[Chinese BG novel] 戏精女配[快穿] / Female supporting actress

Novel back from 2018, authored by 池陌 is a world hopping type of novel. Although the novel has a lot of routines and, as I call them, almost obligatory plots/worlds, but since it's light-hearted it is easy to digest.

We start with our female lead who plays supporting roles in different worlds, her objective is to bring satisfaction to the wisher and fullfill their regrets. Yuanyuan is supported by a Melon-eating system that strives not only completion, but entertainment. It also provides one golden finger per world, which is very convenient, but Yuanyuan herself learns a lot of skills in every world. That's why I call these routines, because many authors practically wrote down such settings, other settings that are quite wide-spread are face-slapping plots, reaching pinnacle of success in the related chosen field, but also the "bad" guys end up pretty badly, but not only badly, it's really the miserable with all the getting in jail, being sick, impoverished etc.

About worlds. The good part is that most plots are moderns plots, but some plots I'd say I find weird and not up to my taste at all (e.g. like the ABO one, I rarely like these type of stories) or I don't agree with the chosen theme (I very much dislike when part of the plot is about non blood-related siblings, who basically grew up together, but then we find out that they're not related and it's all good but he's the target). Good thing such plots are in single digits. It doesn't mean that plots are bad, if we're talking about educated youth story in the '80s or entertainment themes etc. The plots and everything is put together quite nicely, sometimes I can really appreciate the fantasy of author to rule the plot out or use of some interesting plot points or situations. Every world Yuanyuan has some occupation that is either required, already exists or is chosen by her to reach success, for convenience etc. of course she is pretty good. But honestly it's pretty logical when it come to world hopping, you basically lived longer and have more wisdom and experience in many things, not to mention if you know the direction of the plot it also helps to deal with incoming disasters/villains.

One of the best parts, personally, is that unlike many world hopping novels I've read, almost every world has kids and it's always a big and happy family. I like such settings, I don't mind that some female leads in novels choose to not get kids or they have fun in life, but most of the time I see other FLs as scumbags with such settings, since they perfectly know the feelings of others, but they still leave, because they want to, so it makes their love or feelings sound cheap. Most f the time world hopping novels also don't have a ML. I kind of prefer novels with one instead. In this novel we get 1vs1, one male lead is same in every world, btw he is also her target in every world, and last few chapters uncover what and why (like who is Yuanyuan and why she traveled).

Basically, it's a leisure read for those who like the above-mentioned things. RATE: 3.5/5. Shaved for things I do not agree with, the rest of it was pretty fine to me.

PS: Now, I wanted to mention the settings that left me most interested by its idea. And that is (spoiler alert) The girl in the book. The settings kind of impressed me the most by the idea, supernatural vibes and that is the original host was actually put in the book, you can say that her soul was enclosed in the book and she basically was put on the shelf. The ones who did this were her current husband (who married her for convenience), her father's little three (who is a witch) and the daughter of this little three (the one who occupied her body and was in love with her husband since long ago). Father knew about these dealings too. Isn't it interesting? I find it so. Original host lived a protected life, she was aquainted with her husband soon and thought she'd be happy, who knew that her "perfect" father was raising a side-house all these years, but the daughter of little three was frail and was about to die, to get her a new body they set up this plan to occupy original host. I personally liked this arc, I've never seen something similar to this, so it felt fresh :)

[Chinese BG novel] 我是科技之光[快穿] / The light of technology

Written by 十尾兔 this is a cool-type story about a scientist who travels worlds and changes plots with the knowledge of technology. But no matter how cool it sounds I actually was not impressed by it. Maybe because I was once too impressed by "God of Knowledge" and even if it's wrong to compare BG to BL, but honestly these stories are very close in their essense to me and both have a very high IQ protagonists, but for a reason I really got bored with this novel. Maybe because God of Knowledge manages to put forward not only a twisty plot that MC has to reverse, but also that we have distinct lover figure, romance development and overall plot development. Here we do get a strong female scientist - Baizhi - but these novels are more about her and her progress, that we actually have little about her as a person, even quirks of her personality are not really shown, she's just always into research that's all her life. The thing is, you can't call it achievements, although there is implication of her not only putting forward ideas, but actually push others in the direction of progress. But her character starts off basically trying to reach all branches of technology at least a little bit. What I particularly liked about GoT in comparison is that MC actually used technology in every world according to situation, not trying to reach the top in all fields. And maybe this is the point of novels that have a "strong female" tag, but these novels either have no ML in general or even if female lead has a relationship in this world with someone it might be like her playing with feelings or not serious at all, anyway I don't really get it.

The other very disappointing part of first three worlds I've read is that these stories in general are like copy-pastes of each other. Even if settings are different, but it's like always the betrayed cannon fodder girl, completely innocent soul that got entangled with others and got this bad ending. Like in most basic cliche stories of course villains get the whole bad ending set with being poor, looking older than they are, suffering etc. So when I finished the 3rd arc I basically lost all interest in this novel all-together, since what is the point of reading the same story over and over again with nothing new on the table? And I can't say that the writing is horrible or that it's unreadable, it's just not that interesting to me.

Very likely I might drop it without completing due to extinguished interest.

[Video] Watercolor portrait painting

 

[Chinese BG novel] 逆转人生[快穿] / Reverse of life

Wow, toxic girl bossing... yay...

