as Shen Yuan would not do too well being alone for several months otherwise. The way he knocks and calls out to Liu Qingge at the end is very cute. (Liu Qingge may think this is a hallucination.)

I'm enjoying imagining a fic now where Shen Yuan actually speaks to and checks on Liu Qingge throughout these several months, just to chat with someone and maybe get a few tips from a war god, so they get to know each other a little. Liu Qingge is stubborn, but Shen Yuan wears him down! After Liu Qingge gets out of the Ling Xi Caves, he's kind of like, "Wait, Nice Reformed Shen Qingqiu is REAL and not an imaginary byproduct of my qi deviation several months ago?!" (And Mu Qingfang is like, "Your WHAT NOW?!")

[tossawary]

"There was a very important reason Shen Yuan emphatically thought "fuck" at the sight of Yue Qingyuan. In the original work, Yue Qingyuan's death had been caused by his good shidi, Shen Qingqiu, okay?!

And what a horrific death it was. Tens of thousands of arrows had pierced him until bit even his bones remained!

At this moment, the victim was facing his own "murderer" and showering him with concern. The pressure was immense.

On second glance, though, the story hadn't yet unfolded to that point. Yue Qingyuan was still in perfect health, meaning that at this point in time, Shen Qingqiu had yet to reveal himself as a hypocrite and his reputation was still pristine. Yue Qingyuan was a bleeding heart, nothing to be afraid of. Though his character ended up suffering quite a bit, during his read, Shen Yuan gas been rather fond of him."

Chapter 1, page 18.

This bit is quite funny to me. Yue Qingyuan goes on to reveal (to the readers, at least, I don't know if Shen Yuan knew Yue Qingyuan had any idea) that he knows Shen Qingqiu is at the very least probably being overly harsh with a disciple who may or may not be disrespectful and disobedient. (Yue Qingyuan went through this same system and was at one point scratching blood into the walls of a cave while his soul bled out, so he probably doesn't have a particularly modern view on these things, even if he might not personally particularly like corporeal punishment.)

Describing him as a "bleeding heart" here is SUCH a good piece of dramatic irony. That is indeed Yue Qingyuan's deal!

And the Qijiu Extras reveal that Yue Qingyuan has already seen Shen Qingqiu loot dead bodies and stab his crooked cultivation master in the back, it was how they reunited, sooooo... yeah, Yue Qingyuan does not see Shen Qingqiu as particularly pristine. Shen Yuan could be (and probably is) saying that Shen Qingqiu's greater reputation in the cultivation world is pristine, not necessarily that he thinks that Yue Qingyuan (or Cang Qiong as a whole) thinks Shen Qingqiu is "pristine". But it's still a funny turn of phrase, dramatically ironic, when we know that Yue Qingyuan would help Shen Qingqiu hide a body.

[tossawary]

When Shen Yuan returns to Cang Qiong after the Skinner Demon mission, one of the first things that he does is report to Yue Qingyuan, and one of the first things that Yue Qingyuan does is take Shen Yuan by the wrist to check his health. (It must be very strange for Yue Qingyuan that this amnesiac Shen Qingqiu is letting him do these things without ripping his head off.)

"Shen Qingqiu was instantly surprised, however Yue Qingyuan made no further movements and instead examined him attentively through his pulse, even inserting a mild spiritual flow of his own to investigate Shen Qingqiu's. He realized then that Yue Qingyuan was only inspecting his spiritual circulation, and he relaxed.

After a moment, Yue Qingyuan let go. He smiled and walked with Shen Qingqiu into the main hall. "How was the training?"

His tone was like that of an eldest brother, which made Shen Qingqiu remember his former self's two brothers. He felt slight sorrow, but greater still was the comforting sense of warmth, to the point that even his dejected report came out cheery. "Unsatisfactory."

His disciples hadn't so much as glimpsed the Skinner Demon's shadow. Speaking from the angle of disciple-training, the trip really had been a bust.

"No need to rush," said Yue Qingyuan.

Shen Qingqiu nodded before suddenly changing the topic. "Zhangmen-shixiong, I wish to go to the back of Qiong Ding Peak and enter secluded cultivation without the Ling Xi Caves." "

Volume 1, Chapter 2, page 86.

I'm not sure that Shen Jiu did anything "cheery" in his life. Yue Qingyuan has very good control of his face. (Yue Qingyuan does visibly react to Shen Yuan saying that he wants to make use of the Ling Xi Caves here, but it's a quick flicker that Shen Yuan can't read clearly before it's gone.) Again, Yue Qingyuan must be having an extremely weird time with this.

Also "former self" is a hell of a way to refer to Shen Yuan's past life when I'm pretty sure it's only been a couple weeks at most? Shen Yuan is like: "I will put my grief in regards to the family I was 'very close' to in a box and I will deal with it never."

He really does see Yue Qingyuan as "big brother shaped" and likes him, though! That's kind of nice and a little funny to me in a slightly sad way. Yue Qingyuan is like, "Would you... like some affection and care and thoughtful support? Maybe we could hang out later?" And Shen Yuan is like, "Oh, yes, please! You're so nice! Sounds great!" (They have both lost the people they truly care about here and they can't know it / can never talk about it.)

