Currently reading: SVSSS

[krait]

I just finished the first volume of Scum Villain's Self-Saving System and have started the second volume!

Isekai isn't usually my thing, but it turns out that oblivious main characters amassing crushes left and right is exactly what I want from the genre, so it's been a lot of fun so far! Shen Qingqiu has managed to charm and then betray the protagonist, meet a fellow transmigrator, gather a rare mushroom, and vague about his plans for it.

Some of the illustrations are lovely, and the covers definitely are; the bookstore clerk even complimented them as I was checking out.

Has anyone else read it? Come and yell at me about it! I'm pretty thoroughly spoiled, so no worries on that front.

Comments

[viridian5]

I enjoyed the first three volumes a lot, but was very unhappy with the fourth, which featured the extras the author wrote, because everyone is almost everyone a terrible human being and the Luo Binghe/Shen QQ relationship was horrific to me. I don't know if it's because the extras are mostly not first-person fanboy POV like the first three volumes.

Everyone is nicer and cuddlier in 98% of the fic written for the series, but a lot of fic also woobifies Shen Jiu far more than I think he deserves. The poor Meow Meow was just totally misunderstood! Forget all about all that child abuse he perpetrated. But I deleted volume 4 from my mind and I'll be reading fic instead.

It is amusing to me how oblivious SQQ is about the harem he's amassing that just keeps getting bigger and bigger as the series goes on. Though I can totally understand how he misinterprets Luo Binghe's interest in him post-Endless Abyss because Bing-bing is genuinely scary toward him a lot of the time.

[krait]

I'm deeply enjoying how oblivious Shen Qingqiu is! It took him a volume and a half to buy a clue about Binghe, and that only happened because he got a kiss planted on him in a dream.

I was surprisingly proud of him when he told Luo Binghe what amounted to, 'I'm so confused by your actions that you might as well not say anything, because I don't know what to believe' (at the start of Volume 3). Good job, pal, you are Actually Communicating?! Of course it was interrupted shortly thereafter, but for these guys any step forward is a significant step. :D

I suspect fandom gives pretty much everybody in this series the Poor Little Meow Meow treatment, which... I guess I've learnt to live with? :D It seems to be common with canons that have a whole lot of Nobody's Doing Great Here attitude toward the cast of characters. From my experiences with other fandoms like that, I can go along with 'nice-ified' characters or biased presentations, as long as it's not biased entirely in a single character's favour. Make everyone their nicer, more communicative self: OK. Show several characters in a better light that reflects how they would see their own actions: OK. But "this one guy is perfect and has never done anything wrong in his life; everyone else is canonically questionable": nope, no thank you, no can do.

[viridian5]

I far prefer a fic Luo Binghe who wants the sex with SQQ to be good sex his Shizun enjoys--even if in some cases it's more about his ego than his partner--as opposed to volume 4 canon Binghe who's rough, too fast, and way too bitey and does little to no prep, and if he's told to slow down or be careful or can we just not do this tonight he cries rivers of tears about how his Shizun doesn't like or trust him until SQQ gives in. Sure, he's physically injuring and just about torturing his supposed loved one but don't you know how much hearing that hurts him? (I hate you, volume 4.)

There was a review on Goodreads.com about a lot of readers' similar reaction to this in which the poster goes on about how spoiled Americans want to read sex that's pleasurable and not emotionally coercive--how dare they--and just don't understand Chinese culture and I was just "...." about it.

[krait]

Oh, yeah, I can see how that would be a very divisive setup! I can't say how I feel about it till I get there (I'm about halfway through Volume 3 right now) but that's definitely not a dynamic with universal appeal...

I really need an SVSSS icon now, darn it.

[viridian5]

I was so upset about this unexpected and awful turn of canon events--"He gets better with more experience, right? ...wait, he doesn't want to bother with getting better and less hurtful?"--that I had to rant to a friend about it... and since none of my friends read MXTX's work, she had to listen and take my word on everything with almost no background of her own. (Sorry, Kasha! I appreciate you, girl!)