章節 153: 5.4

The coffin is really nice.

Actually, it was incredibly nice.

Soft interior, very plushy walls and an equally plush bedding floor lined with what felt like true silk velvet. Jia Hyson had only had the opportunity to touch pure silk velvet a few times before when he was Prince Farrell and in the last world as Jin Bao, and even in those worlds, it was incredibly rare and expensive.

However, it was undeniably such an exquisite fabric for a reason, as it's smooth and soft sensation caressed your hand the moment you touch it.

If Jia Hyson could describe what pure velvet silk was, it was like the Kobe beef of the velvet industry. And when he says kobe beef, he means the highest tier kobe beef, not that basic tier shit.

Jia Hyson felt that it could do with some pillows and plushies, and a thin blanket would be just perfect. But honestly, it was truly a luxury coffin that was simply wasted on the dead.

Feeling his teeth suddenly itch, Jia Hyson absentmindedly reaches up to touch the rather unpleasant sensation in his mouth and pricked his fingers on the sharp edge of what could only be a fang.

Interesting.

He had some suspicions given the whole coffin thing, and the fact he could clearly see so well despite being encased in the darkness of the coffin with no light in sight. However, from what he could tell, his clothing was fairly modern in style, not luxuriously medieval European at all.

"Let's see the story, Bebe," Jia Hyson closes his eyes and accepts the information sent to him.

The story is a modern fantasy campus drama called Miss Fang and her Vampire Boyfriend.

It was a tale of, well, Miss Jessica Fang and her vampire boyfriend, published on a rather famous Western site known as W*ttpad. It was actually quite popular for various reasons.

Jessica Fang is a completely average, supernormal high school girl who starts her second year in Middleton High by saving a handsome man that ends up being the second prince of the biggest vampire coven in America- Damien Rose of the Golden Rose Coven.

She hides him in her place because he's being attacked by the Eclipse Coven, a rival vampire community, which he suspects is being helped by his younger brother Prince Kieran.

Jia Hyson: '...I quite like the names.'

Bebe: 'That's all you could say?'

Jia Hyson: 'What else can I say? They're good names. A bit tacky but not too cringe. It's not too over the top you know?'

Jessica Fang is very edgy sounding, like a comic book character. Damien Rose... it's a bit too much of an erotica male lead name but it's still quite handsome.

He also liked that the coven name Golden Rose which isn't so on the nose about the vampire thing and Eclipse is a stereotypical but popular word for this theme. The basic story premise is so cliche that it couldn't be more cliche but if the names are not awful, people, especially young people, will inevitably be attracted to it. Writers need a decent sense of naming, if you don't have a balance between the fantastical and the mundane names in a story it can be a bit too hard to bear.

For example, naming the main character something like; Snow, Angel, Zero, Xypher, Dragon… Jia Hyson apologises but if he sees that in the synopsis he will automatically assume it as garbage and move on.

Maybe he's wrong, but he rather be wrong than risk being caught reading some shitty story about the love between the plain average girl Anastasia 'Angel' Heartstone and the brooding mysterious man Novae Nightingale, with her childhood friend Xavier Knight* that also holds a dark secret…

*I just want people to know, I had to go to wattpad to find the cringe names I desired, and while the Anastasia one I made up, the other two are real names of characters of popular books there.

Anyway, after a period of recuperation and living together where the pair cultivated good feelings, Damien Rose leaves Jessica Fang without a word.

It was for the typical reasons of him fully recovering but being torn to leave this warm environment he had grown fond of with Jessica. Yet at the same time, he had his responsibilities and his problems wouldn't go away just by ignoring them.

The trigger for him to decisively leave was because Jessica accidentally cuts herself while trying to make a meal for the two. Damien, who has both, not drunk any blood recently and was attracted to Jessica, pushed her down like a hungry beast. Of course, he didn't do anything but he scared her quite a bit, and he too had become shocked and appalled at himself, apologising profusely.

The pair make up and they have a sweet scene of him taking care of her cut and helping clumsily make dinner with her. Then during the night, like a total gentleman, he stared at Jessica while she slept, and reluctantly left when the sun started to rise.

Yes. He just left. No note, or anything. Why? For plot reasons. Why did he stare at her while she slept? ...Plot reasons.

This sudden departure, causes Jessica to worry as well as gives her the opportunity to perform all the emotions of an angsty teenager in love really. However, she doesn't indulge in her complicated emotional monologues for long as he is revealed to be a new transfer student at her high school a week later!

This is because when Damien came back to the Golden Rose Coven, his younger brother Kieran had already done a lot of things in his absence. Using Damian's death as an excuse, he had swayed many of Damien's allies, corrupted others in Damien's name, and presented 'evidence' that implicated that Damien was the one who had connections with the Eclipse Coven.

To be honest, Damien had only been with Jessica for like two weeks. So this was really quite impressive.

