#oh man this got long sksndjdjdjd

[general-cyno]

Tbh, if taxian- jun had stayed out of 2.0 ranwan I would be fine, but the way things turned out in the end the fact that Chu Wanning 0.5 didn't get a chance, was like erasing him.

Oop we do have to disagree here anon. Not sure if you've read meatbun's explanation for it but chu fei did get a chance bc the soul he left behind in chu wanning and mo ran actually merged within chu wanning and became a part of him, like mo zongshi and txj. The reason chu fei doesn't show up as a distinct personality the way txj does, as explained by meatbun, is basically that chu wanning's core personality wasn't really that different in both lifetimes so the merge was... smooth, so to say. But chu fei is truly there, as well.

In fact, meatbun emphasized that she wanted mo ran and chu wanning to have their past selves' memories and give them a chance too (otherwise it'd be sad) so that's why the soul merges happened.

Also, I don't think you can separate txj from mo ran and ranwan. I have Opinions on this. Like. I don't wanna generalize but from what I've seen (mostly on twitter, and it's a huge peeve of mine actually), the constant fandom divide between txj and mo zongshi seems to have made some ppl believe they're completely different characters when they're not. The one who was reborn was txj, mo zongshi IS txj and book 1 couldn't be more explicit about it. The reason behind mo ran's split personality is that not all of his souls were reborn - one bit stayed in his 0.5 corpse, that one didn't get a chance to go through the same character development as the rest hence why after all of mo ran's souls merged, the difference in development between the souls caused the split. But ultimately, they are the same person and mo zongshi does not differentiate between txj and himself, despite the split (birthday extras even mention they share consciousness sometimes).

0.5 timeline was the original, no matter the way it turned out. And maybe I'm giving meatbun too much credit but I do think mo ran's split personality might be some commentary on how we can't/shouldn't forget where we came from and what we did in the past, but that doesn't mean we can't move on and accept ourselves. Mo ran himself had a lot of hang ups regarding the things he did as txj but by the extras, he's reconciled with it and accepts it as part of himself which I think is narratively important. And well, by sacrificing himself for chu wanning, 0.5 mo ran did kind of indirectly kickstart 2.0 so 2.0 ranwan wouldn't really exist without 0.5 ranwan.

Anyways, the point of this long ass rant: 2ha ending is not perfect but chu fei got his second chance to be with the man he loved in a healthy environment, txj is not butting in 2.0 and I really recommend reading the birthday extras!