This novel titled 逆转人生[快穿] (2021), written by 何书 is a world hopping novel about a heroine named Lin Jiu'er. In the premise of this novel Lin Jiu'er lived a prosperous life, but had a really bad health, which eventually limited her to a sick bed and later she lost her life, world hopping is her chance to get the healthy body back, while her task is basically to live a better life.

Did I like this novel? Absolutey not. I managed to read up to 100+ chapters (full novel is 276 chapters) and I must say that I had enough of it. And I must note, that this novel has pretty high ranking on Jinjiang, while the comment section is closed (I can understand why, I just want to spam their account with questioning).

To understand my pretty bad attitude towards it, we must start from the core of this novel - Lin Jiu'er - the female protagonist that we follow. Who is she? LJE is described as a lady from a wealthy family, she lived fulfilling life when she was healthier, she got some elite education, is smart etc. So basically we could have expected some high-profile queen. Yes, indeed, but it's the type of queen that I wouldn't like, because she sounds like a girl boss that was abundant in the year this novel was published and we were fed up to our throat with the 'girl boss' rhetoric. It doesn't mean that some ideas that the novel straightforwardly tries to convey are bad, but the way it is delivered and things that are said and expressed in-between is what makes the whole message distorted to me. 

So what does she do and what does she say that made me so edgy. Due to her health issues we meet a very optimistic and life-hungry LJE when she arrives to a new world. Here I really agree with the fact how she wants a healthy body and is happy about it, which is very important, but also money that can solve many issues and they don't betray. Very normal and good thing to say or think about. What I didn't like is her attitude towards original owners. I find this author rather hypocritical, it's the first for me, since LJE often repeats things like women must have a career to have a footing (about this later), it gives them freedom etc., women should not hang on a tree called man and should not depend on men in their lives so on and so forth. But I also see it as a criticism of original owners, I see her not even understanding their situations at all, because she's all about her girl bossing. And unfortunately the novel itself doesn't deliver compassion the original owners should have. From poor background explanation we get what most original hosts (OH) went through, like for example, in the first arc we meet a girl from a patriarchial family, she lives and works in a small place and most of her income is delivered to her family to feed the younger brother. In the end LJE easily breaks free from the situation and she should be inspirational for women, but she says it in such a way that it's a really easy thing to get rid off. And that what irked me the most, for her with elite education etc, it's easy to break free with "you can do it" or "just do it", but the novel it seems doesn't even want to bring up how it's really not easy, many women who grew up like that may wake up or not, it depends on so many factors that this novel doesn't even remotely touches upon. I don't want to compare, but the novel I reviewed previously could deliver compassion and explanation that exactly because of the situation these women went through these events, and there was no one to help them from this quagmire. Another example, the arc where the OH has an amputated half-calf. God it felt like gaslighting depression. Not everyone can cope with the loss, so OH was really depressed because of it (I don't talk about the rest, unfortunately this author writes pretty dumb storylines, this is not my criticism of OH situation), no matter the love she received it's really understandable why she couldn't walk out from this shadow (again, really bad character description, yet we get the OH adored dancing like life) and it's not as easy as LJE says, indeed to get better you need to get to the point that life is still going there's so much to see, but the person needs to walk through these things to reach that understanding and enlightment, it's not easy because you said so. That's why I see LJE only as being described as if she's on the side of all women, but between the lines it doesn't read as such. Maybe it's only me, but because of repetition of the same phrase, I feel like the character is hypocritical and that phrase is - I don't have anything against [blank], but. This phrase is used quite a lot. For example if someone is a housewife you can hear from LJE that she has nothing against housewives, but women better have careers or things to do etc. She's the type of person who uses a nanny to clean and cook and will tell you that women should have something to do. One part which almost killed me is the arc where we suddenly (again, bad storytelling) find out that OH's father is gay and he decided to divorce, which broke OH's mother heart. And again it was I don't have anything against gays, but.. you cheated on marriage and I'm like.. wait a minute, does she think coming out is easy? I don't know if it was easy or not, since the story doesn't dive deeply or explains things giving characters some background. I can only guess that in places this father lived and according to his family it wasn't that easy to come out. Not to mention that LJE simply discarded this father, took her mother away to relief, but oh no we should suddenly add the AIDS plot where the father got infected, but both were absolutely cold-blooded towards him and didn't even bother. Such a bizarre situation, deal with it.

Girl bossing. This part of the novel just smells bad to me. Again career is a good thing, but she tells almost everyone like your life should not revolve around a man and your children, you need to get up and work blah-blah-blah. This continues every arc, the thing I found funny is that she pushes this narrative onto someone we meet like in one scene and the other thing I find funny is how it is said as if a person suddenly gets woke, but reality doesn't work like that. For example, in the 3rd arc we see a theme about domestic violence (yeah all arcs are themed I'd say) and the thing is that the OH didn't leave her husband, but let's not forget that she had a child (according to short and poor description she loved this child a lot). LJE could walk away only because she has no feelings like OH had. She accepts that she is selfish, yeah, but from the passer-by point of view she basically does not take any responsibility for the child of OH whom OH loved so much. And there are many of such contradictory and thorny things that just leave a bad impression. I have a feeling like she doesn't accept the idea that someone wants to be a mother and be with her children.