However, just because vampires lived long it didn't mean they all treated time as a thing to waste. Kieran had done a lot of groundwork beforehand, he had the status of the third prince, and as the person who was actually guilting of making deals with the Eclipse Coven, he had a lot of dirt to plant on people. So while still impressive, it was not completely hard to believe.

Kieran had actually expected Damien to die, the injuries were incredibly severe after all, even by vampire standards. Not to mention he had also been poisoned because Kieran was nothing but a thorough brother-murderer. Jia Hyson respected that sort of work attitude a lot. After all, if you're going to kill someone, you gotta really make sure you succeed or else what's the point? ╮(╯∀╰)╭

Bebe: '...' ಠ_ಠ The worst part is he's not wrong.

Therefore, Damien coming back from the brink of death after two weeks was truly unprecedentedly fast.

Spoilers for the last book, the recovery speed was because Jessica Fang is the bullshit incarnation of a goddess or something- it's really not that important right now- but hey, the foreshadowing was quite good and made it seem like it was simply the male lead's superior abilities for now. Jia Hyson admittedly thought that was quite well done.

Still, him recovering so quickly was actually another nail in his coffin. The other Golden Rose members who were present at the time witnessed the brutal injuries and also reluctantly admitted that it should be impossible for Damien to survive unscathed in just a fortnight unless he developed super healing.

In the story, they explain this was unlikely as he already had his own unique power and generally vampires don't dual wield, and if they do, the powers will manifest at the same time. Alternatively, he was faking, and it was all a scheme made by him and the Eclipse coven in order to establish his prestige in Golden Rose, cementing his persona as a loyal prince.

Jia Hyson who had read this silently dissed the logical loophole. After all healing abilities were not flashy, it is totally possible the male lead did manifest these powers at the same time as his main power, and there was just never any opportunity to show itself. Yet everyone seemed to feel like the convoluted and elaborate plan that was the second option was more legitimate.

Damien and Kieran's older brother, the first prince Silas, was not a fool but his biggest flaw was he was unambitious and lazy. If he wasn't incredibly powerful, everyone would be more than eager to kick him from his eligibility as the King of Golden Rose.

It was also because of Prince Silas' lazy attitude, that it allowed the ambitious Kieran to grow a wolf's heart and dog's lungs*, ready to destroy his older brother for the sake of having a chance at the crown.

*Refers to "狼心狗肺(lángxīngǒufèi) the heart of wolf and lungs of dog." Its meaning is derived from the characters that it uses: cruel and unscrupulous; be brutal and cold-blooded; ungrateful and heartless.

Essentially, Silas played the important supporting character who was powerful and wise enough to give Damian the backup he needs, but also his character flaw he had provided the legitimate reason for letting a lot of stupid shit happen under his nose in order for Damien and Jessica to solve it.

In this situation, Silas knew Damien was innocent and suspected Kieran. However, while he was powerful, he was not as popular as Damien and not manipulative and active in making connections as Kieran, therefore his ability to uncover the truth was limited, not to mention the evidence was really damning.

Therefore he had 'banished' Damien to live in the mortal world, limiting his powers almost completely. Silas, like a good supporting lead, had also secretly passed Damien an item that can bypass his restrictions a certain number of times which was an incredibly useful and convenient plot device.

Of course, nobody else knew about Silas' show of nepotism, and everyone thought it was a fair judgement, after all, vampires loved their bloodline the most, especially the pure noble and royal bloodlines. Nobody but Kieran was really interested in killing Damien, and they felt such a punishment was humiliating and fitting enough. This approval for his unbiased judgements stabilised Silas' problematic reputation, for now, allowing him to investigate the situation more easily while also making it hard for Kieran to make any big moves.

And so, this brought the romantic subplot between Damien and Jessica back to the forefront.

Yay.

Damien has to get used to not being a vampire while trying to find ways to prove his innocence. Silas brought in a vampire with powers of foresight, who directed Damien to find what he seeks in Middleton High where Jessica is. He slowly assimilates into human school and life, Jessica of course is the one who helps him with her own 'outcast' friend group, and she also discovers he's a vampire in the process after he fights off one of Kieran's hired assassins who found him.

Then comes the plot of there's actually a big secret to Middleton High, where the school was once a school for vampire hunters and there were a lot of hidden tunnels and other bullshit. But the main thing is, there is a magical artefact called the Pearl of Past Truths. This is the item that would prove Damien's innocence.

In the end, Kieran will also find out about this, which will increase the urgency for both parties and provide a sufficiently climatic atmosphere. Many battles and fights will happen between the humans and the vampires Kieran sent out which was generally shown in a comedic light or showcasing the ingenuity of humans fighting back. In fairness some of it was a very 'convenient coincidence' but overall it was rather praiseworthy.

Finally, the group discovered the wherabouts of the pearl- it was the centrepiece of the trophy for the year-end talent show.

Jia Hyson: '…' Why.

