#smallgear

mommy issues kind of form the core of the psychosexual freakshow that is SVSSS, and a lot of those issues hinge on Shen Jiu's impact on both Shen Yuan and Luo Binghe. in Shen Yuan's case, og!SQQ is a role he has to perform (something he both conforms to and rejects depending on the context), and in Luo Binghe's case, the cycle of abuse revolves around how Shen Jiu was made into a monster and then reenacted that abuse on Luo Binghe to make him a monster too (a process interrupted in SVSSS, but seen to ugly fruition in PIDW). a mother figure is someone that is supposed to care for you and guide you and someone who shapes how you emotionally interact with the world, and when that mother figure fails you in some way, deep resentment forms

the Abyss is symbolic of abjection, rejection, and distance, and the words unspoken between Shen Qingqiu and Luo Binghe widen this metaphorical abyss between them

bloodfeeding as a metaphor for breastfeeding. the overlap between disgust and desire, eroticism and taboo. honestly, this chapter is my favorite bit of analysis but that makes it the hardest one to summarize, sorry. disgust and taboo and eroticism and desire are all a big part of understanding SVSSS analysis. one thing I want to point out in this chapter is the note that while Shen Qingqiu is obviously the mommy figure, Luo Binghe is the one doing the bloodfeeding-as-breastfeeding, which goes back to a story tshirt cites on filial piety where a woman breastfeeds her elderly mother-in-law to care for her, subverting the typical breastfeeding associations by having the younger woman feed her elder

Freud's idea of demons as created when we project feelings of hatred onto the dead, where feelings of affection towards the dead collide with hostile feelings towards them, which then positions Shen Qingqiu as the demon created by Luo Binghe's mess of grief projected onto him. Luo Binghe is also a demon (metaphorically as well as literally) due to Shen Jiu projecting all his hatred onto him and making him into a vessel for his hatred

Luo Binghe's treatment of Shen Qingqiu's corpse is seen as strange and repulsive because he is violating a taboo through his desire to be close with a corpse, but it is ultimately made more abnormal because he doesn't actually fulfill the taboo since he doesn't violate any boundaries. instead, the taboo of desiring closeness to the dead is left unfulfilled because he does not want Shen Qingqiu to be dead so he will not treat him as dead. instead he uses his own life force to make Shen Qingqiu's corpse as close to alive as he can (once again circling back to the bloodfeeding/adult breastfeeding metaphor, the young feeding the old with their own body)

castration (and the fears surrounding it) are also central to the themes of SVSSS, in particular because Shen Yuan cannot stop bringing it up. this is linked to a lot of things, but one of those is a Qing dynasty story called Renyao that tshirt summarizes as involving crossdressing and castration. historically, the term "renyao" was used to refer to any physical abnormality or boundary crossing, and in modern Chinese, it has become a slur for transgender people -- specifically, it is the slur that Shen Qingqiu uses in the succubus extra that Seven Seas translates into English as "tranny." Shen Yuan has modern insecurities, grounded in historical/cultural associations, about people performing the wrong roles/performing those roles incorrectly, all symbolically rooted in these insecurities about castration

there is something inherently transgender about transmigration, at least in Shen Qingqiu's case, where he is put into a new role to perform -- and narratively, this role is often that of a woman. the idea of being gay is so far from his conception of himself at first that he instead tries to make the dynamic heterosexual by positioning himself as the woman. he also projects his own feelings for Luo Binghe onto other women, for similar reasons

however, once he realizes Luo Binghe is in love with him, he switches to referring to Binghe as the woman instead. basically, in Shen Qingqiu's weird little brain, anyone who is Luo Binghe's romantic interest must be a woman, and anyone who is a viable romantic interest to Shen Qingqiu must also be a woman, so when they're both romantic interests to each other, that means... they must both be women?? trans lesbians bingqiu real 👍

additionally, once Shen Qingqiu can no longer portray their dynamic as heterosexual, he switches to instead portray their dynamic as a mother and child. see: "if I was your mother, I wouldn't abort you."

if swords are to be seen as representations of the phallus, then Luo Binghe must be castrated (the destruction of Xin Mo) for them to have their happy ending