This is a crazy thing to say, if Xie Lian wanted to he could kick Hua Cheng's ass. He CHOOSES not to be a violent little shit
Xie lian is stronger than hua cheng thoit’s an amazing love story with some of the most romantic shit I’ve ever seen in fiction. There’s more to a story than top/bottom dynamics :c And tgcf doesn’t even have sex scenes…
You really don’t know Xie lian :/ judging a book by its cover. He ain’t soft and will kill if necessary. Idk what this site has against feminine bottoms but u can try scum villain which is another one of mxtx’s novels or try erha
he might be stronger, but it doesn't negate how his looks and personality accurately peg him to be a bottom, and while we could talk about how top/bottom dynamics ~shouldn't~ matter, at the end of the day it does to a bunch of ppl, which is even why every danmei specifies who's top and bottom even if there's no explicit content. no matter what, ppl will always inadvertently project what they think the character will be like based on those roles. i heard it's a super romantic series, but as with everything else, i want to see that type of romance with a subverted dynamic. it's not that different to wanting to see different ppl being represented in media in general.
rurouni kenshin can kill ppl and he has a soft personality. he also looks like a bottom, so every fanwork of him has him as a bottom. every single one of them.
But it IS subverting expectations, they're right, he does look delicate and soft. But he only LOOKS delicate and soft. I'd understand if the complaint is that he looks delicate and soft and is delicate and soft, but his looks are deceiving which is already a subverted expectation. Even in TGCF there are characters who think he's a weak loser, so OP is just like them by assuming something based on his looks.
it might be an uncommon trope for other ppl, but it's pretty common for me. not danmei, but there's a lot of shonen stories where the mc appears to be some combination of small, weak, soft but can wipe the floor with their opponents. despite that, more times than not, in ppl ascribe the physical stature and personality to sexual preferences. so to flip that, i'd love to see a character like xie lian topping sexually despite looking delicate and soft.
random vent
waiting for the day when danmei novel and manhua creators create stories (hopefully with some regularity) with non-prescriptive pairing dynamics.
i hear so much about heaven's official blessing but i can't bring myself to read it bc xie lian looks like the shorter pretty delicate bottom twink with a soft personality that you see everywhere. i wouldn't have minded if they subverted expectations and made him a top and hua cheng a bottom but they didn't. no hate to those who love it, btw, i'm just lamenting at the lack of options for me.
adaptation-wise mdzs came the closest to breaking that wall, and i get this was for ~plot purposes~, but wei ying coming back to life in a weaker, more feminine body was disappointing. being mischievous and playful in his original body just gave different vibes than doing the same thing in mo xuanyu's body.
the other closest thing i saw was the guardian series and while i love stories that have an actual plot, i heard the romance is a lot more emotionally-based and any physicality is basically non-existent. i'd like to have some nuclear levels of spice too, however way it manifests with chinese censorship.
anyways if anyone has any recs for my preferences that i'm not aware of pls feel free to share. really looking for a pairing that i can't (or incorrectly) clock as a top or bottom.