Especially. This is another phrase that is often on repeat, it is closely followed by "especially girls". LJE is often on a woman's side, as if girls can't do wrong. If anything is touched upon you can often hear a phrase "especially for girls". Women indeed can be socially considered a weaker group, we see so many demands on women from how they should look to how they should act, which behavior of women is more acceptable and favored etc. But honestly I can see that this novel tries to deliver this thought to the reader, but it's just a thought tossed to the reader, I can't see how it is expressed or realized in the novel itself, only through short inserts like LJE hired mostly female workers etc. These parts are so short to me. Plus if we put one group in the sky, we step on the other group, which bring us to - Fake equality. LJE often insists on mutual respect (especially partners), believe it or not I can't feel this equality from her, I never saw her considering the other party, only her ultimatum exists where she puts out her demands (for example not wanting to get married or not wanting to have children), if you don't agree then you can fuck off and no matter how she expresses how she's not against falling in love, it's falling in love according to her rules and she does not compromises with her partners at all. So even if there are relationships, I can't see them as equal. 

I'm always on the girls' side. Are you, really? It's only the character of LJE who is on the girls' side, the author can describe shallow and vendictive women all the way. I must explain, I personally don't think that girls are always right or they should be believed 100% (many cases of female perpetrators do not allow me to be so sure that the girl is always right), it sounds too naive and made LJE sound stupid, take for example arc 6 (where White Moonlight comes to LJE and pours dirty water on her current to-be-partner without analyzin the purpose of this girl coming without receiving any evidence and even believing the acting she started to doubt a person who she spent time with, also she doesn't believe any intuition or the time spent together, she believes facts, otherwise she will always doubt the person...emmm), here comes what I find pretty contradictory, in previous arcs when something she felt was wrong, it was her intuition that pushed her to just find evidence, but here she says like intuition or your own cognition should not be trusted, only evidence. If you talk like that, no one should be trusted then and we should easily believe everything others say without providing proof. 

Many things in this novel are mostly explained to the reader through narrative, rather than being integrated into the plot. Storylines (so far) are pretty straighforward, but shallow imo. Btw they are also not engaging, due to too much narrative. The plots are not explained, which I don't find a bad thing, but it has a strong feeling of "btw forgot to mention" along the way, where sometimes some details or additions are suddenly added (like that info about gay father contracting AIDS, we forgot everything about him, he never appeared on the scene, was never given any drama, his info was just slapped as if author wants us to see, can you see that this scumbag ended up badly? Ugh. But I really could not engage in stories at all, they're all put in modern times, it's ok, yet where is fun when everything is on repeat? LJE goes in every arc with her girl bossing, she basically uses same set of skills, she often just wants to live for herself, sometimes her skills will be updated with "forgot to tell you, while I was old in last world I learned how to [blank]". The plots involved are not really that interesting or new exactly or that they're given any fresh interpretation (it's funny because so far LJE was a novel author twice))).

Anyway, I find many things in this novel problematic, you only hear criticism of certain stereotypes that are harmful to women (I agree that stereotypes are harmful), but it feels like only author wants to deliever these ideas through narrative yet it's not well integrated in the story and also this type of delievery feels shallow, doesn't make you feel compassionate about the story. I don't even see LJE as cool as it is described. 

Conclusion. Maybe the author really wanted to do a good thing, yet to me they are not very successful. They might be in top 100 on the list, to me they were unable to deliver properly their ideas and instead of truly grasping the idea of how to show equality, how stereotypes work and why they can be harmful, it really isn't it to me at all. I honestly just want to give it 1/5.

PS: The story of faking molestation in arc 6, which kinda made me go dumb. The situation is as follows, OH in this acr is together with a rich guy who used her as a stand-in for his White Moonlight. This rich guy has a cousin. After break-up with the rich guy LJE comes closer with cousin (he looks and has a name of someone she was in a relationship in previous arc, btw as always), they knew each other early, after a while started contacting and communicating. She knows him personally and also knows the plot. White Moonlight refused the rich guy, she secretly loves this cousin too, so she wanted to discredid either of them to break them apart (note, rich guy didn't find it weird how a girl asks him if his ex has sextapes or how she asks him to act in love again), while nothing worked she appears in front of LJE and accuses cousin that when she was a teen he molested her in their house. LJE started doubting cousin because of it, since "maybe this wasn't written in the plot, I can't believe a girl would lie about this out of nowhere" as if she never doubted White Moonlight's words at all. LJE only calmed down when (oh so coincidentally) she saw surveillance video. She openly asked about this incident of course, what is peculiar is how the cousin says he understands why she asked and he respects her etc. it sounded so weird, as if he understand why she falsely accused him and was ok with it. I don't know, I was just weirded out how it was put together. Because from one side LJE considers herself rather smart and she also lived so many lives, you might think that she can judge people or see through their acting, but with the narrative that no accusation is ungrounded it becomes too one-sided and honestly if we just simply believe words others say then we all should be paranoid. I don't know how to explain it well, I believe that victims should be heard, but we should not rule out that it could be a false accusation, otherwise... The best example, look at JD, he went through the whole legal process just to clean his name, but can you imagine the stress behind it. 

[Chinese BG novel] 受气包她不干了[快穿]

I loved it! Instant rate: 5/5.

