So Meatbun has a WeChat account where she regularly posts "newspaper clippings" from the world of 2ha. A recent post features an essay written by Mo Ran (and graded by Chu Wanning) for Chinese literature class that got zero marks. The essay question is "Is there a word that acquired new meaning for you as you got older? The changing meaning of the word reflected your personal growth and is special to you."
Below is Mo Ran's essay (translation by me):
When I was a kid, I thought nemesis, saviour, and shizun are three different things. After I grew up, these three different things all became my wife.
When my wife was my nemesis, we did "hurt" each other and "hate" each other, so I thought we'd be enemies forever. But your enemy wouldn't die for you, nor would he give you one last look before death to let you know that he didn't want to leave you alone in this world. This is how my nemesis became my wife.
When my wife was my saviour, he gave me a flask of rice soup that saved my life. Back then I thought, I must repay his kindness if I see him again. But later on, he made me wontons and saved my life many many times. What he showed me wasn't just kindness, because kindness can be repaid in one go, whereas love can never be repaid. I need to spend a lifetime paying him back, because he never stops giving me his love. This is how my saviour became my wife.
When my wife was my shizun, he taught me sword skills and cultivation. He was really good to me. I thought I couldn't marry my shizun, but it took me a long time to figure out that I actually could, I just needed to wait for the right moment to ask him if he's willing to marry me. He said yes, and this is how my shizun became my wife.
QED, "nemesis", "saviour", and "shizun" are three words that all came to mean "wife" as time passed.
I think Xie Lian didn't turn into Jun Wu not only because he's truly kind, but more importantly because he doesn't really care about other people's opinions of him, unlike Jun Wu. While Jun Wu does everything perfectly to please everyone in exchange for everyone's love, appreciation, and worship, he invariably starts throwing his toys out of the pram whenever he doesn't receive the 100% approval and appreciation he expects. "I've done everything perfectly and try to be as perfect as possible for everyone to please you all, so why don't you love and worship me wholeheartedly? Without your approval, how would I know I'm good? I will punish anyone who doesn't love me as they should, by god I will punish you all!" is probably what goes on in Jun Wu's mind, and eventually he became a monster filled with resentment. While Xie Lian has reached this very zen state of mind where he's like "people don't like me? Welp, ig that's just how it is. Anyway -" And not hinging his self-worth on other people's approval is how he managed to maintain sanity and follow his inner moral laws.
If you think about it, svsss is like a reverse hero’s journey for Luo Binghe. He doesn’t willingly leave home for an adventure; he’s physically removed from home by force—by his home. He’s not victorious to crisis; he falls victim to his own heart demons and nearly abandons redemption. It’s not his transformation that marks the story’s thesis, but his home’s—in the form of his mother’s Guanyin pendant, in the form of the shizun he loves. And, transformed from the genuine goods they were supposed to be into “fakes” imbued with true sentimental value, Luo Binghe doesn’t return home. Home returns to him.
so i’ve seen before the take that erha is mo ran’s healing journey rather than his redemption story, and i 100% agree. in what follows i will discuss how one of the key ways we see this through is mo ran’s perception of food.
as a child, mo ran would often say he was full (even tho he wasn’t) just so his mama could have the rest of the stale bread because he didn’t want her to sleep on an empty stomach. this was an act of selflessness, a small but pure expression of love.
initially, food for him was a tool for connection and sharing it was an act of love, it was him mirroring his mama’s care for him.
food was something deeply tied to bonding for him. his mama was sacrificing her own comfort to feed him and make sure he had enough. he felt and knew this and because of it, he saw food as a way to share love and care with others, as his mama did with him.
all until a rich young guy refused to give mo ran his dumpling skins (literally his leftovers) and gave them to the dog instead. it made baby mo ran realize that a dog was seen more valuable than him, simply because he was poor.
this moment caused a crack in his perception of food, it showed him that food could be something other than just an offering of love. it could be something to be picky about, something scarce.
he realized that food was something that, in a way, could determine his worth.
