#literally i told my mother about the basic plot of ML like 'the main villain is secretly the father of the boy she loves'

[chatonnoir]

What's up with people saying Marinette is "girlbossing" her way into the agreste storyline lmao

People are so terminally online that they somehow don't realize that the majority of men are still very much opposed to women ever having higher positions/income than them in workplaces and relationships in the real world and genuinely believe it to be emasculating to the point that it tears apart relationships. They don't understand that bc of that fact, females in leadership roles with males in support roles needs to be normalized for the younger generations through shows like ML, and it's not "bad/shallow feminism" to have a male and female character not be perfectly 50-50. Because they don't understand this, they call it "girlbossing" (derogatory) whenever Ladybug and Chat Noir aren't perfectly 50-50 in the show and Ladybug is allowed to be the leader, as if it hasn't been established from the start that Ladybug is the main character. They've experienced so much brainrot from obsessively reading and arguing with insane Saltinette stans' takes (rather than just blocking and moving on like the people with brains did) that they can no longer separate the Saltinette takes from canon and are now convinced Astruc is the biggest Saltinette of them all who hates Adrien and is "forcing" his fav Marinette in to the Agreste storyline for #girlpower

As usual, these very progressive geniuses are suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning and don't have any idea what kind of show they're watching, because if they did, they might've instead realized that ML takes inspiration from Spider-Man, a fact that has been made clear by Astruc since the very conception of Ladybug and Chat Noir's designs. If they breathed some fresh air from time to time and put more energy in to thinking about that fact than they did in to coming up with deranged takes, they might've realized that the story specifically draws inspiration from Spider-man's conflict with the Osborn family.

Awkward mess of a teenage boy with a previously normal life unexpectedly becomes a superhero. Hero's rich boy best friend is the only son of a dead mother (named Emily!) and a rich, influential, asshole father. Said father became cold and distant after his beloved wife's death, but the son is still desperate to earn his approval. By a stroke of Great luck, the hero's first major villain happens to be said best friend's father, a fact that is not known by either the hero or the best friend. The villainous father is willing to trade his son's soul to get what he wants. The hero's many secrets, his struggles to balance being a hero with his civilian life, and his decision to keep his loved ones at a distance to protect them puts a strain on all of his relationships, especially with the aforementioned best friend, which is made more tragic and frustrating by the fact that the hero is doing everything he does to protect the very loved ones who are upset with him. When the father and hero's identities are revealed to the best friend, it causes him immense distress, and when the father demands that his son kill the hero, the son struggles between love for his best friend and love for his father.

This classic storyline suddenly becomes a problem when Spider-Man becomes a french-chinese girl and Harry Osborn becomes the blonde best friend whom she's in love with and whom the fans project on to. The superheroine's eventual struggle with her secrets and relationships is criticized to hell and back and becomes "character assassination" and/or an effort by the writers to "punish" the blonde Harry Osborn and/or write him out of the story and make way for the #girlpower, rather than being treated as the normal fucking "struggles of a teenage superhero" plotpoint that it is, because people are incapable of being normal about female characters and male characters are allowed to be messes and fuck up in ways that female characters aren't. The superheroine's nemesis being the best friend's dad is suddenly criticized as being simultaneously not feminist (because the conflict revolves around two Men) and too "gIrLpOwEr" (for "forcing" the heroine in to the male character's familial conflict) all at once. It's suddenly argued that the male best friend character is the one who should actually be the main hero and that the heroine is actually written like a love interest instead of, you know, Spider-Man. It's suddenly a problem that the superheroine is just a normal kid whose main conflict is against a supervillain who doesn't have a connection to her outside of being the father of one of the people she loves most, as if battling supervillains for the sole motivation of protecting their city and loved ones isn't literally what superheroes like Spider-Man classically Do, because you know, "with great power comes great responsibility."

God don't you hate how Spider-man girlbossed his way in to the Osborn storyline

#literally i told my mother about the basic plot of ML like 'the main villain is secretly the father of the boy she loves' #and her instant response was 'oh its just like spider-man' lmao #/ ml fandom salt #answers

[foxghost]

This/last week’s read: Po Yun, Breaking Through the Clouds 1 & 2

All 1.6 million words. Po Yun (Breaking Through the Clouds) and Po Yun 2 (Swallowing the sea), by Huai Shang (817k) On jjwxc. I started reading them because I missed SCI, but Po Yun is a much more serious book with serious plot twists and no hypnosis/split personalities/genetic modification magic. Oh, and more whump. I mean these characters are basically hurt all the time. Constantly. A bonus: all your main characters are in their 30’s.

There’s a summary on novelupdates, but I’m going to give you an alternative summary:

International drug-trafficker King of Spades and the Gongzhou Police Organised Crime/drug trafficking division chief Jiang Ting were once childhood friends and are now caught in a game of cops and robbers cat and mouse and their love story ends in inevitable BE …

Okay, it’s not that, go get the actual summary from NU that ends in a nobody (bad) dies HE ending between Jiang Ting and Yan Xie.