Title that Google translate offers sounds like "she quits being an air bag". Def not correct :'D The author of this novel is: 三花夕拾. Date of release: 2020. Genre: world hopping.

Premise: Ning Chuxia is a hostess of a mediation program where she brings many family/social problems for discussion between parties. Then after a car accident a system offered to bind her and to return back alive she must travel worlds and through doing tasks solving the original hosts' problems, to accumulate enough and get back.

The summary is very simple and it sounds like many other stories, but damn I'm happy that I stayed, because what changed my mind were actually those stories that brought up different angles of social life and family problems. What bought me was the character of NCX who grew with her travels, but never changed her goodness, compassion and doing good deeds. She's a truly strong female character that is very appealing.

Now onto the fangirling~!

Worlds:

• I'd like to point out one thing that comes evident when you read it. Almost all stories are set in modern times, only one or two in ancient and not so distant future. And this is the part I found exceptionally particular, since I've read at least 4 or 5 novels of same genre, which more or less harbored the same style of world, since you always could find: village/educated youth story, ancient/harem story, future/interstellar story, modern/entertainment story, apocalypse/zombie setting story. All of these were present in all of those I've read, but not in this case. This novel basically picks up family drama and social issues as a setting as a result we see a completely different picture. Yes indeed NCX travels to different times, but they more or less concentrate on modern times. But the stories do not become weird or boring because of these settings, on the contrary, the writing and premises of some stories are diverse and interesting, it also has enough humor, dialogues and such are well-written to me. Yes, we do not escape from cliche settings at times (novel-y stereotypes that the story will have a vicious female second etc.), but the style of writing and what author managed to bring out are really interesting.

Characters:

• Ning Chuxia. From a get-go we know from descriptions that NCX is a strong-willed person. She came to her position from hard work. And as a result she worked as a hostess and met a lot of people, the description of some people she met could be shortly described as "hating iron for not becoming steel", it wasn't malicious in any way, more importantly for her this journey and through her travel when she first-handedly experienced many tragic stories of original hosts we can see and understand that some situation inexplicably just shape a situation or a person's temperament that leads them to their bad ending. In each world NCX reached a certain height in her career, but also I really liked the emphasis at some point that "in order to talk you must take a position high enough to be able to make changes", which was basically in worlds where NCX wanted to turn around some social issues that were prominent in original host's tragic story. So we have our strong female lead who experiences different settings and slowly but surely grows with it. Btw, this so far is the only novel where I liked how NCX and her relationships were handled. This novel is a solo stage, getting married is not in the consideration, but actually not ruled out, the main point is that NCX can get married in some worlds, but these relationships are so in the backgrounds and it's not annoying. There were at least 3 novels which I remember made me cringe how relationships were handled and it was almost as if female leads were playing with feelings of others. Here, despite the rarity of it, all parties are truly respectful good background partners)))).
• Original hosts. Due to this genre being one of my favorite I've read enough stories both BL (mostly) and BG. And I must say, in the specific category where MCs are asked to live a better life and change their destiny I sometimes noticed the absolute garbage handling of original hosts. For example when original hosts make fool of themselves or do things out of line etc. I hear MCs expressing a bit of disdain towards them, that's why I think, or it's just my imagination, through NCX and the story we could see that even if sometimes she's helpless because of original hosts due to her having a strong personality, but we can see that it's exactly due to environment and upbringing and the complexity of social interactions that original hosts suffered. Also I'd like to point out one thing I liked, original hosts may have the same name - Ning Chuxia - but they're all different, their appearance and age, their social status. Sometime NCX may be a young and beautiful woman, another time she's an ordinary girl even a little fat. Which in my opinion also helps to actually point out on many things that women have to deal with because of their appearance.
• World characters. Each world is different, each situation is different, each family is different. In the end we get a variety of characters to pick and choose from. Many of them with their own motivation and thinking. What I find fascinating is that the stories don't actually divide in only good or bad characters, some of them get a redemption part and are influenced to change. Some of course stay bad till the end. Refreshing part is the formation of sisterhood, friendship and parenting that we come across in different worlds. I like how some relationships came to be.

Short summuries (no spoilers on how situation turned around, who between characters changed and what NCX did):