[tossawary]

"Was it really going to make him look on while a child was being abused? This was really too much... Even so, Shen Qingqiu couldn't afford to take risks.

While he was anxiously fretting, a compromise suddenly came to him.

Cang Qiong Mountain Sect had a minor technique, "Plucking Leaves, Flying Flowers." At a glance, it wasn't very useful, just aesthetic and interesting. The novel had described how Luo Binghe used the technique to win the nth woman's affections. As Shen Qingqiu had, since his arrival, been furiously reviewing various manuals, he had also recently seen a description of it."

Chapter 1, page 43.

Shen Yuan may have inherited all of Shen Qingqiu's cultivation skill and he has to fake his way through a lot of interactions, but he does actually study and work to bring himself up to standard! And when he sees Binghe being bullied like this, he goes on to lose over 50% of his B-points driving Ming Fan and his lackeys off. He wants to return the jade pendant immediately, but knows it would count as another System violation and he has only 30 B-Points left.

Admittedly, he gets 100 B-Points for keeping the pendant and seems giddy about potentially being able to use it to curry favor with the protagonist. There are a lot of moments in this chapter where Shen Yuan is clearly still adjusting to his transmigration and he's having difficulty seeing everyone around him as people instead of characters yet - he's having a WEIRD couple of weeks here - so it makes sense to me that his mindset is kind of... detached and mercurial here? He thinks his life is on the line. He's not being nice to Binghe for Binghe's own sake, even if his personal desire and default is to be kind.

Still, this scene did win me over a little. It's not clear if Shen Yuan knows what a punishment from the System entails yet; it's a reasonable question for him to have asked off-screen, but the System was probably very vague at best. (He ends up having to experience having a limb ripped off on a later book. That's pretty fucked up.) But he still takes an enormous personal risk to interfere with what's kind of an average encounter in Luo Binghe's shitty life (though there is the significance of the false jade pendant), even though the System is insisting he can't take any credit for it.

Shen Yuan comes off as really young and stubborn here! Less used to the System's edicts and his character role! A little spoiled and very excited to have superpowers! Inexperienced and maybe more clear-sighted than he becomes when his relationship with Binghe gains genuine affection, followed by guilt, grief, and terror. Luo Binghe is just a kid and Shen Yuan is a brand new transmigrator (probably not much older than 19-20, honestly) who doesn't like bullies!

[tossawary]

Rereading SVSSS again! I need to brush up on my lore and characterization, which will hopefully get me over a particular form of writer's block I'm having right now. I will be using the "tossawary rereads svsss", "tossawary svsss", and "spoilers" tags, as per usual, in case people want to block any posts out or go through them.

[tossawary]

"In recent years, of all the major sects, Cang Qiong Mountain Sect had become number one when it came to cultivation; it had no real business rivals. That it was overflowing with wealth could be left unsaid. In short, Like they'd want for even a single horse!"

Volume 1, Chapter 1, page 53.

Here is one of the passages discussing Cang Qiong's status in the cultivation world, specifically one confirming that Cang Qiong has been on the rise with the current generation. Yue Qingyuan is doing a good job bringing in the money! And I personally assume that Shang Qinghua is heavily involved in a lot of this business (Yue Qingyuan took Shang Qinghua back after everything).

At the Immortal Alliance Conference, Shen Yuan confirms that Huan Hua Palace is the wealthiest of the great sects and the one with the most contact with the world beyond cultivation. However... given the way that Shen Yuan talks about An Ding Peak... I'm not sure that Shen Yuan is the foremost reliable narrator regarding Cang Qiong and Huan Hua's respective financial statues. Both sects are obviously wealthy and Huan Hua is probably the wealthier one, I just don't think Shen Yuan has seen the spreadsheets, whatever may actually be on them, and I think it's funny (and kind of realistic) that Huan Hua Palace might have secretly temporarily put themselves into debt in order to throw a huge, flashy sporting event. Happens all the time.

[tossawary]

I reached Shang Qinghua’s first appearance (in the middle of the Immortal Alliance Conference, right after the ghost-head spiders attack) and it’s been so long since I read his introduction. I am barely managing not to hoot with laughter here. This description of him is pretty good:

In truth, this person’s appearance could have been considered proper and handsome, it was just that in his every word and action there was an inescapable air of sleaziness. At the sight of Shen Qingqiu, he smiled and returned his sword, flowing with light, back to its sheath.

- SVSSS, Volume 1, Chapter 4

Shang Qinghua, you sleazy fucker, I love you. But on the same page is another description that is GREAT with hindsight. It’s really getting me.

Long ago, Shang Qinghua had been only one of An Ding Peak’s many insignificant and nameless disciples. Then he’d been captured by the demons, who had forced him to become a mole.

Ah, no, he hadn’t really been forced - he happily took on the important task of being a mole without even a hint of discomfort.

Secretly backed by demons, Shang Qinghua’s road became smooth sailing. He swiftly rose through the ranks until he actually attained the position of Peak Lord of An Ding Peak.

