I sometimes use vim to quickly edit a text file, and I often mistakenly enter the Emacs' C-x C-s sequence to save it, after which my vim becomes unresponsive reading ^X mode (^]^D^E^F^I^K^L^N^O^Ps^U^V^Y) in the status line. Is there maybe a way to make vim responsive again, because it really annoys having to kill the terminal and then start all over again?
Try typing ^Q.
^S and ^Q are the default "stop" and "start" characters in the tty settings.
(vim should be manipulating the tty settings so control-S doesn't stop output, but I've seen systems where it doesn't. Yes, it's annoying.)