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dangermousie · 15 days

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A danmei lover's biased and incomplete het web novel rec list

@mercipourleslivres thanks for inspiring me!

When it comes to Chinese web novels, I mainly read danmei. I tend not to care too much for OP heroine with a hero who dotes on her for no reason as she fights with 14 year olds narratives, nor inner courtyard fights. BUT!!! There are some het web novels I like and so here is my biased and incomplete rec list. Most of these don't have OP heroines, and very little to none courtyard fights.

Before I start, my favorite het web novel authors are: Gong Xinwen, Mo Shu Bai, Peng Lai Ke, and Jiu Lu Fei Xiang. I have yet to read anything bad by them.

Anyway, rec list:

1000 Miles of Bright Moonlight - one of my ultimate favorites, this would make such an epic drama! A smart as hell heroine, a hero who is a monk and a warrior (but also terminally?) ill and such a vivid world and amazing secondary characters (heroine’s brother is possibly my favorite supporting character of all time) and so much angst and happy ending. This has an amazing romance but it’s not romance-centric if it makes sense - ML doesn’t appear for a while. But once he does, it’s worth it!

Accompanying the Phoenix - the one that just got adapted into The Legend of Shen Li, this is high adventure and cottage core and funny and tragic and powerful ML being putty in the hands of capable FL and just EVERYTHING.

Apocalypse Arrival - Gong Xinwen’s novels are made just for me. Her heroines are always powerful as fuck and rescue abused MLs. In this novel, our heroine who lives in the post-apocalyptic world, wakes up right before that apocalypse happens. She forms a survival crew and also rescues ML who has miraculous blood and has been drained of it and is now hunted after the rescue for it. SO GOOD!!!

Black Moonlight Holds the BE Script - so fucked up, so good, with monster hero who learns to love and be human and heroine who learns to love and be human (but from the other side, her tower of perfection.) Much better than the drama which I did enjoy.

The Blue Whisper - the drama was so-so, but the novel is a bona fide angst masterpiece, which really delves into what it feels like to be imprisoned or to love.

Counterattack of the Cannon Fodder Chambermaid - I remember starting this and loving the realistic feel and the heroine and wanting to stab the hero and @mercipourleslivres telling me to be patient. She was right, by the end I was on board with both the hero (who was abused and is rather autistic-coded) and the OTP. Anyway, heroine is a servant who was a concubine in the last life and got killed as part of a rich family’s harem intrigues. In this life, she just wants to keep her head down but her life gets derailed anyway. She gets sold away and eventually made a servant in the household of an exiled prince who takes a fancy to her and she endures it because what choice does she have? All she wanted was to serve out her term and become a small time merchant. This is quite realistic about lack of options for women, especially lower class women or upper class male attitudes (ML is never vicious or mean to FL but it does not initially occur to him to wonder if she fancies him or enjoys being his concubine or w/e.) It is a DELIGHTFUL slow burn tho as they grow to love each other and grow together and become one of the most wholesome cnovel couples out there.

Dandere General and His Lord - hi there, Gong Xinwen! God, I love this one. Heroine transmigrates from modern world into a brutal slave-holding world at war (think something like Warring States era.) Our heroine transmigrates into the body of a noblewoman who just hung herself. When she comes to, she discovers that woman’s twin brother was the ruler of a city poisoned by a rival claimant and the besieging army of said claimant is about to take the city and original occupant of the body and the rest of the family chose suicide as a way to avoid dishonor. Our heroine refuses, schemes with advisors to pass as the brother and rally the troops. Once the invaders are defeated, she keeps on the masquerade and rides off to one of the never-ending wars “she” is summoned to. Our hero couldn’t be farther from this. A slave and a son of a slave, he’s escaped a horrific, starving childhood during which he narrowly avoided being murdered or raped, and ended up in the army. When the story opens, he distinguished himself in battle and as a reward, he and a few of his fellow slave warriors are invited to a banquet, where they are given some alcohol and to be playthings of any nobles who want them. One of them does not survive this but ML is lucky - heroine feels terrible and so “claims” him for herself. Instead she just tends to his wounds and sends him back. She does not fancy him or anything, she is just a human being with a conscience. And the story goes from there.

