#this is entirely just a rant about 2ha's story

[mejomonster]

one absolutely wild trope that happens in 2ha

is chu wanning turns into a child version of himself as a side effect of OVERDOING A SPELL, and has his clan leaders keep it a secret - but he still has to do his important cultivating work. so when mo ran gets chosen to go to a place to practice cultivating, Chu Wanning also comes as his ‘kid self secret identity’ and mo ran treats him as a cute little brother and is so NICE to him which is wild. because when Chu Wanning is clearly-himself Mo Ran is torn between horny on main and wanting to Slaughter the guy, or Both At Once.

meanwhile Chu Wanning is usually a cold bitch on main, but as a kid he indulges himself Intensely and just lets himself cuddle and get made soup and given food and get brought along to hang out and it’s like!!! okay Chu Wanning i get it!!! YOU’RE A SOFTIE!!! Why can’t you be a LITTLE nicer when you’re clearly-yourself and not using a secret identity!!!

The whole thing gets WILDER when they go into a daydream vision trial thing (which i think is ACTUALLY just time travel), and very likely run into either LITERALLY actual child Chu Wanning or else his dad... and Mo Ran is like... hey Shidi... little brother... you look HELLA like Chu Wanning... you look EXACTLY like a KID Chu Wanning would HAVE...

and so in order to Not-Expose-His-Actual-Identity, because then Chu Wanning would have to admit he’s a HUGE SOFTIE who’s also currently running around as a cute kid instead of Fearsome Bitch Bastard Man... he’s like “OH I’M CHU WANNING’S KID.”

meanwhile... Chu Wanning is a virgin. And Mo Ran’s fairly sure HE’S the one that gets to bang Chu Wanning first one day... and so Mo Ran becomes fucking OBSESSED with CURIOSITY about Chu Wanning ever Banging someone before him, let alone sleeping with a WOMAN, or having a FREAKING KID.

Anyway Chu Wanning protects his own secret identity by lying and saying he’s his own kid. Which is wild as hell whenever he changes back and forth from adult form to kid form over and over, and lies to Mo Ran two different ways, both of which just keep PINGING Mo Ran’s suspicions because... honestly who wouldn’t be hella suspicious...

Anyway that is just ONE SINGLE wild fucking plot in 2ha. 2ha is absolutely CHOCK FULL of wild plots every few chapters or so. I really need the time to GET BACK INTO IT AND FINISH READING IT.

Also... Mo Ran is truly a demon. He’s like. The most hands down “Hi welcome to my story I’m the Bad Guy. The BIGGEST bad guy. I’m a complete bastard. Welcome. >D” and part of what makes the characters so interesting to me, is how part of the intrigue is HOW are these completely fucked up individuals ever going to become ‘heroes’??? Or even likable to me, let alone to Each Other???’

 and the writing is so funny and fun to envision that even when the characters are still evolving into more decent people, even as you slowly get the layers peeled back to start understanding them... the writing is always so fun to read. Chu Wanning and Mo Ran the bastards are as fun to like as the kinder insides they become once they both grow as people more.

--

But yeah, as far as wild plots go... 2ha literally opens with “Hi I’m Mo Ran, I went on a bloody rampage to become Emperor of All, then I was fucking bored and killed myself after making the Whole World A Living Hell... anyway for some fucking reason I woke up as my teenage self again and now I’m living my life over?!!! Well you know what maybe I can save some people’s lives I loved... and no one knows i’m the evil bitch that’s gonna kill everyone yet... :3 I’m going to enjoy my childhood this time around.”

Then it ramps up into ghost-bride weddings, dream kisses with the wrong person, secret identity shennanigans, and so many other bizarre fucking things... and crescendos into “OH FUCK i think ANOTHER version of Me, of MO RAN, is ALSO BACK IN THE PAST... and he’s the FULL EVIL EMPEROR me... killing everyone, ruining everyone’s life... even MINE right NOW... the BASTARD.” And it’s literally Mo Ran re-living his life (post evil Emperor lifestyle) versus Mo Ran the Evil Emperor Bitch. Self v. Self is the 1st 100 chapter build up. What a wild choice. Also like... you literally HAVE TO do interesting character analysis and exploration with such a setup. The setup is literally how different versions of you, shaped by and choosing experiences diffferently, react and choose to move forward and decide who to be. Its a hugely character driven story, despite also having a very active and action paced plot that’s also very fun to read (and ties into the character analysis and arcs quite well)...

Can’t believe i’m only in the chapter 90s...