later when ranwan first met, the rice congee cwn offered to mo ran was a lifeline, literally his only means of survival at that point. the memory of that meal was rooted so deeply inside of him that not even the flower was able to erase it, and as an emperor he rewarded everyone at wubei temple out of gratitude. the heat of this irony is scorching, cause the whole time his savior was in his bed.
after he came to ssp, when he received food for his birthday, he forced himself to finish it, pushing past his limits and through the nausea of having too much just so that nothing would go to waste. i’m sure at one point he couldn’t even taste what he was eating anymore but he kept going anyway. food was still tied to survival, he didn’t see it as something to enjoy or savor yet, it was still an obligation, a necessity. it absolutely could not go to waste.
food didn’t have anything that could be appreciated, except its presence and availability.
as an emperor, we see him sitting on his throne, casually peeling grapes. the way this scene was written is exquisite and luxurious, but it also showed his detachment and indifference towards the grapes.
as an emperor he could have anything he wanted, it wasn’t about survival anymore. now it was a luxury, a symbol of his status but that’s all it was. it didn’t hold the same meaning it once did for him. he now had food and delicacies simply because he could.
food was a way of proving his worth and solidifying his position, but none of that mattered anymore; not when he was about to end his own life. everything had dulled in a world without chu wanning.
and so he buried himself under the tree where he had met chu wanning, next to a bowl of wontons.
chu wanning’s wontons, the wontons that changed everything. at that time shi mei offered him the bowl, mo ran wasn’t even hungry. he was feeling wronged. he was hurt and disappointed, with a heart bleeding from rejection. at that moment, the food offered to him was an act of kindness and consideration, someone had really taken the time to prepare him wontons from scratch! with a spicy broth too, just the way he liked, and they went as far as pouring the wontons into a thick bowl to prevent the heat from escaping. it was an act of kindness poured straight out of chu wanning’s guilty heart, right into shi mei’s thieving hands.
after his rebirth, we see 1.0 mo ran recalling the smallest details about how chu wanning liked his food (vols 1,2) all while claiming that he “hated him”. it showed just how closely mo ran had always been paying attention in his first lifetime, it proved that he cared on a way deeper level than he realized. he remembered how cwn liked his food down to the smallest details which was a level of intimacy that went beyond simple observation, it had been his subconscious absorbing everything it could about chu wanning.
cwn as xia sini asked elder xuanji how he could appear more approachable to his disciples, the answer he received was simple- he should show them that he cared. and so he tried.
during a meal with mo ran, cwn reached for his favorite dish, but instead of serving himself, he picked the first meatball and placed it on mo ran’s plate- thanking him for taking care of him over the past few days. he was trying to show mo ran gratitude and display kindness in the way he knew how, and in the way that felt safest for his thin face. he was showing he cared through food.
the gesture took mo ran by surprise; it was his first time after years seeing food being an act of care, something that was once familiar to him through his mom but so strange and so distant and far away now. he couldn’t make sense of it, since it was coming from chu wanning, and since he himself hadn’t seen food this way for years (with how his happy moments with his mom had been distorted by the flower).
in vol 4, when mo ran placed the plate closer to chu wanning than to shi mei that one time the three of them shared a meal, to me it was a subtle metaphor showing where his heart was leaning now. he was desperate to give chu wanning a good experience so he ordered the best meal the restaurant offered that he knew would appeal to him. mo ran started trying to subtly fix chu wanning’s unbalanced diet, going as far as using tricks to make him eat a balanced meal every time.
in vol 6 he even made a whole batch of soup dumplings specially for wanning. mo ran was finally beginning to see food as more than just a means of survival or something mandatory to stay alive, he started to use it as a way to show care for his beloved, even though he hadn’t yet realized it.