- SVSSS, Volume 1, Chapter 4

Shen Yuan is not a reliable narrator on character backstories in SVSSS, in part because Airplane Bro was not a reliable narrator in PIDW; Shen Yuan really has no idea how the Moshang relationship was started in the SVSSS world. The Moshang extras (which were almost certainly not written and possibly not even planned yet) accidentally retroactively make this description hilarious.

If ANYONE got kidnapped and “forced” into a master-spy relationship here, then it was NOT Shang Qinghua. Mobei-Jun was arguably “captured” by Shang Qinghua and then pressured into accepting Shang Qinghua as a servant! “Captured by demons”? Uh, sure. Maybe in PIDW, yeah! In SVSSS, that’s a funny way of saying, “Failed to kill an unconscious demon because he was too sexy, lugged that murderous demon’s bleeding body to safety, and then begged to serve that incredibly confused demon for the rest of his life.”

“Captured by demons”? Yeah, sure, Cucumber Bro, let’s go with that!

[tossawary]

"It just so happened that, deep within the mountains where the Immortal Alliance Conference was being held, there grew a mythical thousand-year-old flower.

Sorry, Shen Qingqiu had already forgotten exactly what the same was - whatever-flower or whatever-leaf - because the number of mythical flowers in Proud Immortal Demon Way numbered at least in the hundreds, and every single one was at least a thousand years old, and when you added on all the mythical grasses ad mythical trees, who the hell could remember all those names?!

(Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky, do you think mythical flowers are like Chinese cabbages on sale? Leave mythical flowers at least a little of the dignity that comes with being rare and precious!)"

Volume 1, Chapter 3, pages 142-143.

I'm kind of getting a "plants aren't cool monsters, so I'm not going to bother to remember them" vibe from this, which is fair enough! I do think it's funny when Shen Yuan calls Airplane out for using the same trope too many times. I assume it's the frequency of these plants with special abilities and long lifespans that bothers him, rather than there possibly being more than one of any one plant (they need to reproduce and it takes time for a plant to get to 1000+ years old).

[tossawary]

" "Those monstrous demons are truly despicable!" Disciple B said furiously. "Not only did they take advantage of our vulnerability to invade, they also severed the Rainbow Bridges connecting the Twelve Peaks and set up some strange barrier. Now Qiong Ding Peak is completely unable to receive support from the other peaks!" "

Volume 1, Chapter 2, page 100.

It is not mentioned how the Rainbow Bridges work or how they are repaired, but Shang Qinghua (who has not even been mentioned yet) and An Ding Peak, I am thinking of you. I have written too much Shang Qinghua not to immediately think, "Oh, no, that sounds like so much work to fix." (Though, at least cultivators can fly, which probably makes building bridges between mountain peaks a little easier than it could have been.)

[tossawary]

The passage where Sha Hualing loses her clothing:

"Next, this world proved itself to be truly that of a fanservice-packed stallion novel. After Sha Hualing was blasted away, she let out a single delicate scream, and the gauzy red cloth draped over her body - that had barely covered anything in the first place - also tore to shreds, eliciting a series of alarmed cries from the onlookers. She cushioned her landing with a beautifully executed roll, propelling herself to standing in a single movement. Demons were indeed bold and unrestrained; even though her entire body was censored out, Sha Hualing wasn't ashamed in the slightest. She spitefully tore off the cloak of a subordinate beside her, carelessly throwing it over herself.

"I underestimated you today," she said. "But we will definitely meet again in the future! Let's go!" "

Volume 1, Chapter 2, page 130.

I still wonder what "her entire body was censored out" means here. My assumption here (and when something similar happens later on) is that Shen Yuan is just ignoring the full-body nudity here. He is looking away. He is mentally applying black bars. This is a naked 15-16-year-old and he is NOT paying attention to that.

Honestly, I'm not sure whether or not I like this detail. On one hand, yeah, nipple slips and other flashing would be an inevitable side effect of wearing the skimpy clothing of harem stories, especially when you're wearing to battle. That's a realistic thing that would happen and I do find that a little funny. I do like the fact that this flashing happens quite quickly, no one appears to make that much of a deal out of it, and Sha Hualing covers herself quickly without feeling too much embarrassment. Despite this being an artifact of PIDW's sexy bullshit, it's treated practically here. Shen Qingqiu and Liu Qingge are not attracted to the demon teenager at all.

I can't full express what my issue with this nudity. I guess would prefer that if this had to happen, it had also happened more and to adult male characters as well, leaning into the sheer absurdity of living in the PIDW world. Shen Yuan loses a shirt to the Skinner Demon, and then later loses clothing again in the Water Prison, so that's something. But why not also have Liu Qingge lose a little more clothing in the Ling Xi Caves? Maybe Luo Binghe's blast of demonic energy during the Immortal Alliance Conference could have taken off Mobei-Jun's shirt? I'm going to be keeping track of the contrived nudity situations going forward.

It would be fun to write a fic in which the characters just... practically and tiredly deal with a world designed to eat clothing. It's not sexy. It's embarrassing, but mostly, everyone is very done with this.