[vrishchikawrites]

So, a bit of a rant about fanon JC and his origins (IMO):

I don't know if you read 2ha (Dumb Husky and his White Cat Shizune), but it's one of the most popular recommendations when someone asks for danmei to read after MZDS or the other MXTX novels. Basically, the setting is very similar to MZDS (no spoilers): poor orphan Mo Ran is taken by his uncle, the Xue sect leader. He grows up to be an evil tyrant, then his shidi, Xue Meng, comes to kill him (this is all told in the introduction). There are some more superficial similarities that I won't go into because of spoilers. But the story is entirely different, and the characters are nearly opposite of their counterparts in MZDS.

Xue Meng is the sect heir, and he's less talented than MR. He is grumpy, petty, and not good at expressing his feelings, but he's a good person who cares about MR (so fanon JC, more or less). He even has an unreasonable list of demands from a wife… I saw plenty of posts where people say JC and XM are basically the same. And I think reading 2ha after MZDS changes people's perceptions about JC. I even believe that some of the common complaints about WWX are coming from specific scenes in 2ha. People read about XM being lonely or caring for MR and think JC must feel the same since the situation is (only a bit) similar, and they see them as the same character. At least, I think that's where this characterization started, and the rest of the fandom just rolled with it since this kind of character is more fun.

Ah, I see. I haven't read that novel yet but I have seen some comparisons. I, personally, don't really become drawn to people like that unless I see a clear redemption arc happening - like Bakugo.

But still, interesting! Thanks for explaining it.

[hamliet]

I think it's been some time since you got a 2ha ask, but I just finished it and I was wondering, is it just me that finds it uncomfortable that every Butterfly-Boned Beauty we get to know has a bad ending and is “punished” by the story? Hua Binan/Shi Mei is the primary antagonist, and while I fully agree that what he planned was horrible, the fact that the author made the main villain of a person whose goal was ultimately to get his race, which has been dehumanized and objectified for...

… thousands of years, to safety leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Song Qiutong was just trying to survive in a world that treats her as subhuman, yet her wedding is ruined and she’s killed. I get that it wasn’t good of her to betray Ye Wangxi like that, but poor girl just wants to be able to live without the fear of being cannibalized or used as a sex slave. Mo Ran is also a BBB, but he didn’t really suffer the objectification that most of the BBB clan did on account of him being one of the  rare kinds that don’t exhibit the usual traits, so it doesn’t really feel like it counts. I loved the story and the characters, but it seems to me like the BBB went underexplored. I feel like they could have asked some really interesting questions about morality. Like, how exactly can you live as a “good” person when your entire race is treated like cattle, when you’re not seen as human and your entire life depends on not being exposed? Can you really be blamed for doing the things you did when not doing them makes you even more vulnerable in a world that has absolutely no sympathy for you or your kind? But instead, Hua Binan is very undoubtedly evil with no redeeming qualities, Song Qiutong gets her “comeuppance”, Shi Mei ends up alone… I ranted, but that part gets to me. This is a race that’s been brutalized and trampled on without a second thought, no one even trying to help them, and for the members that we get to know, all of whom have actively suffered as a. result of that dehumanization of their race, be antagonists in some shape or form… it just bothers me, but I don’t think I’ve seen anyone else bring it up. Also, I'm really sorry about how long with was, I got sort of carried away.…

Yeah, in general the story gives MR a pass for things it doesn’t show any semblance of mercy for if other people did it. I wrote a whole meta about it here. The lack of empathy for certain characters really shocked me when she was asking us to empathize with Mo Ran. Meatbun is no MXTX, that’s for sure. 

Also, I started to answer before your full ask came in, sorry, my mistake! But yes. It’s funny, 2ha is problematic but not in the way people tend to accuse it of being... sigh. 

[mejomonster]

It is a.. not so small hope I guess.. that the cdramas coming out based on bl novels... idk genuinely try to be faithful to their source and try to genuinely tell those stories instead of changing them and watering down/ignoring parts of the story u.. u know...?

[hamliet]

Fly My Dark Butterflies Fly

Or the one in which I braved the MTL translations for 2Ha and finished, so here’s the updated review (SPOILERS below):

It’s a good story that I thoroughly enjoyed and that made me *feel* things, which is primarily why I read stories. That said, it was thematically... a mess, and so I’m going to rant a lot in this, but please also note that I did enjoy and like the novel and would recommend it.

Can everyone be redeemed? Or are you born good or bad? The author seems to imply that yes is her answer through the first third of her novel, and then kind of... chickens out? It’s hard to tell (and again, not reading in the original is likely part of this impression in me) whether it was well set up or not, but by the end I felt like her answer was closer to either you’re blessed or you’re not, sucks to suck. Which was disappointing. Despite the fact that the author does rightly indict society for failing people and thereby them turning out evil, she doesn't really get into the notion of society being responsible beyond a surface level. It’s acknowledged, called out even, but not explored as it is in, say, all of MXTX’s works.

I was severely disappointed to find out Mo Ran was really good all along and poisoned into doing those things, even if it sometimes pointed out that hey, we all have those desires but we have self-control and the poison only amplified them. Which would have been fine if this was better explored, but again, it’s kept surface level.