but imo, one of mo ran’s most profound acts of love is when he changed his diet to stop eating spicy food. this was a sacrifice for cwn. he had grown up without the luxury of being picky, yet now as an adult, he had the choice. but instead of choosing something for himself, he chose to adapt to chu wanning’s diet. this wasn’t about just being “picky”, it was about aligning with someone he loved. he wanted to share meals, to have the tips of their chopsticks touch as they dipped into the same pot, as if it were their hearts meeting. he wanted their hands to reach for the same dish, resulting in cwn’s ears turning red and cute (and biteable). he wanted to bask in the joy of eating together, it returned to being an act of selflessness again. it was a sign that he had finally learned to enjoy food for the pleasure of companionship, just like he had once had with his mother. back when sharing simple humble meals had been enough to bring him satisfaction as long as he had her with him.
he had given up spicy food but the heat never disappeared. this time the warmth of the meal filled him with something way more intense than the burn of any spicy food he had once craved, and this heat was one not even water could quench. it settled and lingered in his chest, warming him from the inside out.
in many asian cultures (including my own, but i’m not sure about the chinese perspective on this) sharing food from the same plate is seen as an act of love, care and bonding. it’s a connection that goes beyond just the meal itself. when mo ran chose to share food with chu wanning, he chose to share his life with him, and this act of sharing is a symbol of his growing love and bonding.
i’ve tried to cite the events as they happened chronologically in the story. there’s a clear pattern that meatbun followed here. i don’t think it was a coincidence or an attempt to insert some filler moments, but it was to display how mo ran’s perception of food evolved in tandem with his love for chu wanning, and how it became a mirror of his healing. food, which used to be a warm moment that connected mo ran with his mom once, lost its meaning. but eventually it became a symbol of connection and love again, something to cherish and appreciate.
when 1.0 mo ran was sleeping next to cwn that one morning and asked him to get up and make him some congee (after kissing him lol), it made it clear that he had asked chu fei to cook for him often (even though we all know he’s not that good at cooking sksjdju).
then we have corpse!txj coming into the second timeline and for the first time in years asking hbn if he could regain his sense of taste, simply to be able to taste the porridge made by chu wanning, even though as a corpse, he didn’t need to eat to stay alive.
that’s the point i was trying to make earlier; as an emperor he could acquire delicacies but he never really found any meaning in them. and during his time as a corpse (which literally spanned years), he never asked for food because he didn’t need it and it had held no meaning for him. but when he reunited with his wanning, he craved it, though he could no longer taste it again.
and finally, we have mo ran eating chu wanning’s porridge as his last meal. not only that, but he also fed chu wanning the best part of the fish iirc. even at his worst, even when he knew these hours were his last and this meal was his final one, he still chose to give the best part of the fish to cwn. emphasizing his selflessness and the depth of his love for him.
this time, food was something that comforted him, something that made him feel at home.
it was a meal that brought them together for one last time.
i wrote this just to get it off my chest, as it’s been burning and tossing around in there for quite some time now haha. i cited all of these moments based solely on my somewhat shaky memory, so if anything’s inaccurate or if i remembered something wrong, show me some grace (I BLAME THE MTL!) 😭 feel free to correct me though, or add anything i might’ve overlooked.
personally I don't really agree with the fact that Mo Ran is actually 32 (mentally) at the start of the novel. I've seen some people say that he is, because he died at 32 and was transmigrated into his new life, but I think mentally he's still 15 years old. That's because I think his growth and development stopped around the time he got affected by the flower. Even as a 32 year old in his previous life, it's very clear he was still behaving like a 15 year old with heavy outside influences affecting him (as seen by his unhinged lack of emotional regulation, immaturity, and lack of self-control). Furthermore, he was drowning in hate, stayed inside all day to study Zhenlong chess formation, and then took over the world and spent the rest of his time in Wushan Palace. He never got a chance to properly grow up; that's still a 15 year old (mentally) in a 32 year old man's body.
We can even see during book 1, that Mo Ran 1.0 clearly does not have the mind of a 32 year old. He's immature and has to redevelop his sense of empathy (both as a teenage thing and also due to the flower). He has gaps in his memories, logic, and reasoning, and he clearly behaves like a teenager, especially when you observe his dynamic with Chu Wanning.
The point I am trying to make is: let transmigrated Mo Ran be 15, because he's not an adult and deserves a second chance at his childhood. Only once he goes through puberty (the 5 year gap that Chu Wanning was gone) was he able to mature and grow up, and develop mentally into the adult he is at the end of the novel.