• World 1. Original host was cheated on by her husband with her best friend. She's a housewife whose work was never appreciated and this hard work wore her out to become less attractive in the eyes of her husband.
• World 2. Original host is a left-behind child who had no idea how to get along with her father who became one of the richest men and finally took her back. She was taken advantage of by her "best friend", who destroyed her ability to reverse and used her as ATM in the end.
• World 3. Original host is a retiree. Both her children continued to suck blood from their elderly mother, basically cheated all her savings and abandoned her in poverty when there was nothing left.
• World 4. Original host is one of three children who live in a village. Since the eldest is a son and the youngest was always a frail girl, most of the work depended on her. In the end her wishes were neglected and she was the only one who stayed behind in the village to live a mundane life and never got affirmation of her sacrifice.
• World 5. Original host is in love with movies and is an actress, but her character is a bit blunt and withdrawn as well. She was used by her best friend for hype and was plotted against, in the end had to give up all the opportunities and leave the circle and not even being able to choose from movie-related jobs.
• World 6. Original host was replaced by her mother at birth. Her mother is a cold-blooded selfish person who was given ultimatum that if she gives birth to a son she will be able to enter the family. OH was treated badly by the family who found the truth, she was basically refused everywhere and couldn't complete her long-lost dream. 
• World 7. Original host (ancient setting) is an orphan with two younger brothers, due to their age and no one covering for them they were cheated of all their property left by a scholary father. In the end she was sold to marriage and the promise to bring up younger brothers became unfulfilled.
• World 8. It's a technical world. OH is actually a really smart person, but she met someone who used her as a spare, always hanging her and using what she could bring. She basically left her research work for this person, yet always helped in the lab, no one knew how much she paid for it and wasted years. In the end with all the effort invested she found out that the one she did all of this did not even bring any words of thanks, but was grateful to his true love and thanked for having a child making OH feel like she was shielded from everything and no one took care to clear things up.
• World 9. OH became an agent, the artist under her is a reborn person who basically had no real talent and used all future songs as his own to become unparalleled. He also squeezed all worth from OH, used her weakness of being isolated, yet was one who joked about her weight the most (OH is heavier in this one).
• World 10. OH lived with her bf for years without marriage who used all kinds of excuses to escape. In the end she had no idea he had a white moonlight in his heart which made him reluctant. Basically she became the vicious female partner who ruined "true love", but it was too late for her since years passed and she got nothing, while he used quite a lot resources from OH's family.
• World 11. A story about ordinary OH. The influence of her parents was a big deal for OH who was always told that she can't do anything, she is mediocre to achieve bigger things, she has to stay on the safer side etc. In the end she was made to work in a company of a relative, be squeezed by a superior, live unhappily, called "willful" when wanting to quit and becoming more than ordinary.
• World 12. The OH is a mother to "vicious female partner". But the premise is pretty tragic. Her first husband failed in business and later indulged in domestic violence, in the end was lucky to jump a wealthy family but took the daughter away who slowly became a waste. Wanting to buy her daughter back OH agreed to another marriage but was even unluckier, new husband was even worse and in the end OH died of abusse.
• World 13. OH was a left-behind child who stayed with her grandpa while parents left to start business, they also gave birth to another daughter, in the end both daughters lived in different environment which shaped their character. In the end OH who was brought back could not fit in with her family, she was isolated in class, but also was plotted against by her classmates, where they pretended to be a boy she liked.
• World 14. OH lost her parents and was left with younger brother and grandparents. She worked hard to achieve greater success, but it distanced her from her younger brother and she failed to save him from being deceived and used as a life meal ticket by a fellow university classmate. In the edn she was also refused by her bf who she always supported in his director career.
• World 15. OH was plotted against by a reborn roommate who used a pretext of caring and feeding to first ruin OH's body and later ruined her chances for future development when exposing an internet dating scandal where she used her own pretty photographs and insisted OH used them to cheat in online dating.
• World 16. OH is one of 15 underground lovers (as we find out). She paid a lot for her love, was coaxed to become nothing, lose everything and later had no evidence to prove the relationship and went through online violence with others, while the sea king bf enjoyed the fame and fortune. The bf has a system btw.
• World 17. OH suffered from cold violence. What she believed was a happy marriage turned out to be a nightmare filled with indifference. She was shaped into a marionette, was deprived of her personality and was filled with self-doubts through brainwashing from her husband, in the end was divorced with bad reputaion and was replaced by a "perfect lover".

IMPORTANT. Although it feels late, but better later than never ;D Anyway, although the story has some tw, but what I'd like to mention is that not all stories ended with a dead end for OHs. Yes, there were deaths, but not always. Most of the "ruined" life is expressed in actually living unhappily, wasting youth and resources, being muddle-headed and confused, filled with self-doubt and depression. This what I think also makes this different from other novels, because I saw way too often stories where OHs were plotted against, but their ending was truly miserable, but I actually liked how author handled it here, that not all BE should be assosiacted with death or poverty, sometimes it's just such unhappiness and loss. I really liked the premise of these worlds, they all pick up on different family situations and it was interesting to watch how NCX handled it all. Most of the time she followed the path that OHs would choose according to their wishes.

The last thing I'd like to say after all the praise are the things that almost prevented me from reading. The thing is that I don't like when the system requires "no OOC", this I find not interesting at all, especially when author doesn't actually follow this setting in the later parts, yes at times NCX does follow the character of OH, but most of the time she simply does it for a while and then tries to naturally change or at other times changes quite quickly. But it's the problem of the summary, the original summary was talking about no OOC and I thought of not reading it, I also skipped the first arc which I might in the end re-read in full. But I'm glad I preserved and kept reading, in the end to me it became such a great novel.

[Chinese BG novel] 重生之影后养成系统 / Rebirth Shadow Queen system

Honestly, I don't understand what made author to write the heroine's actions like that and their motivation and emotions are just in such a jumble. Let's write it off as first attempts at writing, but honestly, some of these things are quite shallow and so cliche that it hurt.

Premise of the novel is as follow: Wan Xiaoxiao was reborn, we meet her rolling around bars and while she seduced a big president and went with him (as a result ditching him before anything happened) we find out that she has a system that wants to bind her. She refused and did not want to join enertainment at all due to her previous life experience and that is: she fell in love with a fellow college student who is also in acting, they've been together for years but he cheated, not only that, he also dumped a big pot on her head that she cheated first, in the end she had a huge scandal and black materials poured like a river. In the end she had an accident and died. The system told her that accident was man-made and later her parents suffered too from the grief. This was the pushing point for her to agree to bind. The system is a friendly one that allows her to keep up and develop into a movie queen, she also got some perks, although it's really weird to see how sometimes she uses them and sometimes the space doesn't have things to offer at other times.

