Reviews tagging 'Torture'

The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System: Ren Zha Fanpai Zijiu Xitong (Novel) Vol. 1 by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu

19 reviews

graceskate's review

adventurous dark emotional lighthearted reflective sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Body horror, and Child abuse

Moderate: Death of parent, Chronic illness, Sexism, Misogyny, Racism, Xenophobia, and Homophobia

Minor: Sexual content, Sexual assault, Abandonment, Torture, and Adult/minor relationship

lackadaisicat's review

adventurous funny lighthearted fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

I have very mixed feelings on this series! It's mainly a comedy that includes more romance and drama as the series goes on. It falls somewhere between self-aware satire and tropey sincerity, a mix which is pretty entertaining to read. The POV character, Shen Yuan, is a hilarious narrator. Snarky, genre-aware, and oblivious to everyone's emotional state, including his own. In his own mind, he's playing 4d chess, in my mind he is playing tic-tac-toe against himself and losing. Yes he has internalized homophobia and weird opinions on women. It works for the story. This is the first volume of three in the main story, plus one of post-canon extras and other goodies. This volume is lighthearted and fun in general, but ehhhhh I wouldn't recommend the series to every person off the street. I have no problem rating it well for the events that happen in volume one i.e. shenanigans and no real romance. Yes this is LGBT, but uh-oh, it's a student-teacher romance. To me that is a hard NOPE but it would be unfair of me to rate it badly for that alone. There's no grooming involved, the teacher is totally oblivious to the student's feeling until everyone is an adult, and because of timeline shenanigans the age gap is probably only about five years by the time the main couple gets together. (Personally, I wonder why the teacher can't just get with another teacher, but okay.) What I CAN and WILL criticize is the way passion and violence are so intermingled in this pairing. Why do I caution people reading this, and why won't I ever finish this series?

I do not think "forced kissing" is romantic. I do not think painful sex is humorous. I don't think kidnapping, imprisonment, or torture have any place in a relationship, romantic or otherwise. I think every on-screen sex scene between the main canon pairing is a rape scene. It's coerced, it's painful, and in my opinion that isn't safe, sane, or consensual sex. Again, student-teacher romances are simply NOT my cup of tea. But beyond that, the student/love interest is obsessive, violent, and manipulative. The main romantic relationship is not healthy and in my opinion, exhibits several hallmarks of an abusive relationship. I was surprised by the direction this book took, since I initially assumed it would fall into a father/son found family dynamic. Whoops! My bad!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Body horror, Physical abuse, Rape, Slavery, Torture, Violence, and Injury/Injury detail

Your mileage may vary, but to my eye almost every scene of romantic or sexual intimacy is coerced, painful, or in some way non-consensual. These content warnings are for the series as a whole, not for the first volume specifically, which doesn't feature such scenes. The first volume is more concerned with childhood bullying and a fixation on death and dismemberment.

cait's review

adventurous challenging emotional funny hopeful lighthearted mysterious sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Minor: Child death, Gore, Violence, Confinement, Murder, Physical abuse, Toxic friendship, Blood, Child abuse, Death of parent, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Bullying, Homophobia, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Cursing, Death, Torture, Toxic relationship, War, Abandonment, Body horror, and Genocide

loveyoulike's review against another edition

funny fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

 i have to say, coming back to sv after reading a lot more webnovels—where i encountered several of the tropes used in both original and revised versions of pidw—and fan works—which helped me understand the characters beyond sqq's rose-tinted glasses—made me appreciate the series a lot more 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Bullying, and Child abuse

Moderate: Torture and Death

thanatoserini's review

adventurous emotional funny lighthearted sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I think I found my favorite book series 😍

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Murder, and Homophobia

Moderate: Sexual violence, Torture, Slavery, Sexism, Physical abuse, Sexual harassment, and Sexual content

Minor: Rape, Blood, and Child abuse

raypaws's review

adventurous funny lighthearted fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Violence, and Bullying

Moderate: Torture and Death

mdride's review

adventurous dark funny fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Death, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship and Child abuse

Minor: Torture, Death of parent, and Sexual harassment

tamo's review

adventurous challenging emotional funny hopeful lighthearted mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Bullying, Gore, Grief, Murder, Sexual content, Terminal illness, Vomit, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Physical abuse, Torture, and Abandonment

Moderate: Child abuse, Cursing, Death, Kidnapping, Medical content, Medical trauma, Toxic relationship, and War

Minor: Sexism and Death of parent

thebackcatalogue's review

adventurous funny lighthearted medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Scum Villian’s Self Saving System (SVSSS) is an entertaining danmei1 that provides a meta-commentary on the Stallion2 genre. However, the readability of the English translation is brought down by simple translation mistakes and wording and sentence choices that are better suited to a direct Chinese translation than a smooth and comprehendible English translation.

Read the full review @ thebackcatalogue.substack.com

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Bullying, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, and Death

Minor: Torture, Death of parent, and Physical abuse

Content Warnings: Depicted: Violence, Bullying, Child Abuse, Death, Emotional Abuse Mentioned: Torture, Death of a Parent, Physical Abuse

levtolstoy's review

adventurous dark funny lighthearted mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Fucking love it!  The story is very amusing, but it still has some gore to it. Illustrations are stunning and translation is coherent! Character & name guide and glossary were very useful as well.

I actually started reading the novel even before the official translation came out. However, I didn't finish it. I had stopped somewhere in the middle. The novel didn't intrigued me as much as MDZS had (I've read it before reading SVSSS and my heart still belongs to Wangxian). However in this break I had learned the crucial piece of information: MXTX wrote this for her own amusement. Her work should not be take (to) seriously. With this I could finally enjoy SVSSS and I LOVED it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Blood, Physical abuse, and Torture

Moderate: Child abuse and Murder

Minor: Misogyny and Sexism