TLDR; in his second life his mental age completely matches his physical age. he's a 15 year old.
Did Chu Wanning enjoy the rape and actually consent to everything with Taxian-jun?
[2HA spoilers for the whole book]
Long story short -- it's complicated.
But for the more expanded answer (in my opinion).
He ALWAYS loves the act of having sex with Mo Ran. He loves Mo Ran's body, is completely and fully attracted to him (and is attracted to no one else BUT him), to the point where his sexual desire for Mo Ran is capable of overpowering all his ascetism he has built up his entire life. All Chu Wanning's reservations and shyness melt in the face of Mo Ran, and all that's left are residues in his failing attempt to save face. He loves Mo Ran, he loves Mo Ran's dick, he loves getting dicked down, he loves getting ravaged, he loves when Mo Ran is rough and does whatever he wants, and he finds it very hot.
He loves Mo Ran's overwhelming love and desire for him. He loves being loved by Mo Ran. But most of all, he loves to make Mo Ran happy and wants Mo Ran to feel loved too.
What he didn't love regarding the rape was the context and reasoning around it.
Pre-flower knowledge: he loathed that Mo Ran fell into madness seemingly of his own accord, hated that he subjugated the entire world and kidnapped and raped him and committed unspeakable deeds. He hated that the boy who used to be so full of love and life and wanted to be a good person became this monster who fell into darkness and was seemingly reveling in it so he could get his revenge after Shi Mei's death. He thought Mo Ran was "deficient by nature, beyond remedy" and wanted to kill him. And he hated himself for being a bad shizun and failing to prevent Mo Ran from going down this path.
Post-flower knowledge: he blamed himself entirely ("it was I who wronged you, I won't blame you in life or death") and he started to engage in all the sex willingly (even if he hated it and it was extremely hard for him to go through) because he knew it wasn't Mo Ran's fault (and he had to go along with it in order to hide his newfound knowledge). He thought it was his fault for not detecting the flower in Mo Ran sooner, he thought it was his fault for thinking Mo Ran committed all his crimes of his own accord, and he thought it was his fault for failing to protect Mo Ran. He knew that Mo Ran was incapable of feeling genuine happiness and love at that point, and all that was left of Mo Ran was a vessel of hatred and obsession and lust. He wanted to love Taxian-jun but couldn't show it (at risk of being exposed to the mastermind behind the flower). All that was left that he could do was go along with Taxian-jun's whims and covertly hatch up a plan to save him (which did end up being successful because Chu Wanning is a badass).
What he hated about the rape pre-flower knowledge was that Mo Ran had fallen into darkness, he was no longer the boy from before, and he was truly evil. What he hated about the rape post-flower knowledge was that Mo Ran was suffering and getting tortured, and Chu Wanning had to witness it firsthand while also getting tortured whilst blaming himself for not protecting Mo Ran.
And what he REALLY hated about the rape was NOT the sex itself → it was Taxian-jun's disrespect and complete disregard for Chu Wanning as a human being. As a person who has agency and feelings. As someone who deserves to be loved properly. Taxian-jun wanted to use Chu Wanning just for his body, as an object of lust who doesn't deserve to be loved, as an object of loathing as revenge for letting Shi Mei. He forced Chu Wanning to become his concubine Chu Fei against his well, and then forced him into having sex.
This is especially hard because --as revealed through Chu Wanning's backstory-- Chu Wanning was created by Huaizui from the Flame Emperor's divine wood. He was not born like a regular human being, and he was not treated like a human being his entire life. Huaizui treated him like a wooden replacement for Chu Lan and he would be given to Chu Xun so Huazui could apologize for what happened in Lin'an. He raised him to be the perfect replacement for someone else and he had already decided Chu Wanning's fate for him. He never treated Chu Wanning like a human being who could choose what he wanted to do with his life.