The motivation for her to start "revenge" is pretty weakly written, since it is basically covered in few sentences of her relationship with parents, mostly she doesn't even interact with them before she leaves to university, so we don't have that strong emotional base to believe her motivation. Yes, she suffered when she was accused, but the way she decided to get back at those offenders to me is the weirdest and stupidest character choice ever.

Now WHY I think so?

My opinion relies on the timeline described and the words said by the FL. And that is, she first meets G at the bar, they have nothing to do, but he gets attracted, she saves a person, it was his grandfather, he met him when wanting to leave (2nd encounter). She left to uni where she met her ex-scum, got aqcuainted for her "revenge". Next she got a role through audition and met G many times already, she rarely interacted with ex-scum. G made no secret of his attraction, they acted quite intimate without reaching last base. So while pedaling on this boat she accepts the relationship with ex-scum. That's the point I don't understand, because just as she accepted a bit later G finds her again, since his feelings are stronger and he wants to know "why?", so she confesses it is for "revenge", but when he tells her that he could move him and ex-scum would never enter entertainment world, she answered that "at that time I haven't met Mr. Gu", which logically and time-wise is a total bs. In the end our FL met and spent time with Gu quite a lot, while officially everyone thought she was a gf to that ex-scum.

She also was interested in ex-scum motive and how he'd jump, but honestly I don't see the need in this. His motive was obvious, since she entered the circle and became popular before him, she could serve as a starting point and he made things not so obvious but clear from early on, to see him trying to put forward the reasoning of why he wants to stand on the same height as her was really obvious and painful to read about. That's why I never understood why she would go through painful experience, because not once it said how she could not even breath same air, since he made her nauseated, she still wanted to make arrangements for ex-scum to enter the circle, get some sort of fame and then make him go through same shame and scandal she went through. This is stupid tbh. And also quite selfish. Why? For this "trap" she prepared she sacrificed a big project, which involves company's income, resources etc. Basically she dumped a huge project just to make ex-scum a protag of this series and the little three a female protag. I don't mention all the theater they created just to arrange these things. In the end this project indeed made ex-scum and little three get together and for WXX to collect enough evidence to make them never return. Just to satisfy her "revenge". This is what I don't understand how author thought it'd be ok to write, while to me this situation sounds stupid.

I know we often see rebirth themes where protagonists are mostly leaving their past behind, or even if they don't, they don't get so involved so they'd rather hurt themselves just to get what they want, unless it's some mission dog-blooded novel where it abuses readers through such plots. What author wrote doesn't work and actually doesn't present her character in a good way, at all. What we see is a woman, who officially is one person, while behind the scenes is with another, everyone knows it, but they keep quiet, she is basically pedalling two boats in the eyes of others, since not everyone know the "truth". Instead of just ditching the ex when she had time she gets involved for him to feel what it's like to lose it all, but here is the question, why is she so sure that he will feel same things she did back then? Tbh although the two scums were brought to light for their behavior, but it doesn't mean that it was so bad that they would never turn back. What actually worked is that Gu shadow-banned them and no one wanted to use them, it was more efficient than the entire "genius" plan she created. And indeed if they want to turn over, if they weren't secretly banned by Gu, they could just get back to filming, including ex-scum, who could have never entereted the circle if it wasn't for the FL's move of giving him resources. So that's why I think the entire charade is simply stupid and a waste of time. I haven't seen FL's motivation, since she basically got all her skills from previous life, she got resources through that, she didn't really use the system too, like for beauty - yes, but when it came to her health like fevers and such it was too convenient for her to faint etc. They also had these stupid conflicts here and there. She quite early realized that she fell in love again, but this time for real and with a good person. Again, what is described at the end also pushes her falling in love and being on guard weird. The thing is she found what ML did in previous life, but actually she remembered that he saved her from comitting suicide and wanted to help her, at least that showed his goodness, his actions and deeds. But then she is on guard with him, while he put his heart on his sleeve and actually got enough of shit emotionally from her.

So in the end, it's a pretty stupid story, a waste of time, too cliche to bother, too jumpy, not interesting, with a lot of convenience, sometimes a bit too insiting on including all weird plot twists. Anyway, rate: 1,5/5 for the effort.

[Topic] Currently reading (completed/ongoing)

Recent month or so is filled with "try-outs" I'd say. Most of them at the moment are simply in the "read first few chapters" stage, instead of finishing. Some I simply leave for some time due to their on-going status, but mostly I just don't feel like it or I easily get bored or smth. All this depends on my mood and honestly not always on the fact that the novels are bad.

