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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!
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Greetings from the network! O/
I put off reading SVSSS for a while too even though I enjoyed the fanart, but I'm so glad I eventually read it because it was hilarious. I think one needs to have at least some idea of cultivation novel tropes and webnovel culture to really crack into the jokes, but that was my main pull to the novel so ymmv.
I wholeheartedly agree with your review of it. It was a funny romp with just enough sweetness to pluck some heartstrings. I also didn't find the main pair to be the most compelling, because of Luo Binghe. I like him as a character for the most part, but in the relationship? Nah. Same with Shen Qingqiu. I absolutely adored SQQ(SY), but couldn't care less about his romance with LBH lol.
On the other hand, I too, fell head over heels for Shang Qinghua and Mobei-Jun! I'm so glad the author wrote those little side stories because I could never get enough of those two. I have a special place in my heart for SQH especially. Overall, my favorites are the two who transmigrated lol.
I haven't gotten around to reading very many fics yet so I'd love to hear some recs (any rating or tropes) if that's okay!
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Do you have any fanart recs? I haven't really gone looking much for that sort of thing, having been totally distracted by all the fic!
Here's some of the moshang fics I've particularly enjoyed:
Devotion for Devotion - 66k, Fuck or die trope. The first fic in the series is complete, but the sequel is a wip.
Performance Appraisal - 76k, all the times sqh was promoted in mbj's service
so you have a bad day - 31k, sqh is kidnapped
The Pen Is Mightier - 28k, mbj wants to serve sqh
a rose by any other name - 7k, sqh is prime marriage material to demons
It's Hard to Be a Transmigrator - 69k, just enormous amounts of obliviousness as to the two of them being interested in each other
Shang Qinghua's No Good Very Bad Several Iterations Of A Day (never eat an orange on the wrong holiday) - 16k, time loop trope
The An Ding Peak Lord's Holy Cheat Sheet - 6k, mbj finds out sqh's identity as creator of this world
Everything the ice touches (is ours) - 20k, mbj courts sqh
a hungry heart - 8k, mbj trying his best to take care of sqh and communicate his feelings
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Oooh these all sound good! Thank you!
Ever since the "tumblr exodus" it's a little more difficult to keep up with artists so I mostly only see what crosses my twitter timeline, but here's a couple of artists with SVSSS art (click through img for full tweet).
Bonus SQQ & SQH:
![[twitter.com profile]](https://p.dreamwidth.org/e0caa790ec10/-/twitter.com/favicon.ico)
cyrkoi 
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Not that I've read a single danmei novel, but judging by what my friends who have say, I think this is a really common danmei trope and it's...not my thing.
Did you read it in translation? And of so, how was the translation? It's the translations that have made me bounce so hard off of the ones I've tried.
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I did read it in translation, I know maybe 20 words of Chinese and can recognize like....5 characters max. The translation is part of what made me bounce off of it too, when I first tried it, I think. The decisions made about what to localize and what not to localize, and to what degrees, were kind of disorienting to me, since it didn't feel all consistent. But once I got used to it, I found it pretty easy to read, and I ended up enjoying it -- and I like all the footnotes and translator's comments! The translation I read is the one at cnoveluv, which does about half the novel and then is continued at bcnovels.
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