#cwn never taught him to read or write

[unenomainen]

I had a passing thought about an xxxholic and 2.ha crossover fic and now, a few days later, it has taken over my brain

#with a tsubasa reservoir chronicle flavour specifically 👌👌 #ok now i'm just saying words #all you need to know is that in xxxholic there is a store that grants wishes #for a price ofc bc it's a store! but the price is not money #like in trc a character wants to save his friend and the price is all of her memories of him #so you can see where i'm going with this :^) #just imagine...... cwn gets to create an alternate timeline and keep his soul intact but!!!! mo ran doesn't remember him #in mo ran's memories? he never became cwn's disciple #cwn never taught him to read or write #cwn got to save everyone at sisheng peak and stop mo ran from being taken over by the flower #but in the end...... he never gets mo ran back #not that sweet boy who wanted his attention more than anything #angst route: cwn stays out of mo ran's life for good. watches from afar as he lives his life #happy ending route: mr approaches cwn anyway and they fall in love bc they're meant to be #they may never have what they could've had if not for hbn #but they have a different kind of happiness #also this way cwn is the only one who remembers what happened in 0.5 which. well! #fun trauma for him to deal with alone i guess 🤪 #spoilers #in the tags

[dangermousie]

Oh, I agree so much with everything you said in that reply about dom/sub ranwan. Now, there's only one part that confuses me, but it's probably because English isn't my first language, sorry... when you say "CWN never comes across as a girl in everything but physical attributes (a problem in some other danmei imo) but his attitude reminds me a lot of attitude some of women develop about sex and sexuality in conservative societies" you mean CWN has feminine attributes then? I mean, I remember he is described as masculine but what I get fron this wording is that he has girly attributes physically... as in, he never come across as a girl except for his physical attributes? Then again, you later say BUT is his attitude what reminds you of a woman raised in a conservative environment, as if it's the only thing about him that makes you feel is of a woman (and a specific one)... so really, it's just me not getting English, sorry 😅

oh, I'm also curious about that thing being a problem in other danmei, so you mean the typical heteronormative stereotype in BL where the bottom is feminine, right? I didn't read a lot of danmei yet but I guess that just like happens in BL in gral, this is a thing...

On a complete different note, you made me realize something: You mention how it wasn't an issue for CWN that Mo Ran was his disciple and it's interesting how at the beginning, he having feelings for him, his disciple, was! But once they get together, he really doesn't think about it? How it gave him more guilt his romantic feelings than sexual desires once they're together. And tbh I'm glad Meatbun didn't make him overthink about it and brood too much over it. If I think about it, it's not a cliché a care about (the one where the couple ponder too much about a "taboo")

"you mean CWN has feminine attributes then?"

No, what I mean is that while he doesn't have feminine attributes and comes across as a guy in everything looks included (Meatbun is pretty deliberate in saying over and over his features are more masculine than usual), his attitude to sexual pleasure and wanting same is similar to that of some women in conservative societies which are taught to view desire, especially expressing desire and being aggressive about what they want in bed as shameful. It's about the only thing he has in common with ladies though unlike some other shous where except for their physical attributes (they are genetically men, have dicks and are addressed as men by other characters) they might as well be a girl stereotype. 

Because yes, some other danmeis write their shous in such a way that you could change them into a woman and it would make no difference - the general in the dreadful War Prisoner comes to mind but even good novels suffer from that. I enjoy The Wife Is First a lot since it's perfect period gay cottagecore vibe but the "wife" in that novel might as well have been replaced by a woman and they'd not have to change a word.

As to CWN, I find it so interesting that his feelings of guilt fairly evaporated when Mo Ran 2.0 came back all broad-shouldered, 20+ and in possession of "absolute unit" right about the time he developed his sexual awakening as well and I don't think it's just because lust short-circuited his brain. I think it's because Mo Ran prior to CWN's 5 year nap was not yet fully grown man and MR 2.0 was and they really were equals. (And significantly CWN only discovered hormones and desire once MR was a grown up by any definition as opposed to a teenager.)

#asks #2ha

[dangermousie]

CFC 200

OMG 200 chapters, and no sign of this novel coming to an end. The longer the better say I, just like Meatbun shous!

1. So gross, the org is now testing its products on teen girls who went for beauty treatments. What, cancer patients weren’t gross enough? There is NO way He Yu, whatever his mental state and issues, is working with someone who is harming children en masse.

2. I love how Meatbun manages to sneak in an indictment of how beauty industry exploits the vulnerable and pushes unhealthy narratives to make money. What Duan Wen is doing is much more evil, but he’s only ramping up the existing pathway.

3. Some poor girl who got caught in this because the boy she liked called her ugly so she went to get procedures. XQC: It’s the boy who needs to go to the doctor not her! God, every time I think I cannot love the man more.

4. Dreambreaker wants XQC work on developing an antidote and XQC is still ill and knows he should not push himself but he cannot refuse because innocent people, innocent children are being hurt. Dammmmmmmit!!!! He’s gonna exhaust himself and get sicker or even stop treatments utterly to have a sharper brain FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK

5. XQC tells Chen Man he has nothing to do with He Yu anymore. He’s really just given up on HY and I don’t blame him. Frankly, much as I adore XQC, find HY compelling if not likeable and enjoy reading about their fucked up dynamics, I am genuinely not rooting for them as a couple because I do not see long term happiness and stability and a path forward there. I am sure Meatbun, being a genius, will write one and then I will be all in, but as of now, I have no idea how it will get there.