• 我地下有人 (on-going). This one is very interesting, I also liked MC. The story is about MC, who previously was a ghost, but not a simple one. He is suddenly retired and is sent to Earth. The body he occupied belonged to a young mad with same name, he lived for 20 years outside and was the unluckiest person imagined, his adoptive father was a master who tried to save him, but unfortunately he died, next the young man was supposed to be picked up by his biological parents and be married off to a wealthy family. But this family happened to be not that simple. And his fiance is not a simple person too. His physique attrackted all kinds of ghosts, but they couldn't eat him, yet it exhausted his life bit by bit. Before that MC realized that his retirement wasn't that simple and the underworld had to go through drastic changes not to collapse, for that they asked him to find a tech giant, who happened to be his fiance. With such a lucky turn of events MC agreed and him with ML had an agreement, after all when MC rudely dragged a bunch of ghosts tied by a rope, it was the first time in years when ML saw his surroundings so calm and steady. Very light-hearted and humorous novel which is pretty enjoyable. Mostly is about reforming underworld, dealing with ghosts and some tao experts etc. Really liked it, so just waiting for it to be fully over to read it.
• 回到亲生家庭后我被安排联姻了 (completed). I've read like just 12 chapters or so. The summary was way more entertaining than the beginning, but I'll continue after a pause. MC is picked up from a garbage star by his biological father and is married off right away to ML. They both start from the wrong foot. Since MC actually agreed to come to the capital star for a reason, it is evident that he is looking for someone. MC didn't treat ML badly, but because ML was against being forced he always wore this stinky face. He didn't do anything out of ordinary, yet didn't seem neutral too. Also was obviously chased by a bamboo horse, yet never made it clear and also made MC misunderstand. What put me off at the beginning, but was explained later is that MC first suffered from adaptability, like his skin gets sunburnt since garbage star is far away and the lighting there is different etc. I don't know just the beginning sounded a bit too random.
• 信息素被毁以后 (completed). ABO story. I skipped through this just to see what it is about. Basically MC was a true young master, he was picked up, but biological parents of course didn't like him, because they lost face because of him, he also suffered and was rumored to be in relationships, but basically he suffered from his gland being destroyed (when he was attacked by an A) he also gave birth to a child, I have no idea how because he is described to be in a coma after the accident. The setting is confusing, because MC is described to live 30 years in another world, he came back and was pretty talented in.. gardening. Anyway, he had to work to support himself, so he was hired as a nanny (the kid happened to be his own and the owner was the Alpha who marked him, but ML didn' seem to remember him? even summary describes it like that, so ML only has a feeling that MC has light pheromone smell of O he marked). The fake young master is not from this world, he also has a golden finger of making ppl like him and also join his side (like his parents). He also used blood etc. from another person to fake his pheromones and be engaged with a wealthy heir. It's all a bunch of things. I was weirded out a bit by this mass of all kinds of things.
• 重生后影帝种田养娃发家致富去了 (completed). I'm close to reading half of the main text. It's a bit weird story in settings, I'd say a bit silly too. I honestly don't like farming texts, but this one happened to be quite ok. My thing is that farming texts are usually connected to cooking and I find it boring, so all descriptions of cooking I simply skipped, nothing changed. MC is a reborn characters, his ending wasn't supposed to be like this, so hes given another chance and also given a small chunk of fertile soil. He accidentally tasted it, thus the #mpreg is explained. Anyway, he was part of a group, in last life his "partner" robbed all his chances in entertainment and he willingly helped, but he never achieved promised happiness, since villain had a White Moonlight in his heart. When  MC is back he doesn't give this ex a chance, he is also criticized due to several events, so he's basically done. But during a party MC met ML and they had a one-night stand. MC wore a mask (weird set I mentioned), but ML who is a hand control remembered it by them (later found him thanks to hand control). Well, MC found he is pregnant, he leaves entertainment and claims he goes to farm, he settles in his own hometown and slowly lives there with different cars overturned, later he is found by ML (who is the mentioned White Moonlight), but basically I stopped at the moment when entire ML family knew they had a grandchild and a daughter-in-law, but MC at first refused to marry and live together, while ML actually already fell in love so he warmed up MC with his super cooking skills. Good part of farming how it actually had effect on people's health and not only the best tasting veggies out there. My fave part is about tamed geese MC used for guearding.
• 当omega身穿到现实世界 (completed). I read a bit of it (36ch). MC is an Omega who crossed o a new world. In his interstellar world he was a commodity for his family no matter how smart he was, so MC secretly made contributions in studying phermone and how Omega would survive without Alpha, but he met an accident on his escape and drowned whiel he appeared in a bedroom of ML. ML thought he was an artist who wanted to make a shortcut, so he despised him, he also was repulsive towards all smells, but the scent of MC fascinated him to the point they rolled the sheets when they first met. FUnnily ML misunderstood MC many times with his brain supplement, but MC really treated ML as a mean to cope with his heat period, which was very convenient before he could proceed with his scientific work and seek a solution for himself. He also became an artist which was talented in composing and singing. He went this way to earn money for his lab. I found how some details were very consistent with where the MC came from, like he was treated as a foreigner, which he basically was, while he tried to learn language btw. His smart brain needed re-charge which deprived several buildings of power and many other situations. It was quite entertaining, especially MC is quite a strong-willed character, I like his type.