Demon King's Repayment - another delicious Gong Xinwen tale with a powerful ML dedicated to capable FL. This one is a great fantasy plot (I keep imagining it as an animated series) and a sprawling cast of amazing secondaries (and secondary OTPs - there is, I swear, an OTP that is Dong Hua x Feng Jiu done thru GXW lens) to boot.

Doomed to Be Cannon Fodder - I hesitated to put this one on the list because by the end I was not keen on how misogynistic novel got to original female lead but it was one of my earliest novels and I loved it for 90% and it’s fucking hilarious at times. Heroine transmigrates as bit villainess into a novel, all she wants is not to die, but her new attitude of “pls stay away” catches the attention of her terrifying general husband. Honestly, imo still worth it.

Dreamer in the Spring Boudoir - my n1 novel on this list, smart and fierce and don’t really read this for romance because it does not start until really late, but ice cold heroine x ice cold hero both of equal brains and ruthlessness is everything. I went from loathing the ML to finding him fascinating to adoring him (and yet he softened around the edges only for FL, he never became “nice”) and loved FL throughout; secondaries are epic. If you read only one non-danmei web novel, make it this one.

The Emperor’s Beloved Ugly Girl - my n2 novel on this list. Our heroine is the unlucky laundry maid A’Chou. She is a di daughter of an upperclass family but her family got destroyed in one of the political upheavals of the time and A’Chou, only a small child at the time, was the only survivor and was made an enslaved laundry maid. Due to various events, at the start of the novel she is a laundry maid in a minister’s household and the minister’s beloved daughter is having a fit because she’s supposed to marry the former Crown Prince which may have been great a few years back but Crown Prince had since been deposed, tortured, imprisoned and now is living in the middle of nowhere under conditions that are too meager to be called house arrest. And he’s seriously crippled too. Understandably, the young lady doesn’t want to marry him! She’d rather kill herself and so she does. And so, a desperate plan is hatched - why don’t we pretend the laundry maid is the di daughter of the minister’s household and send her off? And so A’Chu is sent as the bride. She arrives to discover a broke, seriously injured man on the verge of death…and we go from there. This is so gorgeous and tender and slow in just the right way and like AAAAAA! Secondary OTPs (one of which is MM) are also epic.

Futu Tower - the drama (Unchained Love) was a mess but the novel is such a lovely, dark exploration of coming back to life, for the ML from his dark revenge-strewn path and for heroine from not being allowed wishes of her own. She is a tribute bride, he’s a (fake) eunuch, they are both servants who use themselves to achieve goals and find peace and happiness together.

The Grand Princess - a tale where both members of the OTP reincarnate as their younger selves after killing each other in their 50s, and get a new start, this is smart and slow and so good in portraying old souls in young bodies. Their rediscovery of not just each other but themselves and their passion for living is just AAAAAA!

Heroine Saves Gentleman - Gong Xinwen novel so we have a tough martial artist lady saving a very upper class scholar and it goes from there. If elegant gorgeous ML being saved and protected (and lovingly dommed) by awesome FL is your bag, pls come right in.

Husband Be a Gentleman - schemer meet schemer. He’s an idle prince she’s perfect daughter, in reality both are wolves out for blood. Mmmm. Very OTP gets together early and is us against the world.

I’ll Be the Male Lead’s Sister in Law - one of my all time favorite novels. Heroine is made to marry a disabled nephew of the emperor. He used to be a victorious god of war but went mad and now is basically locked away and kept as a beast. GOD I LOVE THIS NOVEL SO MUCHHHHH! So much hurt/comfort and awesome OTP and after he eventually recovers, all he wants to do is to fight and murder things and dote on wifey. MMM. He’s honestly one of my fave MLs.

I Married a Disabled Tyrant After Transmigrating - if you have a Florence Nightingale complex, this is for you. Heroine wakes up as tribute bride to an almost dead dragon lord and slowly nurses him back to life as his rivals try to murder him. They are both utter adorable babies!

