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sophia_sol) wrote2021-05-13 06:51 pm
sophia_sol) wrote2021-05-13 06:51 pm
The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System, by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu
I have been ignoring the existence of the Chinese web novel The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System for QUITE a while now. I kept hearing about it but it just didn't seem to work for me when I tried the fic, and when I attempted to read the novel I bounced off the first chapter fairly hard. But it turns out I just needed the right introduction!!
You know how it goes, you accidentally get really into the fic for a minor pairing (thanks B!), read all the extant decent fic for the ship, read the relevant canon extras, start daydreaming about writing fic, and decide you had better actually read the full canon if you're going to even make the attempt at writing anything.
So here we are! It took me a bit to get into the novel, since the main characters are in fact not Shang Qinghua and Mobei-Jun, but I found it a surprisingly fun read.
The premise: Shen Yuan is the hate-reader of a bad Chinese web novel, who finds himself transmigrated into the world of that novel! Unfortunately, he's transmigrated into the character of a villain in the novel, and there's a System controlling his actions, assigning him missions and keeping him from being able to act too OOC.
Shen Yuan's goal in the character of Shen Qingqiu, the scum villain: change the story enough so that he can make sure the protagonist Luo Binghe doesn't murder him!
The System's goal: get Shen Qingqiu to fix all the plot holes and missing characterization from the original novel to make a better story.
Luo Binghe's goal: to get his shizun (Shen Qingqiu) to pay attention to him!!
There are a lot of extremely charming things in reading this. The novel as a whole is a fun and funny parody, written lovingly by the author, with lots of great details and jokes.
And the main character Shen Qingqiu is an endearing nerd who, in his previous life as Shen Yuan, read this extremely bad extremely long and extremely porny webnovel for the worldbuilding, and once he's in the world of the novel, he's a veritable encyclopedia of all the interesting monsters the world has to offer. And at one point when he's off on an errand to pick a rare and special magical plant that only grows in one place, he actually worries about the implications on the ecosystem if he picks the plant! I love him.
Also, he spends a lot of time internally raging against a) the System and b) the author who wrote the piece of crap narrative he's currently trying to live through, but he hides everything behind a great deal of fussiness over his appearance and a stern facial expression and an unwillingness to say anything of substance, so everyone thinks he's so cool and elegant and impressive. Maintaining this outward appearance is helped by his inability to admit even to himself that he might have Feelings about anything that's going on, of course. And the contrast between these sides of him is a delight.
It is frustrating that his inability to admit his feelings to himself continues right to the very end of his romance arc, which makes for a very unromantic conclusion to it. It's hard to feel invested in a relationship as a reader when one of the romantic leads spends all of his time thinking about his partner in very distancing terms!
And speaking of his romantic partner...... Luo Binghe is certainly an interesting character, but I struggle with him as a romantic partner. He doesn't like anybody in the world except his shizun, to the degree he's willing to destroy the world in order to force his shizun to be with him. And admittedly he tries this while under the influence of a magic sword that doesn't do good things for one's mental stability, but even once he's beyond that, he gives off the vibe of being a person who would still destroy the world and everyone in it for his shizun--though only with shizun's permission. Not romantic to me, that single-minded obsession with one person in the entire world, to the exclusion of anything else!
Apparently this is author MXTX's first novel, and in some respects it reminds me of some of Jane Austen's earlier works, where the focus is more on Being A Funny Parody than on making sure the emotional heart of the story gets appropriate attention and a full conclusion. (I'd put it somewhere between Love and Freindship [sic] and Northanger Abbey in that respect.) But there's still enough heart in there to make it something I can enjoy reading.
Speaking of heart, I feel so awful for minor character Yue Qingyuan, who has a tragic backstory with the original Shen Qingqiu, and will never ever be able to experience resolution to what happened, because that person no longer exists even though his body is still walking around. Shen Yuan as Shen Qingqiu feels awkward about it, but also feels it's not his place to forgive Yue Qingyuan for what happened since he's not the person it happened to, so Yue Qingyuan just has to....live with his own feelings of guilt and shame. Which he's a pro at by this point! But also, the original storyline was actually even worse for Yue Qingyuan, because in that universe he dies (killed by either Shen Qingqiu or Luo Binghe, I forget which), also without any overtures of forgiveness from Shen Qingqiu. At least in this universe he gets to live, and see (the person he thinks is) Shen Qingqiu more or less thrive! Uh, eventually! I love literally everything about this complex mess of of a situation, it is perfect to me.
Now let's talk about my ship! Shang Qinghua and Mobei-Jun, who I mentioned above, are a popular secondary character ship, and I love them very very much. Shang Qinghua is also a person transmigrated from our world into the world of the novel, but instead of being a reader, he's the author, who feels very defensive about the quality of the narrative he wrote. (He just wrote what the readers wanted! He had bills to pay! Writing lots of terrible sex and no character development is what got him paying readers!) And Mobei-Jun is the minor character he wrote for his own pleasure, to fulfill his ideals of attractive masculinity, even while everything else he wrote was according to his readers' whims. Mobei-Jun also happens to be an ice demon lord. In this ship you get: cross-cultural communication problems! Competency mixed with obliviousness! Hijinks! Questions of identity and power! Loyalty!
Okay yes this is a list of things that are also all present to varying degrees in the Luo Binghe/Shen Qingqiu ship, but it's a lot more charming in the context of Shang Qinghua/Mobei-Jun, at least in this reader's humble opinion. Possibly due to the lack of Luo Binghe. Also you get fun ice-themed aesthetics and a character who actually talks about things (badly)! It's great. I want to reread all the moshang fic again now.
Though I also now want to read fic about Yue Qingyuan? Yeah fine I guess that checks out.
