#why were you at an inn crying over sqq

[stiltonbasket]

I was today years old when I found out about the Binghe cameo in MDZS...

[imaginaryelle]

Hi, again..... If you don't mind me asking, what are your top 5 favorite moments from SVSSS novel? And why?

And who are your top 5 favorite characters from SVSSS novel? And why? Sorry if you've answered this question before.....

(Thank you so much for answering my ask before, by dividing them in categories 😊)....

I apologize for the extreme delay in answering this—I really thought I had actually answered it already! I do not mind the ask at all, I just got very distracted apparently. You may uh. Notice a theme here. I will try to break it up a bit with categories again so that I’m not just crying over qijiu and nothing else.

Warnings for: angst and blood mentions. For favorite moments and characters in the parody novel, you ask? Yes, yes for favorite moments and characters in the parody novel.

Okay, 5 favorite moments:

1. Replays in My Mind on Repeat: Original!Shen Qingqiu in the Water Prison, confronted with Yue Qingyuan’s death.

The verbal prodding at his jailer, the laughter, the introspection, the red string of fate imagery with the blood !! I will never be over this scene, okay, the Qijiu extras in general are the part of canon I revisit most often, and this scene is just. The total tone switch between Shen Yuan’s storyline and the extras makes it hit harder, you know? And it hits pretty hard already.

“The sword is broken, the person is dead.

It shouldn’t be like this.

A thread of blood stretched out, moving closer until it was just about to meet another and tie. It missed and coiled back.

It broke.”

Excuse me I need to go scream into the void.

2. Coolest Worldbuilding Detail: Sun and Moon Dew Flower

This one was super hard to choose because the worldbuilding is actually the thing I love most about SVSSS. There are so many hints that are juuuust fleshed out enough to make me wonder about them. Xin Mo’s world-hopping thing comes a close second probably, but the Sun and Moon Dew Flower gets the mention because not only is it a cool concept, but the continuation of the plot hinges on it in entirely unexpected ways, not because SQQ needs it, but because Tianlang-jun needs it.

3. Made Me Scream with the Implications: Shen Yuan accessing Shen Jiu’s old, corrupted memories

Y’all. How much of memory is the body, and how much is the soul? How much of who you are is what you remember? How much of of your personality lives in your bones, in your muscle memory, in a perfect poker face that you don’t even have to think about anymore? How much of you is consistent across multiple lifetimes?

Also there’s A+ Qijiu content. The door conversation gets to me every time.

4. Most Heartbeaking Moment: Yue Qingyuan’s confession

I know, I know there’s a theme here but this moment. This moment and the extras saved the entire novel for me. We find out so much about what happened to propel the events of the past 25 years or so right at the end, and this is the last puzzle piece clicking into place. Yue Qi and Shen Jiu, and a broken promise that cut them both, a precursor to the percieved betrayal between Su Xiyan and Tianlang-jun, and both of those misunderstandings bearing down on Luo Binghe like shards of broken glass.

What would be different, if those promises were kept? What would be different, if Shen Jiu got the chance Tianlang-jun did, to learn that he had not been betrayed before he died? These are questions that literally keep me up at night.

5. Funniest Moment: Two rooms at the inn for SQQ, LBH and LQG

The entire chapter is funny but this is the best, to me. I must get away from the gay, Shen Qingqiu tells himself while claiming a room for only himself. Because I am straight and reading a stallion novel obviously proves that I’m straight. But oh, Liu-shidi can visit. Liu Qingge is the straightest person ever! So beautiful, and so very straight as he gives me back the fan he’s been hanging onto for five years at this point, after attacking Luo Binghe over and over again in an effort to retrieve my body. I am in no danger of gay happening here.

I mean this line: “It was true that Liu Qingge was, since the beginning of time, the world’s first straight man, as straight as the reflection of the sun and moon or the day and night.”

This line is a work of art, okay.

Favorite characters:

1. Most likely to inspire fic writing: Shen Jiu

Probably not a surprise given the above moments list but oh, Shen Jiu. So much potential. So much influence on the plot when he’s not even there anymore. I love it. If Mo Xuanyu haunts the edges of MDZS, Shen Jiu is an ever-present spectre in SVSSS. Now, I will say that I am a huge fan of the idea that Shen Jiu and Shen Yuan are the same person, just different reincarnations of the same soul. But I tend to like Shen Jiu better, because I find him more interesting. He’s bitter and cruel and should never have been put in charge of children without significant time in therapy but he has solid reasons for being that way that can be directly traced to his life experience. He’s loyal even when he’s been betrayed, and he acts altruistically to save Liu Qingge even though they’ve literally never managed to have a civil conversation. His past and these qualities don’t excuse his actions, obviously, but they do make him an extremely complex character, and that paired with his rather extreme influence on the plot makes him prime fic material in all sorts of ways.

2. Favorite Moron with an Overpowered Sword: Yue Qingyuan

Funny how there’s two of those, isn’t it? Look, Yue Qingyuan messed up. He messed up badly in several ways. His is a truly impressive case of trying to do the right thing and just fucking it up over, and over, and over again. I’ve written before about the parallels between Yue Qingyuan and Luo Binghe (plot parallels, though they’re also both intelligent, reportedly handsome and improbably endowed, likely to repeatedly overstep personal boundaries and then cry/apologize about it, etc.), but Yue Qingyuan is more interesting to me because every step of the way it’s his choices that lead to his own downfall. Luo Binghe gets buffeted around by the plot and all those broken promises I mentioned above, but Yue Qingyuan chose power over reliability and ended up destroying the most important relationship in his life. And in reaction to that he swung too far in the other direction: he let his need to reclaim that idea that Shen Jiu would see him as reliable lead him into situations where he was indulgent instead of exercising any authority. His choices are pivotal to multiple plotlines, and yet he’s barely seen in canon because Shen Yuan just. Straight up doesn’t care for quite a long time, and doesn’t know why he should.

3. Favorite non-OT3 Peak Lord: Mu Qingfang

The OT3 is Liu Qingge/Yue Qingyuan/Shen Qingqiu, but I feel like I should talk about someone else so! Mu Qingfang. Mu Qingfang suffers so much nonsense. Also his sense of humor is excellent.

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

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

The deadpan practicality is just so good.

4. Favorite protagonist for a prequel novel: Su Xiyan

Listen. Su Xiyan should have a novel. I think Su Xiyan is the most complex character in the canon, and I want to know—how long was she working the con, and when did she fall in love? What did her fellow Huan Hua Palace disciples think of her? How did she learn the bloodline seal that saved Binghe’s life long enough for him to actually be born? Almost all we have left of her is a story told by a man who found her bleeding out of her pores on the road, trying to return to a lover she didn’t know was already lost. And Binghe’s looks. The sheer willpower, the determination she must have had. Both Tianlang-jun and Yue Qingyuan imply she was fierce and often cold, and a skilled fighter. What might she have done, if she’d lived? What could she do as the head of Huan Hua Palace, assuming she was allowed to actually succeed the Old Palace Master? I want to know, okay. She’d make a fantastic protagonist, even if her story still ended in tragedy.

5. Favorite non-Cang-Qiong Character: Gongyi Xiao

Gongyi Xiao tries so hard. He’s young and gifted and nice, which is like. An incredibly rare quality in his world. And again, so much potential, cut short. Would love to have seen more of him.