Let the Villain Go - another Gong Xinwen novel, this and Apocalypse Arrivals are AUs of each other. Heroine is surviving in the apocalypse, ML is the “bugbear” of the world but in reality just reacting to all abuse and torture and after she accidentally saves him, devotes himself. Fun fun fun!

Long Wind Crossing - Amazing ML and FL who grow together, clever plot, arranged marriage to love etc etc. Oh, and one point he feeds her his blood to keep her alive, what’s not to love? (Adapted into Chang Feng Du/Destined)

Lost You Forever - this is a short but delicately wistful tale of trauma and loss and love, wrapped in a high fantasy setting but so relatable despite it.

Love In Another Life: My Gentle Tyrant - so so fucked up in the best way! ML cannot live with OR without heroine. It opens on them banging in jail night before her execution (ordered by him) with corpses of men he killed for trying to defile her cooling nearby. If you want healthy relationships with respectful boundaries, gentle and considerate male leads who are modern men in period clothes, OP heroines who have everyone help them and are OP to the max, fluff and wholesomeness, that is about the worst book for you.If you want complexity, dysfunction, darkness, pain and an absolutely lyrical even if fucked up story, come right IN!!!!I am so fucking in love with the melancholy heroine, with ruthless psycho hero and the endless regret and devotion and paaaaain!

The Marquis Is Innocent - our heroine is a beautiful woman married to a warlord who hates her family. (Yes, this was gonna be The Prisoner of Beauty until SZE tax scandal.) Except she's a transmigrator from the future who knows how it ended last time around and has no interest to end up this tragically. This is in my top 5 - FL is smart but believably so (and doesn't have super battle powers) and ML is a believable period warlord. The way their relationship develops so gradually and the way his character changes so gradually as well (and the way they slowly fall in love, her slower than him) is just amazing. It is such a smart, nuanced, gorgeous slow burn. With some gonzo sex scenes :P

Mulberry Song - you like tragic endings? Come right IN! This is short and heartbreaking and wistful and very what-if.

Nightfall (Ever Night) - so long but also so smart and unusual and bloody and tho it’s not primarily a romance, you will never see another ML who loves his FL as much as Ning Que does his Sang Sang.

Offering Salted Fish to Master - in some ways, this novel is a mess, but I am recommending it because this is a rare example of "nope he's 100% a villain and murderdude and odd, but he does love the heroine" that the author commits to.

Pihanjin - yet another awesome PLK novel, this is once again, like with Marquis, a ruthless man and a beautiful woman getting a second chance on a second go-around. FL is a lot more wounded this time around though. If you LOVE watching ML grovel and slowly, gradually win FL over, this one is for you.

Princess Agents - a dark tale with an incredibly competent and militarily powerful/ruthless heroine and two terrifying men who love her (but neither is as terrifying as she is.) There is an OTP switch halfway through that shockingly makes sense and it's just SO SO GOOOOOOOD

Rebirth of the Malicious Empress of Military Lineage - this is probably the one “typical” novel on this list, heroine is reborn as her youngest self and gets revenge on those who wronged her last time around. It is really really well-written and heroine is competent, hero is doting and powerful etc. It’s not a trope I tend to love but I do when it’s done THIS well.

Rebirth of the Tyrant’s Pet: Regent Prince is Too Fierce: Borgias cnovel style! Our heroine was empress in last life and put her husband on the throne tho he did not love her. However, he had her executed and had his half-brother carry out the orders and heroine died horrifically. She opens her eyes and she’s a little girl again. The OTP this time around is heroine and half-brother executioner. Why do I love it? Heroine is smart and tough but also this is a rare rebirth novel where heroine does NOT decide to seek revenge for past life wrongs because they haven’t happened yet! In fact, she sees ML abused and stands up for him because he’s a kid and no kid should be mistreated and this go around he hasn’t done anything wrong. She also gets and likes her former life husband. Anyway, this is fakecest galore because she’s supposed to be their half-sister and while she knows (from past life) she is not, they do not and fall for her anyway. ML is especially gonzo, at one point carving chunks of his flesh to save her. He’s feral and unhinged and she’s the one person he worships because she protected him and like - it’s all awesome. (I love secondary ML too.)

