The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System

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Name: The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System

人渣反派自救系统 Rén zhā fǎnpài zìjiù xìtǒng

Scumbag System
Abbreviation(s): Scum Villain, SVSSS, SV, SVS, RZFZX
Creator: Mo Xiang Tong Xiu
Date(s):
Medium: C-novel, Donghua, Manhua
Country of Origin: China
External Links: Novel on JJWXC (broken link) Archived version
BC Novel Translation
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The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System (人渣反派自救系统, Rén zhā fǎnpài zìjiù xìtǒng) is a danmei cnovel by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu, originally serialised on JJWXC. Its official English translation was published by Seven Seas. It also has editions in Traditional Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, Burmese and Korean.

After Shen Yuan dies in the real world, he wakes to find that he has transmigrated into the world of Proud Immortal Demon Way, a stallion (or harem) novel he hated (but nonetheless read all 1000+ chapters of).

As he awakens, he's cheerfully welcomed by a System, who tells him his "account" is now bound to the character Shen Qingqiu, the original villain of the novel. He realises he has to change the story to avoid being tortured to death by the main character, Luo Binghe. But the System has other ideas, not allowing him to act too out-of-character to avoid derailing the plot.

What follows is a delicate balancing act of Shen Qingqiu trying to stay true to his character while also trying to ensure Luo Binghe has the happy ending he always felt the character deserved.

Adaptations

Donghua

A donghua adaptation began airing in September 2020. Its official title is 穿书自救指南 (roughly, Survivor’s Guide to Novel Transmigration). The official English title is simply Scumbag System. Currently, one season of the donghua has been released. While season 2 was announced to be released in the first half of 2023[1], it has not been released as of February 2024.

Manhua

A manhua adaptation was released on August 28th, 2019, but after the first three chapters were released, the manhua was pulled and put on hiatus for unknown reasons.[2]

Official English Translation

On August 5, 2021, the manga and novel publisher Seven Seas Entertainment announced that they had acquired the licenses for all three novels by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu: Tian Guan Ci Fu, Mo Dao Zu Shi, and Scum Villain's Self Saving System. Each novel was split into multiple volumes, with a volume published once every few months. On November 1, 2022, the final volume was released.

Characters

As in many C-media fandoms, Scum Villain character names are regularly shortened to initialisms - SY for Shen Yuan, SQQ for Shen Qingqiu, LBH for Luo Binghe, QQQ for Qi Qingqi, and ZZL for Zhuzhi-lang, to name a few examples.

Main Characters:

  • Shen Yuan (沈垣) / Shen Qingqiu (沈清秋): The main character of canon and the villain of the in-universe novel, Proud Immortal Demon Way. He is transmigrated to the world of Proud Immortal Demon Way and has to find a way to get the protagonist, Luo Binghe, on his side before Luo Binghe fulfills his destiny and tortures Shen Qingqiu to death. He is mostly referred to as Shizun (teacher/master) by his disciples, including Luo Binghe. He is the lord of Qing Jing Peak of the Cang Qiong Mountain Sect.
  • Luo Binghe (洛冰河): The romantic interest of the novel and the main character of the in-universe novel, Proud Immortal Demon Way. He is half-demon and half-human, with his demon side lying dormant until just before he falls into the Endless Abyss. In fandom, the version of him that is affected by Shen Yuan's influence on the story is sometimes referred to as Bingpup (see below) or Bing-mei as used in one of the canon extras.

Cultivation sect leadership:

  • Yue Qingyuan (岳清源): The leader of Cang Qiong Mountain Sect and friendly to Shen Qingqiu.
  • Liu Qingge (柳清歌): The Lord of Bai Zhan Peak of the Cang Qiong Mountain Sect and rival-turned-friends with Shen Qingqiu.
  • Shang Qinghua (尚清华): Lord of An Ding Peak of the Cang Qiong Mountain Sect. Fellow transmigrator and the author of Proud Immortal Demon Way.
  • Mu Qingfang (木清芳): Lord of Qian Cao Peak of the Cang Qiong Mountain Sect, who specializes in medicine.
  • Qi Qingqi (齊清萋): Lord of Xian Shu Peak of the Cang Qiong Mountain Sect. Xian Shu Peak only allows female disciples.
  • Old Palace Master (老宫主): Leader of the Huan Hua Palace Sect.