The cultivation world is no different. They all treat Chu Wanning like an untouchable god who is incapable of being on the same level as mere mortals. That Chu Wanning has no need for petty 'mortal' things like the company of others, being loved, having romance, or being sad after you get hurt or injured. He's untouchable and invincible in their eyes -- which means he doesn't get to be mortal, and he is given absolutely no grace to be imperfect or to make no mistakes. He is simply a giant tree, a looming, all-powerful, inhumane thing that watches over everyone and can take care of itself, while everyone else gets to enjoy being human. Over the years Chu Wanning has quietly grown to accept this, but it's very clear on the inside he is very hurt by this.
It hurts when everyone treats you this way, but it hurts most of all when the person you love treats you this way.
When Chu Wanning had sex with Taxian-jun, he loved the actual sex and thought it was hot. But most of all, he wanted to feel like Mo Ran loved him too. But he thought it was not true and that it could never be true, with or without the flower. Which is why the rape was so painful for him.
He hated that the sex was not an act of love.
In the 2nd timeline, once it's revealed that it's mutual and they both love each other: Chu Wanning loves ALL the sex he has with Mo Ran. It doesn't matter if it's rough, it doesn't matter if it's gentle, it doesn't matter if he's having sex with Mo-zongshi, it doesn't matter if he's having sex with Taxian-jun, it doesn't matter if he's tied up or if aphrodisiacs are used on him, he loves all of it because he loves having sex with Mo Ran, loves Mo Ran's body and dick, and he just straight up loves Mo Ran and wants to belong to him completely - whether it's Taxian-jun or Mo-zongshi. It doesn't matter if Mo Ran is insanely lustful and obsessive (also because Chu Wanning is too he just shows it in a far more subdued way EXCEPT when he gets jealous). He loves being loved and cherished by Mo Ran and treated like a spouse, instead of treated like an object. But most of all, he knows that Mo Ran is in his right mind, he's enjoying it too, and it makes him happy. He loves to make Mo Ran feel loved. And now, sex for them is fully an act of love.
(the only thing that he actually doesn't really like is voicing out his consent out loud, because Chu Wanning is a shy cat. And also let's be real, he likes it rough more then he likes it gentle but that's just down to Wanning's preference LMAO).
TLDR; Did Chu Wanning like getting raped? my answer is pretty much: it's complicated. He loves Mo Ran. He loves Mo Ran beyond anything and more than everything.
so I've been re-reading the ending of 2ha so I could explore something that bothered me the first time I read it. It's the scene when Hua Binan forces Chu Wanning to make a choice: Chu Wanning has to let 30 people die and in exchange Hua Binan will free Taxian-jun from his control vs. kill Taxian-jun to save 30 people.
At first I contextualized it as similar to the trolley problem: would you rather save the person you love most, or would you rather save 30 random people? And that's what bothered me about Chu Wanning's decision, because he choose to kill Taxian-jun to prevent other people from dying. It left me feeling uncomfortable because I thought if it was reversed, Mo Ran would definitely choose Chu Wanning in this situation right? Mo Ran would sacrifice any amount of people for Chu Wanning, but Chu Wanning wouldn't do the same for him. It made me wonder, is Chu Wanning's morality so important to him that it takes priority over Mo Ran? And worse, that it somehow made Chu Wanning's love for Mo Ran inferior to Mo Ran's love for Chu Wanning.
But I realize that I've been looking at it wrong for multiple reasons.
First of all, it's not actually 30 random people vs Mo Ran, it's just the false dichotomy that Shi Mei presents to Chu Wanning, because Chu Wanning already knows that if 30 people are killed to open the doors of the demon realm, it will destroy the world because heaven will enact retribution over the mortal world. So instead, the decision is more like having to choose between "Taxian-jun vs the world" which has far more gravity.
Two, Taxian-jun is not a living being. He is a re-animated corpse that might have wisp of soul left in him, but he is still a corpse nonetheless. He is only "alive" because he is under Hua Binan's control, so once that control stops, he will disintegrate. Chu Wanning already saw the living Mo Ran die, so Mo Ran in both lifetimes is fully dead, even if his corpse appears to be sentient and alive and acts on it's own will (to an extent). Even if Taxian-jun is set "free" by Hua Binan, that freedom does not mean life, because he is already dead.