Reborn to Love Lord Qiansui - yes, this is a eunuch novel! If you like gender tropes reversals, this one is for you. Heroine is a tough martial artist, hero is a smart as hell and powerful eunuch. A real eunuch. Heroine finds out she owes him her life and decides to protect him. This is a total delight and an awesome love story between two really scarred people. And yes, there is sex - heroine literally reads manuals on pegging :P

Return of the Swallow - so freaking long! But really good. Heroine is neither transmigrator nor reincarnator, just a smart period woman. She is a lost family daughter taken back in. Her father is a minister in a dying empire (father-daughter relationship is one of the best things in this novel), her OTP is enemy general, and the smartness and the awesomeness of this all knows no bounds.

Seven Unfortunate Lifetimes - probably the wackiest JLFX novel I read, this is quite different from Love You Seven Times drama that was adapted from it. Our deity protagonists go through a bunch of lives figuring out they fancy each other. It's light like a souffle but just as delicious.

To Be a Virtuous Wife - some people prefer 8 treasures trousseau but I never warmed up to that one. This one is so good, with smart people (who actually enjoy sex, a ratity) and a perfect mix of plot and romance.

Transmigrator Meets Reincarnator - my very first web novel. A lot lighter than a lot of the ones on this list but a total delight. Heroine transmigrates into a novel as the heroine; she has no interest in drama or chasing true love, she just wants to live a nice life with her nice husband. Too bad for her, her husband has reincarnated into his younger self and remembers how she betrayed him, so is not interested. This one is funny and light and romance doesn’t start till late on but a total delight!

Wishing You Eternal Happiness - this is tied with Dreamer as my favorite het web novel ever though it couldn’t be more different from Dreamer, with its hard-edged and hard-souled protagonists ruthlessly cleaving their way to the world and, eventually, each other, its smart cynical air. Except in one thing - the world of Wishing is just as bloody and dark. Its two protagonists are gentle, deeply wounded souls who may find salvation in each other but even something as basic as safety almost seems out of reach.

Jliafu, our heroine, is neither a modern-day transmigrator, nor some exotic princess or demoness. She is very much a period woman of her time, from a weathy merchant clan, whose beauty is her curse. You can tell the novel’s tone from that utterly bleak opening chapter where she, a favorite concubine of a capricious dying emperor, is ordered to be buried alive with him and is not even given the “grace” of white silk but slowly suffocates in the coffin, scrabbling at the lid. There is no grand threats of vengeance on her part, not dramatic opera events. Just despair and death. The whole introductory chapter is haunted by emotional ghosts - the empress’ unrequited love for the monster on the imperial bed (turning into desire for Jiafu’s suffering after he dies), the emperor slowly dying in his prime after waging too many wars, and his fear of being haunted by Pei Youan, a brilliant if sickly minister who died of illness long ago on one of imperial campaigns. There is no triumph for anyone, only loss.

When she wakes up as still a young woman, all she wants is to escape the same fate. There are no plans for power or revenge, only a desire for survival. And so she latches on asking for help from Pei Youan, the only man in her past go-around who showed any consideration and desire and ability to protect her, though he barely knew her. Pei Youan is probably my favorite het web novel ML. Despite his brains and ability, he drifts through life. In modern terms, he clearly has depression. One of the biggest, best joys of the novel is watching these two very good, very quiet, very wounded people discover happiness and love with each other. I sort of want to cry just thinking about it, tbh.

The Yandere Came During the Night - a bit of fluff that’s oddly delightful. Heroine is reborn as a (fake) sister of ML, she hurts her legs saving him and the “siblings” form a bond that ends up in fakecest delight. They are both smart and efficient and he becomes a sexy marquis etc.

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phoenixcatch7 · 7 months

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Kintsukuroi

'What if I put a clock pendulum in my torso' was the sort of question Bruce had come to expect when visiting Oracle.

"Pendulums are dependant on a stable base," he replied, because the last time he'd assumed they were being unserious Tim had tried to fit a chemistry test lab in his mouth and accidentally leaked the fumes through his mask.

