Every Time I Remember This I Laugh So Hard I Cry

my friend had a vision.

Disciple Shen Yuan during the Qing generation. SY is on Qing Jing and is loved and well liked by (most) of his peers, even the ones off-peak! He only has two problems: 1: Him and Shen Jiu are at each other's throats constantly. It's like worse than a rivalry. People are convinced they legit want to kill each other. While expected from SJ, people are always surprised it's equally instigated and fought by SY. He's normally one of the sweetest people on his whole Peak!

2: SY, even while trying his hardest from his FIRST puberty to stop it, has a TERRIBLE ugly duckling phase. Poor kid has ALL the problems a teenager would feel embarrassed about except like tenfold. He got beat with the ugly stick till it broke. This is something that SJ picks at constantly, too, to try and make him self conscious. (SY is more upset that SJ doesn't even have breakouts, that prick.)

The Ascension of the current gen of Peak Lords is coming up in a few years and their Shizun is trying to pick a successor. It's between SJ and SY. SJ proves his tactical mind and engineers a plot to ensure that SY will be off Peak for at least five years; that way he won't be an obstacle! His plan works and SY has to leave the mountain to chase some maguffin. SJ is made SQQ and everything is peachy keen! He won! Fuck you, SY, you ugly cunt! The five-ish years pass. SY comes back. SJ is there to greet him and subtly mock him. Except. When SY flies in on his sword.

He's hot.

SY is like the hottest man that SJ has ever seen in his life and CQM is FILLED with unnaturally attractive men. SY looks better than a damn succubus. If SJ had less decorum and control he thinks he would explode right where he stood just by looking at him. SY's face, his lips, how his robes cling to his body, even the sloppy tousle of his hair. SJ instantly knows two things:

1: SJ has GOT to get this man under him like ASAP. From the looks of some of the people around him (other Peak Lords, Disciples, rubbernecking strangers) they are all having the exact same thought. That CAN NOT be allowed to happen.

2: SY, from the look he gives to SJ and how he's somehow rude about being polite to him, still absolutely fucking hates him. Which is- SJ doesn't wanna think too deeply about why that makes SY hotter to him for some reason. Some stones are better left unturned.

When Luo Binghe comes to the Sect, SJ is too busy fighting off rival suitors, trying to court SY, and (most importantly) trying to get SY to even LIKE him to start with. So LBH never gets the shitty Shizun experience.

TY for coming to my TED talk.

I cannot believe there's absolutely no way to watch free shows and movies anymore, there are too many paid streaming platforms and pirating websites have viruses and ads preventing you from watching it uninterrupted((.)) id rather follow the rules and purchase media moving forward because it is too inconvenient. Seriously, free and no ads or viruses with 1080p streaming is DEAD.

Boop

"We're sometimes here to help"

Is there a word that’s a mix between angry and sad

Thank you for the drawing requests, I'll get to those but this was important

I love the use of the phrase 'some strange alchemy' as a descriptor for a process you don't understand.

'Through some strange alchemy(crochet) they turned a bundle of yarn into a stuffed giraffe'

'Through some strange alchemy(bad cooking) they turned a perfectly marinated steak into a charcoal briquet'

'Through some strange alchemy(good cooking) they turned a pile of slop into the fluffiest bread loaf I'd ever seen'

'Through some strange alchemy(bad reading comprehension) they took my polite statement and turned into a disgusting act against the poor'

and so on

PERSONA 3 PORTABLE PORTS IN LESS THAN A WEEK LETS GOOOO

In various places -- here, the bird app, even YouTube comments -- I keep running into people with some variation of the same question:

"Does Scum Villain have a teacher/student romance?" And every time I want to answer with: No, But Also Yes, But Also Not Really, It's Complicated (And That's On Purpose.)

Which is an answer that's too long to fit in a tweet or a YT comment, but fortunately tumblr has no (effective) post limit! So here I go.