Cultivation sect disciples:

  • Ming Fan (明帆): Disciple to Shen Qingqiu and bully of Luo Binghe.
  • Ning Yingying (寧嬰嬰): Disciple to Shen Qingqiu and friend of Luo Binghe.
  • Gongyi Xiao (公儀蕭): Handsome head disciple of the Huan Hua Palace Sect and friendly to Shen Qingqiu.
  • Liu Mingyan (柳溟煙): Disciple to Qi Qinggi and younger sister of Liu Qingge.
  • Su Xiyan (苏夕颜): Former head disciple of Huan Hua Palace Sect. Luo Binghe's birth mother, deceased prior to canon.

Demons:

  • Tianlang-jun (天郎君): Former demon lord, he is curious about the world of humans. Luo Binghe's father.
  • Mobei-jun (漠北君): Demon lord and the one who reveals Luo Binghe's true heritage.
  • Zhuzhi-lang (竹枝郎): Snake demon, nephew and loyal servant to Tianlang-jun. He has trouble understanding human morality.
  • Sha Hualing (沙华铃)
  • Linguang-jun (凛光君): Mobei-jun's uncle.

Proud Immortal Demon Way Characters:

  • Original Shen Qingqiu (Shen Jiu - 沈九): Lord of Qing Jing Peak and a main antagonist of Proud Immortal Demon Way. Shen Yuan transmigrates into his body. He is referred to both in canon and in fandom as Shen Jiu (his childhood name) in order to differentiate him from Shen Yuan.
  • Original Luo Binghe (Bing-ge): Protagonist of Proud Immortal Demon Way, affectionately called Bing-ge (abbreviated LBG) by his in-universe fandom and in one of the canon's extra chapters (to differentiate him from his counterpart, Bing-mei). He is an overpowered demon lord with a harem of hundreds of wives. In Proud Immortal Demon Way, he killed Original Shen Qingqiu after cutting off all of his limbs.

Other:

  • The System: The entity that gives Shen Yuan instructions about what he can/must do in the role of Shen Qingqiu.

Pairings

Almost all pairings shipped in fandom are slash. Unlike the fandoms for MXTX's other two works, the Scum Villain fandom breaks up the main ship significantly more often, with Liushen being a popular example. Most popular ships have a portmanteau that the fandom primarily refers to them using.

  • Shen Qingqiu/Luo Binghe (Bingqiu, Bingyuan): The majority of fanworks depict the two main characters.
  • Mobei-jun/Shang Qinghua (Moshang): These two were shipped together before an extra chapter made this a canon pairing. They are the second most popular pairing after the main characters.
  • Shen Qingqiu/Liu Qingge (Liushen): There are many fans of this pairing as well, particularly as an extra chapter hints that Liu Qingge has feelings for Shen Qingqiu. Often written as unrequited in Bingqiu fics.
  • Original Luo Binghe/Original Shen Qingqiu (Bingjiu): Usually a fanwork depicting a much darker theme than those that take place in the world Shen Yuan transmigrated to. The original Luo Binghe tortures his master to death as retribution for his miserable childhood. An extra chapter has this original Luo Binghe (referred to as Bing-ge) show up accidentally in the transmigrated-Shen Qinqiu's world and seduces him, giving credence to the idea that Luo Binghe was always somewhat attracted to his Shizun. While it is typically called Bingjiu to differentiate it from the ship between the two main characters, Bingqiu may sometimes be used to refer to this ship as well.
  • Original Shen Qingqiu/Yue Qingyuan (Qijiu): A popular pairing, explored as the novel reveals more of the original Shen Qingqiu's background and why Yue Qingyuan is so protective towards him.
  • Qi Qingqi/Liu Mingyan: A femslash pairing of the leader of Xian Shu Peak and her disciple.
  • Sha Hualing/Liu Mingyan (Mingling): A femslash pairing of the demoness and cultivator, being wives in the Harem of the Original Luo Binghe. They fought during the demon attack on the mountain.
  • Tianlang-jun/Su Xiyan: A het ship between Luo Binghe's parents.
  • Zhuzhi-lang/Shen Qingqiu
  • Shen Qingqiu/Luo Binghe/Liu Qingge (Bingliushen)
  • Shang Qinghua/Shen Yuan (Cumplane): A slash ship between Shen Yuan and his fellow transmigrator, who is the author of the webnovel they transmigrated into. Often set in a no transmigration AU. Lovingly called Cumplane, referencing their online handles which are dick jokes in Chinese (Shen Yuan as Peerless Cucumber and Shang Qinghua as Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky).
  • Liu Qingqiu/Shen Jiu (Liujiu) (also known as Shen Qingqiu pre-transmigration) - slash