"It'd be so aesthetic though," said Barbara, not looking up from the dozen screens she was surrounded by. "Listen. It would look so cool - Spoiler, robbery on fifth and main - Especially if I put a clock face over my heart."

"I thought you were trying to fit a super computer in it?"

"I was, but progress is slow. It's hard to fit it and enough padding to protect it plus leave enough room for ventilation. If I add the pendulum I might at least get inspiration." She gave a heavy sigh and pushed away from the desk, gliding in her chair to where her doll body was resting on a table, the glue separating the two halves of the smashed torso still glistening. Bruce followed, peering over her at the many scanners and wires hooked into it, flashing and beeping.

"Any luck?" he asked, and they both knew he wasn't talking about the computer anymore.

"Nothing."

He squeezed her shoulder, and she leant into it. They stayed there for a long moment.

"I just don't understand!" Barbara finally burst out, hands clenching on her chair arms. "I glued nearly every single piece back together! I made sure every splinter I could find went exactly where it should! I know the contract is still there. She's worked with more missing pieces before. But she's just not responding!"

"It's not you," Bruce soothed. "You've more than enough determination and strength to puppet, and we know the human body's state doesn't affect performance."

"That's the thing!" Barbara threw her hands up angrily, nearly smacking Bruce in the face. There was a chatter over comms, and both reached for their own. "One second," she said tightly, and wheeled back into the glow of the monitors. "Copy. BW, you're nearest? Thanks. Try and avoid the sniper this time. Wing, backup is in five."

She muted again and spun around, pinning Bruce with a heavy stare. "Is there anything, anything you can think of? We've - nothing I've tried has worked."

"Well...." He trailed off, one hand coming up to rub at the chin of his mask - a quiet night meant the opportunity to forgo the practical but muffling gas mask for his favoured plain black.

It was far from the first time a doll had been horrifically damaged. The incident with Bane came to mind - Batman had been in a very similar condition, body shorn clean in two and tossed to opposite corners. It was an awful memory, but the expression on Bane and the audience's faces as his bloodless body fell apart like a rotting tree trunk and then kept moving was a silver lining he'd always treasure.

But he'd been repaired and back on his feet in weeks, if bearing the incandescent fury of the doll for several more. It had been months for Barbara, and still nothing was happening.

"There's something we're missing, and I doubt it's on your side."

"I know THAT-"

"Listen," he demanded, and her jaw clicked shut mutinously. "There's something we're not seeing. Batgirl is in no shape to demand it herself, it seems. So its inaction is something we can't fully rely on."

"You've got the most experience with the dolls of all of us. Can you.. I don't know, sense anything?"

"Nothing more than the usual, with the Patriarch Doll, but we might get more if we return to the doll house -"

"No." Barbara interrupted again, but Bruce did not take offence. "She's not going anywhere. She doesn't want to head back to the cave."

Oh?

"She doesn't want to, or she doesn't care to?"

"I say she doesn't."

Interesting. This was likely a case of the doll exerting its will. The bats were well versed in avoiding the few lines their wooden bodies drew in the sand, treating them with the wary respect one would give a favorite blade or a highly trained attack dog. They could work together, share the highs and lows of life with them, but never get complacent. The dolls were forever a foreign, inhuman presence, and as with all wild creatures they would never be so arrogant as to assume full understanding. For Barbara to so strongly decide for the doll meant she was most likely not the only one deciding.

Which meant the solution would not be found in the cave.

"Perhaps there are upgrades she wishes to have?"

Oracle paused.

"Maybe," she conceded. "But there's practically a limitless amount of things I could do, and I wouldn't know where to start. And I could more easily do them when she's up and walking."

Not that then. If the doll wanted something to change but not receive upgrades or heal, than what?

... Not heal.

Batman hurried to the table. Oracle watched him with hawk eyes, but another call on the comms turned her away with a final warning glance.

Recovering every single splinter from a damaged wooden object and perfectly reattaching it was nigh impossible on a good day, never mind in the dead of night with a moving target. The dolls always returned to the cave to regenerate scratches and nicks they couldn't buff out, or accepted plaster to transmute with whatever supernatural power guided them.

The batgirl on the table, divested of all covering and armour, was still as chipped and scuffed as the day nightwing recovered last splinter.