Three, Taxian-jun will get forced into more violence. Shi Mei is manipulating him as a puppet to kill 30 more people because he does not have the power to do it himself. Letting this happen would mean Chu Wanning is allowing Mo Ran to become a killer again, adding more burden and suffering to Mo Ran's soul, when Mo Ran's original wish was to save people and protect them. In Mo Ran's words as a youth, "I want a weapon like Tianwen so less people have to suffer."
Four, when Mo Ran is fully alive and in danger, Chu Wanning does prioritize him and put him first. Mo Ran gets his golden core taken out (during his punishment at Tianyin pavillion), Chu Wanning rushes to go save him, and he kills 11 innocent cultivators and injures hundreds so he can save Mo Ran. Chu Wanning will act without hesitation to save Mo Ran, even if it means innocent people have to die.
Five, by killing Taxian-jun, Chu Wanning was actually the one who set him free, instead of conceding to the false "freedom" offered by Hua Binan. By killing Taxian-jun, it would free him of Hua Binan's control and he would no longer be a puppet. It would allow his soul and his body to rest in peace. If Chu Wanning had chosen to concede with Hua Binan, it would be a selfish decision on his part, to keep Mo Ran with him, instead of doing the selfless thing of mercy killing Taxian-jun to allow him to have true freedom, and also saving the world in the process. Instead of choosing what he would want most, to be with Mo Ran, the person he loves most, he chooses to be selfless and make the decision that's best for Mo Ran, even if it broke his heart.
Six, it would be idiotic to trust Hua Binan in this situation. If he allows for 30 people to get killed, would Hua Binan truly let Mo Ran go free? What even is "freedom"? Is it life? And as discussed before, it would not be life, because Mo Ran and Taxian-jun were already dead. And although Hua Binan told him "it would only be 30 people," Chu Wanning knew that by opening the demon gates, the whole world would be in peril. Hua Binan’s offer was a lie from the start, because he never told the whole truth.
Lastly, I think truthfully, Mo Ran would choose the same thing if the situation was reversed. Perhaps Taxian-jun would choose Chu Wanning over the whole world, because on the surface it's the obvious (and selfish) choice, of course he would choose Chu Wanning over everyone else. But Mo-zongshi would most probably choose the same thing as Chu Wanning. He would be driven by his responsibility to protect the world, he would want to save people, and he would understand that Chu Wanning would be a lifeless corpse that needed to be put to rest, even if it would be heartbreaking to destroy the last remnants of Chu Wanning. Because in the end, Chu Wanning would want him to make that decision too.
TLDR; Hua Binan tried to scam Chu Wanning and Chu Wanning didn't fall for it. As hard as it was, he made the right decision.
Hey Tumblr friends! @alliumms and I are excited to bring you translations of a series of five short stories written by MXTX during her student days. These early stories are equal parts entertaining and thought-provoking, and contain many incipient themes that can later be found in her novels.
So far we have translated two stories: "A Three-Day Chronicle" (translated by @alliumms) and "The Seer" (translated by me). We have posted the stories on AO3 and will be updating our translation of the other three stories in the near future.
Below is the link to the stories, hope you guys enjoy!
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
In that statue extra when Hua Cheng makes the Honghonger statue, the statue!kid immediately tries to attack however is holding him and Hua Cheng anticipates this. He also treats it nonchalantly saying the kid "is plenty resilient". In the flashbacks, we see Honghonger being aggressive towards anyone except Xie Lian, he doesn't let anyone hold him except XL.
Of course, Xie Lian was the only person being gentle and caring towards him, any other character interacting with the child was at best indifferent. Still, someone being apathetic towards him shouldn't scare him to that point. I don't know about child psychology but it's not hard to guess that a kid behaving this way hasn't been given a place where to feel safe, he's expecting to be hurt 🫤 and he's learned to be vicious to protect himself.