This plot twist also seemed pointless to me: like, by that point, anyone still reading reading is firmly empathizing with Mo Ran despite how evil he was in the past. Good. MAKE us uncomfortable with our empathy, as it seemed the novel initially set out to do--it was brash and exploring the limits of redemption and forgiveness, boldly so, but this seemed to suddenly draw back on that: "hey look it's fine you were empathizing because he was more or less innocent!" (Well, it's complicated. But I prefer it when, like Wei Wuxian in MDZS, the author is unflinchingly honest that despite the circumstances he *fully* made his poor choices on his own.) No, I am not reading this kind of novel if I want to be comfortable, Author.

I really disliked how the Butterfly Bone Beauty Clan was treated as well between Hua Bainan and Song Qiutong; hence, my title for this. Honestly like, eat the entire world, my dark butterflies.

Song Qiutong in particular.... I am baffled as to why the author had such animosity towards her. What is the worst thing she did? Accuse Ye Wangxi of rape? Yeah, that was really terrible and she was punished for it, as she should have been (like Nangong Si dumping her). However, why weren’t her circumstances and background considered like they were when the characters do similarly unforgiveable things? Song Qiutong was rescued from being sold as a pleasure slave/to be eaten and she had deliberately been set  up to look as if she was cheating on Nangong Si to provoke her into accusing Ye Wangxi. Which she did. Yes, it was still 100% wrong to do that.  But why does the narrative sympathize with Mo Ran when he's pushed to his limits and does evil, giving us his whole agonizing backstory, but not with Song Qiutong? Idk, but a girl who has been so dehumanized that it's only logical she'll be fearing that she's about to be cast aside (ie which, given her heritage, would likely mean being subject to rape and being eaten alive) trying to save her life is tragic, not scheming and evil. Was it because Mo Ran was self-sacrificial and Song Qiutong wanted to sacrifice someone else? Do you not remember your own words, Author, about how you wouldn't blame someone for wanting to live? That's a literal line in your novel. Or does it only apply to your MCs?

(The same issue was present in Rong Jiu's treatment. You can't make these points about how unfair and cruel it is and then be like "random coincidence they have no hope and Mo Ran does because he's loved, sucks if you're not!" That... isn't hopeful, and the problem is that the novel seems as if it is trying to be hopeful.)

Now, returning to the BBB Clan. WHY are the two we get to know evil? Seriously, you present a group as being persecuted but every single character you introduce from them is manipulative and evil? I just... no...(though, it is possible this isn’t the case. The MTL language was vague enough that I wasn’t clear on whether or not Mo Ran was also Butterfly Bone Beauty or some other demonic race).

Okay, there. Rant over. Now I can discuss what I loved.

Despite that, it's to the author's credit and utter talent that I still rooted for Mo Ran and Chu Wanning, because usually blatant protagonist favoritism makes me hate the protagonist. At that point, though, they had suffered too much and to their credit, taken responsibility for their actions, so I was glad they got their happy ending.

Xue Meng’s development, too, was fantastic, and I particularly enjoyed his relationship with both Mei Hanxues (who were actually decent twin characters, in that they were very very different from one another and had their own complex motivations!). I totally did not see the twist about Xue Meng’s origins coming at the end, and was pleasantly surprised.

The entire Xue family--Sect Leader Xue and Lady Wang--were wonderful, and it was amazing to see great parents in the story, because I totally did not expect that coming into it. It’s actually interesting to me how complex the parental figure were--Mo Ran’s mom was a good mother, and Ye Wangxi’s foster father was by all accounts a bad person but a good dad. No matter his motivations, he did love his daughter. Not only that, but Nangong Si’s love for Nangong Liu despite his father’s failings were quite moving, because it was realistic--you can’t just started hating someone you loved all your life even if you despise everything they stand for. (Nangong Liu, also, was another decent redemption, and I wish more had been done with him.)

Ye Wangxi was also the epitome of a great female character. I adored every development related to her, and her relationship with Nangong Si was a highlight. Every time she was on page I was like “kick his ass baby.”

The villain reveal... well, I was right about it, and I do think it was well done. There was enough set up to see it coming yet enough emotion involved to make you be like NOOO at the same time. Additionally, their connection to the butterfly bone sect was also hinted at not too strongly, but enough so that I had wondered, so the author is pretty great about setting up surprise twists.

Overall, I would rate the novel a 7/10 (same as I would rate FGEP) but feelings-wise an 8/10. I enjoyed 2Ha more than FGEP because it provoked my emotions more and was better written prose-wise (even in the MTL), but FGEP had much clearer themes despite other elements of shoddy writing. MXTX continues to be in a league of her own when it comes to narrative.