The pieces fell into place.

"She doesn't want to be perfectly rebuilt," he realised. "She doesn't want the damage to disappear as it normally does... She wants it to remain visible. A different type of repair, then."

Oracle spun in her wheelchair to face him.

"Why?" she asked, something sharp in her eyes. Bruce chose his next words carefully.

"Perhaps she thinks such damage doesn't need to be hidden away," he said, slowly, and didn't comment when she turned away. Though she put on a strong face, and the doctors had recently released her full time, it would be a long time until the young hero was able to truly heal her mind.

"She doesn't need to do that for me. She's just causing me trouble."

"I don't think she is," he tried. "Dolls tend to reflect their puppeteer even after they accept us. You can't deny your trajectory has been changed."

They both sent a significant look to the enormous super computer taking up the wall.

"You've said you almost feel better able to protect Gotham now, with your reach and skills. Do you really feel that way?"

"I - I don't -" her mouth worked silently, and Bruce waited. "I mean I guess... But a part of me always assumed it'd be temporary, you know? Once I fixed batgirl.. It'd all return to normal." Her voice wobbled, and Bruce didn't hesitate to crouch before her, wrapping her in a long armed hug. She buried herself in his chest, regardless of the chilled metal.

"It's okay if you don't," he whispered into her hair, and held her as she shook. "I'm just throwing ideas around."

"I do though," she rasped. "I think I do feel that way. There's so much that can't be solved by violence, and it feels good to be out there but... I think I can help even more people, this way."

"That's good," he praised, "that's good. You can do whatever you set your mind to."

"You stole that from a parenting book verbatim."

"It's applicable to the current situation."

"Fine," she sighed, and pushed him away to roughly scrub at her eyes. "I'll give the doll another chance. Find some glitter glue or something, I don't know."

"Any materials you need will be provided," he promised. "I wouldn't recommend glitter glue or our usual tar."

He moved to pat her on the hair as the emotions of the moment faded, making sure to keep his unsheathed claws out of her hair.

"Once you fix her, though, I would recommend you puppet the doll during night hours still," he told her. "It wouldn't be good to put your body through twenty hour days."

"I've got a good system set up for now, but thank, B-man."

The computer dinged with another alert, and oracle spun to squint at it with a muffled curse, typing furiously. Batman escaped to the other side of the room, where the folders he'd originally come looking for lay. She waved, distracted, as he left, and although the doll could not smile, he could feel it on his face all the same.

@puppetmaster13u I summon thee dear mutual ^^

#I don't know which of us came up with the kintsukuroi idea but it worked brilliantly #Unexpected discussion of clinging to the idea of normality as something that can be returned to despite thinking you're okay with your #Life altering chronic condition diagnosis 🫠#Off screen nightwing is just not having a good time #I'm still testing out my characterisation of b but I'm pretty happy with him. Good dad b but also pre/no Ethiopia so he's healthier as it i #Oh btw the dolls don't have gender being inanimate the bats are anthropomorphising them #In the same way sailors call their boats she or my mum decided the roomba is a he #Some world building! I stuffed a lot in lol #I like the idea of the bats having different masks. Like the gas mask is for arkham breakouts or gas villains or ivy so it's the famous one #But they also use plain cloth masks or ceramic ones or decorative ones when the occasion calls. They've got scuba ones too #long post #batman #world building #worldbuilding #bruce wayne #possessed doll au #haunted doll #cryptid batman #cryptid batfam #batman au #dc oracle #barbara gordon #batgirl #I'm trying to keep the dolls as mindless but watchful as possible #Like they don't have opinions or ideas or anything. You could do literally whatever you wanted as long as you follow The Rules #I don't think the bats really know about the contracts. I think b has inferred something. But it's more trial and error #One idea I had is that the dolls are powered by the life force of past users mutated into... Whatever tf from all the curses.#So by entering the contract you lose a significant chunk of your ability to enter the afterlife.#Yes this would only be noticed by the jl going to the future and trying to find the souls of everyone or smth for whatever reason #And the bats don't have much of anything. Leading to the further impression that they aren't remotely human

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