His resilience during this time is one of the examples I mentioned in another post of him being impressive but it is also tragic. A child wouldn't be handling several broken bones the way he did if he wasn't already used to pain. He saw it as something he had to deal with it, that neither crying nor trusting an adult to keep him safe is an option. It breaks my heart how in that scene where Xie Lian is consoling him, Honghonger is tried so hard not to cry. Yet here was someone actually treating him like the little child he was, of course he burst into tears.
What do you think of Moshang? Not how people treat it in the fandom, but how they are in the book. Why would Mobei-Jun like Shang Qinghua ad viceversa?
Shang spends his entire extra thinking about Mobei-jun being exactly his type, then says in the man’s presence that the way he acts towards him is how someone should act if they’re tryna court someone. I think they’re a perfectly fine couple except for the fact that Shang Qinghua’s an idiot. Godspeed to Mobei-jun.
One of the fun contradictions about Xue Yang is that he's simultaneously self-aware about being awful whilst acting like it's egregious for anyone to judge him for this. Everything he does is of course justified in his opinion, but he would never argue that he's a good person. Except this isn't so much because he thinks he's a bad person as it is that he disbelieves in the entire framework being presented. "Good people" and "bad people" don't exist in his world. Everyone's just selfish and anyone who says otherwise is lying or fooling themselves; "good" and "bad" are just labels applied at the discretion of those who have the power to make such distinctions, usually in order to get what they want. By these standards he's not much worse than anyone else, and claims to the contrary are hypocrisy.
And, like, what really gets me is that this line of reasoning becomes immediately much less insane once you look at, well... *gestures vaguely to the Entire State of the jianghu in mdzs*
Like, they did that! The leaders of the jianghu very demonstrably do define good and bad at their leisure in order to get what they want! His utter indignation at being judged in any way for his spree killings seems ridiculous until you remember that this shit happens all the time in MDZS and no one cares! Wei Wuxian got to do it (while the jianghu liked him). Jin Guangyao got to do it (while the jianghu liked him). Society eventually condemned them both, but their condemnation was never really about the killings. The performative outrage over their crimes was just window dressing, and what made them both so easily scapegoatable was their quantum societal acceptability as the son of a servant and the son of a prostitute respectively. The difference between those 2 and Xue Yang in the eyes of the jianghu isn't actually that Xue Yang's crimes are that much more heinous, it's that he never had the veneer of respectability the other 2 were conditionally granted!
Xue Yang bears the constant burden of spitting straight facts while committing one of the most objectively indefensible series of actions in the entire novel. I'm obsessed with him
i'm going to say something insane. i think the overall pronounced fandom cultural slide away from complex plotty violent work and towards kidfic and coffee shops AUs and cozy domestic romcoms is a symptom of fascism.
Reblogging this for the term "neopastoralism", because I think that's fantastic.
Coffee shop AUs are, like... fine. They're not my thing, but they're hardly going to end the world. We don't need to have a moral panic about people enjoying coffee shop AUs. I'm also not about to come for anyone seeking escapism in the current hellscape.
However, I do think it's interesting to examine the tendency within these AUs to project a sort of idyll onto the coffee shop: here is a whimsical place where you can spend time with your friends and potentially meet your true love; here is a world where the greatest dilemma you may face is choosing the right coffee syrup for a new beverage or sneaking your number onto that to-go cup without being obvious.
The fantasy of the coffee shop AU is divorced almost entirely from the reality of an actual coffee shop. There are no abusive, creepy customers or bosses; there is no mention of the barista's wages; we don't see the dishwasher sweating at their station, the cashiers' aching feet; the person whose job it is to clean the (customer-only?) toilets. These topics are Political and Depressing and Must Be Avoided, because Political and Depressing things are antithetical to this kind of escapism.
The coffee shop AU exists, not in a world without capitalism (because this is a setting where commerce is actively happening) but in a world where capitalism has no teeth: a world where capitalism somehow works. In order to be convinced and soothed by this fantasy, you must suspend your disbelief and avert your eyes. You must filter the coffee shop through a neopastoralist lens.