(Rambling that is as spoiler-free as possible after cut, but to summarise, I’d give Po Yun 1 a 7/10 and Po Yun 2 a 10/10 recommended with some caveats for plot holes and warning for graphic descriptions of violence and gore)

Po Yun1: If this book was actually about the first story, 10/10, a very well-told tragedy that ends in a near perfect circle. As is, I’m not sure how to feel because it just felt so much like it should end in 雙愛雙殺 / “mutual love, mutual killing”, that even though it has told me it’s HE since the beginning it doesn’t feel right. Despite Jiang Ting’s insistence that he never loved SpadesK, he did … in the before times, and considering how much he hated him afterwards, he loved him a lot. I think most what made this book less enjoyable for me though is Yan Xie, who is basically your definition of male chauvinist (his nickname in the book is literally “straight man cancer”), and he touched the one squick I have … terrible personal hygiene.

Point form entirely unorganised thoughts (吐槽) :V below, mostly of my very twisted opinion, you’ve been warned

Every time I heard about Yan Xie’s “male hormones” smell I gagged a little because I’m pretty sure he stinks

No, wait, I don’t have to be pretty sure. The first time he lent his jacket to Jiang Ting he had to cover his nose and ask “when was the last time you did the laundry”

also, “wash your feet first thing when you get home or I really will avoid you” omg

Yan Xie: do I look like i have time to change my clothes <- in 3 days

why do you even like him the only thing good about him is that he loves you a lot

most of the words that come out of his mouth (especially towards women) are toxic and just THE WORST

Literally no woman in the novel is surprised that he’s tall, handsome, rich, and is single in his 30’s

his mother: now that he’s this age all I ask is that he chooses someone younger than me

anyway that’s enough about Yan Xie I just had to tell someone after Jiang Ting (whom I love) chose to end up with makes face and points THAT

Meanwhile, the King of Spades is basically a more twisted Asami Ryuichi and how can I not love that fictionally

the king of spades gets a theme song (Young and Beautiful) and childhood episode with MC

Excuse me I have feels about the villain and the MC/villain ship way more than the canon ship orz

Half the plot is about antag trying to turn back time emotionally to see if things between Jiang Ting and himself could have turned out in any way differently

“all i wanted in his life was for you to kill me and then we die together” trope

He is well-dressed, cultured, polite, and utterly off his rocker, kills without blinking, but you know something

He leaves the torturing to Jiang Ting because he’s … probably better at it

Jiang Ting will pull off your fingernails and give you the death of 3000 cuts without batting an eyelash

I love Jiang Ting a regular amount

as mentions of Yan Xie’s lack of hygiene grew less frequent I admit he grew on me (and I guess I want a happy ending for Jiang Ting since he’s suffered enough) but only right up until Yan Xie SPEAKS AGAIN

on the mystery/drama/cases front, it’s good …

too much of the plotting of how convoluted the crimes are hinged on “antag is crazy you can’t explain the motivation of the crazy”

There are plenty of surprises, lots of side characters to get attached to, and come to think of it it’s the kind of happy ending that’s really 地道, nobody (on the good guy side) dies.

Onto Po Yun 2:

MC (Wu Yu) is a contradiction of a killer cinnamon bun (do we still say that? why don’t we still say that?) anyway he can go from polite and sweet and courteous and shy about speaking in public to killer hawk jumping out of the 8th floor window using obstacles to slow his descent to stab target in the throat in 5 seconds flat

Code name “The Painter”, as in “Painted Skin”, cross-border master undercover cop, but he’s pretty to the point of standing out (this is used as a plot point later)

ML (Bu Chonghua, everytime I see his name 蔥花 “chopped green onions” floats across my brain) seems pretty normal at first glance, but he’s “living for vengeance”

MC and ML have childhood background story while MC and villain does not (thank you)

the cases are all related, and they make sense for the most part

MC’s backstory and the final reveal is a bit of a stretch and the writer knows it (and apologises)

But overall, very well plotted cases that takes its time unwinding and doesn’t get explained all at once.

however, some tropes recycled wholesale from book 1 meant that they did not fool me for a single second.

WHUMP and lots of hurt, not so much comfort. These people are wounded so often they really shouldn’t be walking around

I literally can’t tell you anything without giving half the story away, so I won’t — I’m just going to say “read it you won’t regret it”

2 is a better book than 1. Both use the same kind of ship dynamic — MC is evasive and hiding something, ML is full of love but know not to trust entirely because MC is evasive, eventually MC come to realise that “even if I’m evil this man will love me anyway” and then happily ever after. Whether the resulting relationship is healthy is … up for debate, but I’m here for all the car chases / explosions / jumping off buildings / dealing with life and death situations / nearly dying every chapter or two. Come for excitement, nobody dies, and happy wedding endings … ignore the plot holes and inconsistencies.

If Huai Shnag writes a third installment — likely, some ppl are left alive for reasons — I will drop all the points on them. This was totally worth my time. If you buy the jjwxc version, go hunt down the uncensored chapters, there is one smut scene each that got cut.

#fox reads #fox reads po yun