6. HY is back to his stalking self, losing his mind watching XQC and Chen Man act like a family with Ya Ya (CM gives her his coat.) Honestly, I was bored by CM but now I am all “XQC pls date him, he’s nice and sane and doesn’t commit to hurting you over and over.” And he brings him lunches and all that and I don’t normally get SLS but I do now. Like! Pick the one who treats you well, not the violent abusive headcase! It’s like I am reading the old-school romance novel. The thing is, I fully believe HY will be better in a world-ending crisis than CM and he would die to save XQC and put such superhuman efforts to protect him that it would put anything Chen Man can do to shame, but even in the world of the evil org the bulk of their lives won’t be spent in world-ending cataclysms and so you need someone who is actually good at every day, at mild triumphs and annoyances of normalcy. To quote Kitty from Georgette Heyer’s Cotillion:

“Freddy is the most truly chivalrous person imaginable! . . . and a great deal more to the purpose than all the people one was taught to revere, like Sir Lancelot, and Sir Galahad, and Young Lochinvar, and — and that kind of man! I daresay Freddy might not be a great hand at slaying dragons, but you may depend upon it none of those knight-errants would be able to rescue one from a social fix, and you must own, Meg, that one has not the smallest need of a man who can kill dragons! And as for riding off with one in the middle of a party, which I have always thought must have been extremly uncomfortable, and not at all the sort of thing one would wish to happen to one — What is the matter?”

Meg raised her head from the sofa-cushions: “He w-would say it was not at all the th-thing!”

“Very well, and why should he not?” said Kitty, refusing to share in her hostess’ unseemly mirth. “If you were to hear of such a thing’s happening, you would think it most improper, now, wouldn’t you?”

I think that what is causing me such difficulty with this ship (and I hasten to add not because it’s a Meatbun failure - she is deliberate in her writing choices. It’s actually very realistic for HY and for XQC and for their traumas and backgrounds) is because somewhere like 2ha, once Mo Ran realized his feelings, he treated CWN so well and never backslided and so you see proof of how happy and functional and warm they will be in their lives once they save the Universe and everything is over (and in Yuwu, the same is true, once Mo Xi realizes the truth of things, he doesn’t backslide, also I am sorry, Gu Mang literally stabbed him through the heart in person and went killing as a traitor, that’s a much more legit ground for complaint) but here it’s like a yo-yo back and forth and HY was a beast then he was sweet and now he’s a jerk again and so there is no stability and it makes for a high drama relationship that reads as exhausting to me. Personal preference. I want OTP against the world, not this.

7. He Yu keeps watching XQC and CM working together for months, being more and more tormented. I am wondering why he can’t go full stalker and install spying equipment because then he’d quickly find out only thing CM and XQC have between them is trying to stop HY’s boss. But I think he loses all rationality when CM is involved.

8. Apparently HY’s company is also developing an anti obedience water drug. Hmmm. It would be terrible if it got approval because who knows what effects it has or, best case scenario, it will entrench HY further as an honest businessman and thus make whatever he’s doing for Duan Wen easier. I bet this is where that excerpt Meatbun has posted comes from - HY sabotages XQC’s presentation through sex (or sex is just involved somehow) and so his drug gets approved and honestly this is all gross gross gross if my guess is correct. Leaving aside his wrecking XQC and XQC’s reputation (and XQC is wrecking his precarious health for this!), his doing this about the drug would be so wrong. I cannot think of another novel I’ve read and enjoyed so much while wanting to stab one of the protagonists for such a large portion of the novel. I am sure Meatbun will pull a reveal that will make me change my mind (she is a magician after all) but even with that, the fact that I adore a novel where so far I wanted to punch He Yu for a good quarter of its runtime is impressive! 

#cnovel #meatbun doesn't eat meat #case file compendium #couldn't get to this chapter earlier and it was torture omg

[dangermousie]

Oh God.

I am in tears.

2ha - come for the silly title, stay for bawling over a bowl of soup.

Seriously, his deprived childhood explains so much about Moran and his feeling that everything good is impermanent and the SYMBOLISM of the fact that it’s CWN who brings him a giant bowl and tells him to take his time and nobody would take it away.

And oh the never-ending remorse and how CWN is basically always always the one who saves/helps Moran’s life on very practical levels despite not being a very practical person - he fed him when Moran was about to starve to death, he taught him reading and writing, and fighting and spells, he lights up the lamps when Moran cannot, and his presence in the world literally keeps Taxian Jun, as monstrous as he gets, from going truly fully thoroughly mad the way he goes after CWN 0.5 dies. And of course he literally saves Moran’s soul - not a metaphor but literally - and just...

In other news, I love love love the contrast between CWN’s utter lack of self-image - he genuinely thinks he’s old and ugly and how everyone else sees him. I’ve just gotten to the part where they are going to Nangong Si’s wedding and even Xue Zhengyong who’s straight and has zero interest in dudes is “OMG this man is as beautiful as a God” (but then thinks that if he doesn’t have a partner he’d die from lack of self-care because he’s so horrible about every day life matters lol.)  Or the fact that Moran and CWN battle it through for kicks and I swear it’s like foreplay for them (and then CWN is all “he can’t possibly be turned on, it must be a fluke.”  That’s on par in mental thickness with Moran’s reaction to CWN opening a soulmate box “it must be broken.” Heh. Dummies! I love them.)

#cnovel #2ha