I think that even if something isn’t made for “western audiences” it can still absolutely be racist. Other places in the world are not exempt from racism and discrimination. I think its completely valid for people to call out racism they see in danmei regardless if they’re english speakers or not.
Sure some things can be lost in translation, but i think its willfully ignorant to ignore blatant bias and micro aggressions against specific ethnic groups when it’s staring you right in the face.
As for it showing up across multiple novels- just because multiple authors do it doesn’t make it okay.
I mean, everyone’s a little bit racist…
(Yes I will reference musical theatre at every opportunity)
To me, deconstructing racism in danmei is giving the same vibes as Heartstopper is superior to BL because…
But if those are the types of posts you want to see - be the change you want to see in the world.
Having thoughts about ethnic minorities in danmei and the often contradictory ways they are portrayed. They're not fully formed or even that informed since I'm not chinese myself but you'd have to be really sheltered (or ignorant lol) if you don't notice it after reading at least a significant chunk of popular danmei. And I think it's important to think and engage critically with these works in that capacity, because we live in a society and understanding what we're actually reading is another form of appreciation. It's not the same as defining Asian media against Western media, quite the opposite, it's meeting the media on its own terms, and that includes not viewing it through a liberal "I don't see race" lens or exoticising Chinese authors, ironically.
Anyway, my half-formed thoughts are ethnic minority cultures are on the one hand often exoticised and villainised in danmei. At the top of my head there's TGCF and the banyue arc, Thousand Autumns, Stars of Chaos and many more. A less well known but recent danmei called Qing Gu that gained popularity through the audio drama, features a mixed Han Chinese-Miao ML and his culture gets the same treatment. The foreign and ethnic minority cultures are often portrayed as "barbaric", "backward", and often deal in magic and witchcraft which makes them sinister and threatening. If characters are from that ethnic group, usually they are written to be more sympathetic if they are assimilated or accultured to be more Han Chinese, like Chang Geng (SPL). Or their ethnic backgrounds will be deemphasised so the cultural elements are epresent to simply make them more mysterious and exotic like Hua Cheng, who is implied to have Miao heritage.
So there's all that, then on the other hand, sometimes you'll see these cultures be romanticised. Think the "noble savage" trope in Hollywood. In Qing Gu, the unassimilated village that the MC is trapped in is both a sinister place, and also an escape from modern society. Life is simpler, and ultimately the MC moves from the city to the more assimilated Miao village nearby to be with the ML. The fact that assimilation often comes with Miao villages being treated as tourist spots with their cultures commodified (think Hawaii) is briefly touched upon, but never delved into meaningfully. Another example is in Ballad of Sword And Wine, kinda. The ML Xiao Chiye while not explicitly an ethnic minority, is somewhat ethnic-coded. His braids, wolf tattoo, his affinity with animals and his wild and unrestrained personality. His homeland Libei is symbolised as freedom, somewhere apart from the underhanded politics of the capital.
There's also something to be said about how the ethnic/ethnic-coded character is usually the gong. Perhaps because the main readership for danmei is chinese, by that logic the MC who is often the shou will be chinese to be more relatable. But that's another topic.
Really good addition by @dragonsandphoenix. Regarding the exoticisation and romanticisation of ethnic minorities by the Han, I want to bring up this passage from the paper "'China, Forever': Tourism Discourse and Self-Orientalism":
'Chinese ethnic minorities are strongly associated with representations of Chinese tradition and history. That is, the “primitive” character of ethnic minorities has been interpreted as a critical and “authentic” component of traditional Chinese culture. To such an extent, they represent “reservoirs of the extant authenticity of Chinese history”, whose romanticized indigenous nature has been recurrently depicted as the genuine bearer of the traditional multicultural Chinese character. Compared to the representation of Han people, whose images are associated with both tradition and modernity, Chinese ethnic minorities are significantly confined to the expression of the past. [...] Such representations imply that modernity is solely created and possessed by the Han, while ethnic minorities are denied the right to change, progress and co-participate in the modernization project. […] the museumficaiton of ethnic minorities’ traditions is justified by the need to compensate for the changes and reconfiguration brought upon by Han’s desire for modernization.'
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