lebateleur | What Am I Reading Wednesday

Long hours at work + four sessions for four campaigns since Sunday mean I'm behind on everything.

What I Finished Reading This Week

The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System vol. 2 – Mo Xiang Tong Xiu
Yup. This one really worked for me. For one thing, the translation was smoother than that of the previous volume (and vastly better than the first volume of Grandmaster): so much so that it was jarring when a character gave a “delicate shout,” instead of part of a litany of poorly considered wording.

I’d initially hoped MXTX would be bona fide historical fiction, ala Akizuki Koh’s novels, her and was disappointed when I first read her to find that her novels were modern BL in historical fantasy cosplay. This time around I knew what I was signing up for, and could enjoy the hijinx and irreverence much more because of it. Nor does it hurt that tonally, this series reads like a cross between Sugiura Shiho and Higuri You, if Sugiura had written a more crotchety and cynical main character with imposter syndrome. It’s all very fun.

And then, there was The Plot. I. It. Yes.

Guys, the plot ticks so many of my boxes.

I mentioned Higuri You above; her Seimaden helped set my highwater mark for melodramatic romantic bombast that is just the right amount of over the top without belaboring the point, and the second half of Scum Villain volume 2 is cut from the same cloth. To wit, we have:

An emotionally unbalanced, resentful love interest who doesn’t know where they stand with the object of their affections
And swings back and forth between extremes of deferential tenderness and Burn The Whole World Down^TM rage because they can’t figure out their feelings
While finding the object of their adoration confusing and inscrutable
While said object has No Clue That This Is Love^TM
There’s also a Surprise! I'm sacrificing my life for you^TM scene
After which the emotionally unbalanced, resentful love interest steals the protagonist’s corpse
And kills a bunch of people to keeps it in a state of suspended animation with their qi
And also sleeps in the same bed with it for five years (PS: OMG)
Also: Surprise! You’ve spent years crazed with grief but I’m not dead!

To which we can add blood mites (i.e., crude obligation d'âme), characters fighting over the protagonist (alive and dead), and various and sundry forms of self-flagellation on the part of the emotionally unbalanced, resentful love interest when he just can't understand why the protagonist is protagonisting in the way he does.

Ridiculous? Probably.

But as I said earlier this week, I am so very, very here for it.

What I Am Currently Reading

The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System vol. 3 – Mo Xiang Tong Xiu
Oh yes, I jumped immediately into this one. Half of the way through, it remains delightfully calibrated to appeal to my genre interests.

The Cuckoo’s Egg – Clifford Stoll
Early days on this one, but I plan to dive in after I finish the Strittmaier.

We Have Been Harmonized – Kai Strittmaier
I’ll probably finish this one some time next week.

What I’m Reading Next

I acquired no new books this week.

これで以上です。