English-language Fandom

cnoveluv's translation started in June 2017. The translation project was later passed onto BC Novels in 2018[3]. SVSSS gained a significant spike in popularity in 2020 due to The Untamed's growing popularity. @faelicy and @lily_ocho who fan-translated many chapters from the beginning (due to early translations being MTLed) became the official translators for SVSSS in 2021 for the official English release

SVSSS is relatively popular in exchange fandom where it frequently receives nominations and has fic written for it. In 2019 it was nominated for Yuletide, which requires fandoms to have less than 1,000 fics across Archive of Our Own and fanfiction.net that are complete, in English, and at least 1,000 words. Fans wrote four stories for Yuletide 2019 and a fifth for the Yuletide Madness collection. The novel wasn't eligible for Yuletide 2020, but fans wrote two stories based on the donghua.

Common Tropes & Headcanons

  • Atticwife
  • Shen Jiu and Shen Yuan are Siblings Very popular trope in the fandom, will often have Shen Yuan transmigrating as Shen Jiu's sibling, either from birth or later on the book, also often as his twin. It's also used for them having an adopted sibling bond instead of biological.
  • Shen Jiu and Shen Yuan are the Same Person Will often involve Shen Yuan trasmigating and slowly discovering he was Shen Jiu all along, often by recovering his memories. Also used for Shen Jiu reincarnating as Shen Yuan and going back to relive his original life when he dies.
  • Bingpup: A popular fanart depiction of Binghe is as a puppy named Bingpup, as his character is easily compared to a loyal puppy to his master, Shen Qingqiu. Very popular trope
  • Catzun: To accompany Bingpup, Shen Qingqiu is sometimes portrayed as a cat named Catzun (Cat-Shizun).

Controversies

During the Tumblr poll bracket hybrid-battle, Scum Villain fans were accused of voting with multiple accounts after Luo Binghe won with 51% of the vote against Shantae. This led to a series of jokes and memes about "Luo Binghe voter fraud," which were made only more humorous by the ways in which the occurrence might well have happened in Scum Villain canon. See also this writeup of the incident by verycharismaticdragon.

Chinese-language Fandom

  • Some shortened ship names make use of the Chinese numbers in certain character names, replacing them with an Arabic numeral form. B9 refers to the Luo Binghe/Shen Jiu ship, since the Jiu in Shen Jiu means nine. Yue Qingyuan/Shen Jiu is 79, since the Qi in Yue Qingyuan's original name Yue Qi means seven[4].

Example Fanworks

Fanfiction

  • I Wish You Were My Husband by Feynite. AU based on The Dreamer in the Spring Boudoir (familiarity with that story is not required). Wherein Shen Yuan transmigrates into a harem intrigues romance novel (gay edition), Yue Qingyuan really fucks up, Liu Qingge is not suitable for his job, and no one even remotely sees Luo Binghe coming. It's the most bookmarked SVSSS fic on AO3 as of April 4th, 2022.
  • Mamazun by shorimochi. A/B/O Mpreg AU following Shen Jiu, Liu Qingge and their child Shen Yuan.
  • pride is not the word I'm looking for by Tossawary. Pre-Canon to Canon Divergence AU, following Shang Qinghua changing much of the story in the years before the canon of SVSSS, resulting in cascading changes throughout. Though the fic is tagged as Moshang the author notes it's less a Moshang fic, and more a fic with Moshang in the author notes.
  • Tarnished Gold by Prim_the_Amazing

Fanvids

Zines

See List of Scum Villain's Self-Saving System Zines

Scum Villain pieces can also be found in zines that are not specifically focused on Scum Villain, for example:

Fannish Resources

Communities and Forums

References

  1. ^ https://twitter.com/Valderfields_/status/1576842333689085956
  2. ^ tweet by pizzi, Archived version, 30 August 2019. (Accessed 30 November 2022.)
  3. ^ Scum Villain Announcement posted on cnoveluv
  4. ^ https://www.reddit.com/r/SVSSS/comments/zvhnyr/fandom_terms/
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