1 - No

In the very straight forward porn cliche sense of "oh but professor, I really ~need~ to pass this class or my life will be ruined, can't I do ~anything~ to get you to change my grade?" *bats lashes* and "Hoho, my pretty young teen student, I've got your good grade right here in my pants, if you ~apply~ yourself..." then no.

No sex or romance between a teacher and their student in the bounds of a teacher-student relationship happens in this book. No deliberate grooming of an underage student on the part of a teacher occurs in this book. No sex or a romance between an adult character and an underage character occurs in this book, nor is the adult 'waiting' for the minor to reach adulthood to initiate one.

2 - But Also Yes

No sex or romance between a teacher and their student in the bounds of that relationship happens in this book. Two people who were formerly in a teacher and student relationship do enter into a sexual and romantic relationship by the end of the book. Also the nature of the society they're in further means that even though they are no longer in the schooling environment, it is socially assumed that the deference owed by a student to their teacher lasts forever, even after the student leaves that environment, and they continue to regard themselves and refer to themselves in those roles even though the teacher no longer strictly speaking has authority over the student.

Also, the student was really hot for his teacher even when he was still a student. (The teacher was oblivious to this fact.)

3 - But Also Not Really

By the time sex and romance is even on the horizon for these characters, their relationship has so drastically changed from that of a "teacher and student" that it is barely recognizeable as such. The power/authority dynamic between a teacher and their student is subsumed pretty much entirely by the facts that:

A. The 'student' has become a medeival fantasy warlord of such unsurpassable magic and might that literally no other person in this world can stand up against him, 'teacher' included, and the 'teacher' is well aware of that.

B. Also, the 'student' is metaphysically endowed (heh) with the Protagonist Halo, a literally active force within the setting they're part of, which means that not only can he not be defeated, he ontologically cannot be denied anything that he desires; what he wants, he gets, and what he doesn't want, cannot be forced on him.

C. ...But also, the teacher in this setting is a metaphysical outsider to the world order the student is part of, which means that he is aware of all of the above, and can and does manipulate it to suit his own agenda, which may or may not align with giving the student what he wants at any point in time. Assuming that the teacher has the correct understanding of what the student wants. (He doesn't.)

D. ........But also also, for all his power, one harsh word from him can destroy him. For all his knowledge, one tear can devastate him. (Which one? Both.)

4 - It's Complicated (On Purpose)

*throws the chalk against the wall*

Between a teacher and their student, who has the power? Between an emperor and a scholar, who has the power? Between a hero and the villain he is predestined to destroy, who has the power? Between a character and the reader who's read ahead to the end of the story, who has the power? Do we find some of these power imbalances more acceptable than others? And if so, why do we?

Trying to track Who Has The Power or Who Has An Unfair Advantage socially, physically, and metaphysically between this particular pair of characters is damn near impossible and that's on purpose.

The Scum Villain's Self Saving System is a lot of things, but one thing that absolutely defines it is that it is a parody. It's a parody and a deconstruction of a lot of things -- the 'stallion' genre, the 'isekai' genre, the 'pay-per-chapter webnovel' genre, the 'gay drama' genre and, most relevant to this conversation, it is a deconstruction of teacher-student romance.

What kind of a teacher-student romance has a clueless, fish-out-of water NEET in the role of the Wise Old Mentor? What kind of a teacher-student romance has a black-hearted, demonic, domineering feudal warlord in the role of the Blushing Virginal Student? What kind of a teacher-student romance has the two principals so close in age -- by the end of the book, they may be as little as a year apart -- that they're more like peers than teacher and student? What kind of audience are we, going into a story like this one and finding ourselves cheering for the teacher to fall in love and lust with his student, only to be disappointed when that doesn't happen because the teacher fails for three books straight to recognize love and lust when it's literally looking him in the face and crying?

Asking "does Scum Villain have a teacher-student romance?" is sort of like asking "does Galaxy Quest have a lot of high science fiction concepts?" No, but also yes, but also not really. It's complicated, and that's on purpose.