• 我，还能抢救一下吗？[穿书] (completed). I first started it, but then just skipped through. Despite the high rate on jjwxc I don't like the setting. The story involves MC who was taken by the system in order to "save" the second male lead in the romantic story. At first MC arrives when both are around 8 yo. ML is basically having worst fates of all. His mother had a mental illness he inherited, she also comitted suicide and ML saw it. His character is quite extreme. He at first didn't welcome MC, but slowly wormed up, but it reflected in an extreme that everything from MC can only belong to him. Unfortunately, MC time was limited, basically the body chosen was frail and since mission failed he left and re-entered when both were teens. Next time when they already grew up. So MC left two times, three times ML recognized him. So this setting I find really cruel to ML since it's worse than the original story where ML just lived his life, but here he got a person who cared for him, but died two times. I can' judge further and don't know if I come back, but just always feel like why would you pick up characters with mental illnesses or extremely possessive and all of that. It doesn't mean that ppl who have problems don't deserve love, but just why in the story.
• 有位佳人[古穿今] (completed). I partially read it. Simply because MC is not my type of character. The way he was described was pretty logical and he acted according to his settings, but I'm just not a fan of overly sensitive and pampered. MC is a brother (mainly a male who can give birth, something like ger in sotries). He was highly educated and well-sought, people who wanted to ask for his hand in marriage crushed the threshold of their house. But instead he was promised to another kingdom to make peace, he met bandits on his way and unfortunately fell to his death, so MC crossed to future (I say this since where he crossed has his history, if I don't mix up stories, since similar premises happened in other stories as well). Right now he is also promised to marry another person, since he was brought up in such a way he acted accordinly, like a virtuous wife, like getting sad when his husband didn't want him, had all the past habits and thinking when it came to interactions with other people. E.g. feeling dirty being touched (I mean just touching hand) by other man as if now he was insulted and wasn't clean for his own husband. So MC's character was quite consistent, I'm just not fond of this type of character.
• 天生富贵骨 (completed). It is pretty interesting, I read half of it and plan to finish. The story is easy. MC became a cannon fodder, there was time before the main point, but he still managed to change his fate already. Originally the original host was also a smart person, but MC came along and he is basically a smart person who has a background in agriculture now in a body of a teen. he starts from helping his village to develop, which originally could have suffered from several plastic plants who would destroy the fertile soil of this land. MC changed that and many more, he slowly pushes people around him to new heights, not only himself being an achiever, he doesn't realize that he also met the protag, but didn't know that ML was a reborn character, the only person who had no connection to him, but saved him and suffered death in a blown up car, was actually original host and he desided to pay the gratitude, but in general they became friends at first and ML had no idea how to help at first, but just stayed close. MC is a radian youth and it is interesting to read about him and his family and friends who got dragged with him on this adventure to prosperity.
• 沙雕攻他重生了 (completed). Fully read text. Although it was silly, but it was cute. Like I honestly liked it. ML goes back ten year. Previously he was truly dissatisfied with a daughter-in-law his dad got him. Because he was too controlling, and gave to him, as a heir of the Qin family, only 100 yuan of pocket money a day. When ML got back he decided to never marry this wife again. It was not until he accidentally saw Xie Chongxing again. At this moment XCX was still a high schooler who was always first, he didn't drop out because of his parents. But slowly Qin Zhongyue who transferred school and came to XCX saw the past he never knew of when he met XCX in his last life. He found out that XCX wasn't a child of his parents, but a son of his adoptive father brother who had an accidental death, MC's mother had no idea about their fate, when MC was still a kid the adoptive parents took the money and disappeared, but instead of gratification that was brought by the money they treated MC really badly, until they decided to sell him to business. When ML slowly uncovered several truths that probably had happened in previous life, his heart hurt for things he never cared to find. At first he thought it was okay to become friends, but slowly he truly fell in love with his wife. ML is described as more silly, open-hearted and generous, sometimes he destroys the mood with his words, but MC still loves him. MC is a smarter one in the couple and more capable, so thus we have a home-sitting ML who enjoys care of his working wife. Basically in last life Qin dad chose XCX for same reason, he wanted his son to be happy and someone capable to handle the business empire he created. Silly, but cute stories.
• 反派都是我的储备粮[快穿] (completed). Quite interesting QT. I only started it so no judging, but entertaining. The premise is how MC mistakenly drunk the blood of a vampire, he had no idea that to the pure-blood he shared blood with he was the "fated" one. Then he crossed to worlds, basically since his attribute of being a vampire sometimes he might indeed drink blood, but not always. Thus the title that villains of the stories are MC's food reserve hehehehe.

It's part of the try-outs. I have a feeling there were more, but I might have deleted them in a fit of an anger, or simply I got lost in the whole list (well mostly all my current reading are in bookmarks, so it's a list). In general there are ones I feel connected with, there are some that have parts I liked and would personally change, but I don't find them bad at all, it's just a matter of preference.

Funnily, just a few days ago I finished re-reading "Turn on the love system" by Tangerine Boat. It's funny because I basically have love-hate relationship with this author, I wish they'd change some parts to be milder making characters have more class or sudden weird kinks, but in general it's like 3rd time I've re-read it. Sometimes it makes me think if I like to read a bit trashy novels like that, who am I to judge others XDDDD But yeah, one of the few novels where basically I'm pretty not against all the love and all the kids. It's just weirdly written what can I do.

Finally, I think part of me is a bit exhausted from all the text, recently I have a feeling of - hey, either I don't find something that will excite me to the limit or I just switch to TV/movies again.

BTW, I was so disappointed to find that author of FOD started to update a romance story and not the BL one, again waiting for them.