In conclusion, do I recommend this novel? Yeah! Can I recommend my way as a good way to approach it if you're someone who has never read cnovels before? Ehhhhh, it was more than a little roundabout.......But I have fic recs if you're interested!
You know how it goes, you accidentally get really into the fic for a minor pairing (thanks B!), read all the extant decent fic for the ship, read the relevant canon extras, start daydreaming about writing fic, and decide you had better actually read the full canon if you're going to even make the attempt at writing anything.
So here we are! It took me a bit to get into the novel, since the main characters are in fact not Shang Qinghua and Mobei-Jun, but I found it a surprisingly fun read.
The premise: Shen Yuan is the hate-reader of a bad Chinese web novel, who finds himself transmigrated into the world of that novel! Unfortunately, he's transmigrated into the character of a villain in the novel, and there's a System controlling his actions, assigning him missions and keeping him from being able to act too OOC.
Shen Yuan's goal in the character of Shen Qingqiu, the scum villain: change the story enough so that he can make sure the protagonist Luo Binghe doesn't murder him!
The System's goal: get Shen Qingqiu to fix all the plot holes and missing characterization from the original novel to make a better story.
Luo Binghe's goal: to get his shizun (Shen Qingqiu) to pay attention to him!!
There are a lot of extremely charming things in reading this. The novel as a whole is a fun and funny parody, written lovingly by the author, with lots of great details and jokes.
And the main character Shen Qingqiu is an endearing nerd who, in his previous life as Shen Yuan, read this extremely bad extremely long and extremely porny webnovel for the worldbuilding, and once he's in the world of the novel, he's a veritable encyclopedia of all the interesting monsters the world has to offer. And at one point when he's off on an errand to pick a rare and special magical plant that only grows in one place, he actually worries about the implications on the ecosystem if he picks the plant! I love him.
Also, he spends a lot of time internally raging against a) the System and b) the author who wrote the piece of crap narrative he's currently trying to live through, but he hides everything behind a great deal of fussiness over his appearance and a stern facial expression and an unwillingness to say anything of substance, so everyone thinks he's so cool and elegant and impressive. Maintaining this outward appearance is helped by his inability to admit even to himself that he might have Feelings about anything that's going on, of course. And the contrast between these sides of him is a delight.
It is frustrating that his inability to admit his feelings to himself continues right to the very end of his romance arc, which makes for a very unromantic conclusion to it. It's hard to feel invested in a relationship as a reader when one of the romantic leads spends all of his time thinking about his partner in very distancing terms!
And speaking of his romantic partner...... Luo Binghe is certainly an interesting character, but I struggle with him as a romantic partner. He doesn't like anybody in the world except his shizun, to the degree he's willing to destroy the world in order to force his shizun to be with him. And admittedly he tries this while under the influence of a magic sword that doesn't do good things for one's mental stability, but even once he's beyond that, he gives off the vibe of being a person who would still destroy the world and everyone in it for his shizun--though only with shizun's permission. Not romantic to me, that single-minded obsession with one person in the entire world, to the exclusion of anything else!
Apparently this is author MXTX's first novel, and in some respects it reminds me of some of Jane Austen's earlier works, where the focus is more on Being A Funny Parody than on making sure the emotional heart of the story gets appropriate attention and a full conclusion. (I'd put it somewhere between Love and Freindship [sic] and Northanger Abbey in that respect.) But there's still enough heart in there to make it something I can enjoy reading.
Speaking of heart, I feel so awful for minor character Yue Qingyuan, who has a tragic backstory with the original Shen Qingqiu, and will never ever be able to experience resolution to what happened, because that person no longer exists even though his body is still walking around. Shen Yuan as Shen Qingqiu feels awkward about it, but also feels it's not his place to forgive Yue Qingyuan for what happened since he's not the person it happened to, so Yue Qingyuan just has to....live with his own feelings of guilt and shame. Which he's a pro at by this point! But also, the original storyline was actually even worse for Yue Qingyuan, because in that universe he dies (killed by either Shen Qingqiu or Luo Binghe, I forget which), also without any overtures of forgiveness from Shen Qingqiu. At least in this universe he gets to live, and see (the person he thinks is) Shen Qingqiu more or less thrive! Uh, eventually! I love literally everything about this complex mess of of a situation, it is perfect to me.
Now let's talk about my ship! Shang Qinghua and Mobei-Jun, who I mentioned above, are a popular secondary character ship, and I love them very very much. Shang Qinghua is also a person transmigrated from our world into the world of the novel, but instead of being a reader, he's the author, who feels very defensive about the quality of the narrative he wrote. (He just wrote what the readers wanted! He had bills to pay! Writing lots of terrible sex and no character development is what got him paying readers!) And Mobei-Jun is the minor character he wrote for his own pleasure, to fulfill his ideals of attractive masculinity, even while everything else he wrote was according to his readers' whims. Mobei-Jun also happens to be an ice demon lord. In this ship you get: cross-cultural communication problems! Competency mixed with obliviousness! Hijinks! Questions of identity and power! Loyalty!
Okay yes this is a list of things that are also all present to varying degrees in the Luo Binghe/Shen Qingqiu ship, but it's a lot more charming in the context of Shang Qinghua/Mobei-Jun, at least in this reader's humble opinion. Possibly due to the lack of Luo Binghe. Also you get fun ice-themed aesthetics and a character who actually talks about things (badly)! It's great. I want to reread all the moshang fic again now.
Though I also now want to read fic about Yue Qingyuan? Yeah fine I guess that checks out.
In conclusion, do I recommend this novel? Yeah! Can I recommend my way as a good way to approach it if you're someone who has never read cnovels before? Ehhhhh, it was more than a little roundabout.......But I have fic recs if you're interested!