Glossary: Genres

Glossary

 

While not required reading, this glossary is intended to offer further context to the many concepts and terms utilized throughout this novel and provide a starting point for learning more about the rich Chinese culture from which these stories were written.

 

GENRES

 

Danmei

Danmei (耽美 / “indulgence in beauty”) is a Chinese fiction genre focused on romanticized tales of love and attraction between men. It is analogous to the BL (boys’ love) genre in Japanese media. The majority of well-known danmei writers are women writing for women, although all genders produce and enjoy the genre.

 

Wuxia

Wuxia (武侠 / “martial heroes”) is one of the oldest Chinese literary genres and consists of tales of noble heroes fighting evil and injustice. It often follows martial artists, monks, or rogues, who live apart from the ruling government, which is often seen as useless or corrupt. These societal outcasts—both voluntary and not—settle disputes among themselves, adhering to their own moral codes over the governing law.

 Characters in wuxia focus primarily on human concerns, such as political strife between factions and advancing their own personal sense of justice. True wuxia is low on magical or supernatural elements. To Western moviegoers, a well-known example is Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

 

Xianxia

Xianxia (仙侠 / “immortal heroes”) is a genre related to wuxia that places more emphasis on the supernatural. Its characters often strive to become stronger, with the end goal of extending their life span or achieving immortality.

Xianxia heavily features Daoist themes, while cultivation and the pursuit of immortality are both genre requirements. If these are not the story’s central focus, it is not xianxia. The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System, Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation, and Heaven Official’s Blessing are all considered part of both the danmei and xianxia genres.

 

Webnovels

Webnovels are novels serialized by chapter online, and the websites that host them are considered spaces for indie and amateur writers. Many novels, dramas, comics, and animated shows produced in China are based on popular webnovels.

Examples of popular webnovel websites in China include Jinjiang Literature City (jjwxc.net), Changpei Literature (gongzicp.com), and Qidian Chinese Net (qidian.com). While all of Mo Xiang Tong Xiu’s existing works and the majority of best-known danmei are initially published via JJWXC, Scum Villain’s series-within-a-series, Proud Immortal Demon Way, was said to be published on a “Zhongdian Literature” website, which is likely intended as a parody of Qidian Chinese Net, known for hosting male-targeted novels.

Webnovels have become somewhat infamous for being extremely long as authors will often keep them going for as long as paying subscribers are there. Readers typically purchase these stories chapter-by-chapter, and a certain number of subscribers is often required to allow for monetization. Other factors affecting an author’s earnings include word count which can lead to bloated chapters and run-on plots. While not all webnovels suffer from any of these things, it is something commonly expected due to the system within which they’re published.

Like all forms of media, very passionate fanbases often arise for webnovels. While the majority of readers are respectful, there is often a more toxic side of the community, one exacerbated by the parasocial relationship that some readers develop with a given author. Authors often suffer backlash from these fans for things such as a plot or character decisions that the readers don’t agree with; events the readers find too shocking (often referred to as landmines); writing outside the genres or tropes the readers expect the story to cleave to; openly disagreeing with another creator; abruptly pausing or ending a story; posting a chapter late; or even simply posting something on their social media accounts that these fans in some way dislike.

Fan toxicity is a particularly troublesome problem for webnovel authors in part because they are reliant on subscriber support to make a living. Furthermore, this abuse can follow them across platforms, and often the only way to escape it is to stay off public social media altogether, which is a decision often made by the most popular of writers.

In Scum Villain, Shen Yuan could be considered one of these toxic fans due to his scathing commentary about the story of Proud Immortal Demon Way. However, he did seem to relegate his criticism to covering the story itself and continued to pay for all the content he consumed, making him a lesser evil in the scheme of things.