It was also discovered the headmaster who had always known the value of the pearl and is also an ex-hunter, carefully protected this pearl which could be said to be the heirloom passed on from headmaster to headmaster, all of who were retired hunters. Therefore for the rather mediocre group of vicious vampires that Kieran could only find the opportunity to hire as assassins, they could not fight back at all against this headmaster, and desperately chose the only alternative option.

To compete fairly (completely sabotage) the talent competition and win the trophy.

This is possible as one of the vampires had the power to switch bodies. They replaced the most popular girl- who was also a typical bully character to Jessica- and the rest of the vampires just went around being dicks essentially.

In the end, Jessica and Damien win the talent competition through their moving love song where they finally confess their feelings, gain the pearl, defeat Kieran's goons, and finally wash Damien's reputation white.

Kieran is sentenced to the same sentence as Damien, except Silas was far less kind and didn't give Kieran any way to temporarily bypass his restrictions nor did he give a timeframe to when his exile will be lifted.

The story ends with Damien and Jessica holding hands as they walk to Middleton High affectionately surrounded by their friends.

Overall, the reviews for this were good. Jia Hyson also could not find much fault with it. It was a cheesy teen drama. There wasn't much he could say really, It targeted the demographic well, the plot was fairly consistent, the mystery was a bit simple but that was a good thing, the characters were decent albeit very cliche, there were quite a few funny quips and the world-building was solid.

If Jia Hyson was only handed this he would be very puzzled about what he was doing here.

But Jia Hyson wasn't handed just this.

No.

Because this was a series.

Miss Fang and her Vampire Boyfriend.

Miss Fang and the Vampire Academy.

Miss Fang and the Rise of the Vampire Emperor.

Miss Fang and her Vampire Husband.

Jia Hyson who was forced to take in all of this: "…"

"Oh dear god," Jia Hyson sighs, "It feels worse than sitting in a car for a day trip up the mountains, I'm really going to puke."

Miss Fang and Her Vampire Boyfriend series could be summarised like this-

Miss Fang and her Vampire Boyfriend:

Jessica sees and rescues Damien after the attack during summer vacation. Damien leaves, and they meet in the human Middleton high school. Various things happen, they get together. The main villain, third brother Prince Kieran gets exiled.

Miss Fang and the Vampire Academy:

Damien brings Jessica to the vampire academy for her last two years of high school. This vampire academy obviously isn't advertised as such and is most of the student population is made up of humans, but they're either young geniuses who the government believes should be 'preserved' relations of vampires or very powerful and rich people who come through the back door. Some know about vampires, some don't.

Jessica experiences, jealousy, culture shock, school bullying and discrimination. The couple breaks up under misunderstandings from various people and stressors. Jessica feels like an outcast, fights with Damian about it, breaks up, but eventually makes a new ragtag group of friends, both vampiric and human over the story. There is also an overarching plotline during this year about vampires going berserk where it's later revealed some humans were poisoning vampires into becoming more primal and easier to be trained for their own benefits. They solve it and make up.

Miss Fang and the Rise of the Vampire Emperor:

Set in the last year of high school. More trials and tribulations happen, tensions between vampire hunters and vampires become more intense in the background, more female lead insecurity and Jessica somehow decides this would all be solved if she could be a vampire. Damien feels guilty about bringing her to 'his world' for the nth time and is also jealous of Jessica's male supporting lead friends. They break up then get together then break up then get together.

The main plot in this part is centred around the mystery of who is the traitor leaking information to the hunters, and also some sleeping ancient vampire god that the Eclipse Coven wants to revive. In the end, these things were eventually solved, sort of- the hunter and vampire conflicts haven't really eased, but the vampires more or less fully accept her and she stops a large scale vampire war.

During graduation, Damien proposes to Jessica who accepts, and they plan to turn her into a vampire on their wedding night.

Miss Fang and her Vampire Husband:

Starts when Jessica prepares for her wedding. They hold a beautiful wedding, Damien turns her into a vampire and they have really badly written sex. It's found out she doesn't seem to have any powers which disappoint the vampires a lot and she's put under a lot of pressure as she has to learn to adapt to the life of vampiric nobility. The theme is looking more into the caste system of vampires and the crux of the plot is a low-level vampire is finding ways to become equal with the noble vampires and overthrow the system via human experimentation and creating a super drug.

Stuff happens, Jessica and Damien's relationship is rocky again- no surprise there- Jessica becomes pregnant and, to make a long story short, her baby is a miracle child and everyone assumes her power is producing magical babies or something putting her in a very strange and dangerous position.

Later on, it's revealed that Jessica's worth is not in her fertility but she is actually the incarnation of the goddess who blessed the vampires. She and Damien lead the vampires to a new age of love and equality and they live happily ever after.

Jia Hyson had to say, while it wasn't his cup of tea, he could confidently say most of it was good enough that with enough luck it could become a big hit. Mainly because it sounds like most popular teen vampire romances.

There's nothing particularly ingenious about it but there's also nothing wrong with this set up either. Even though most adults and more mature teenagers will find this sort of thing cringy and lame, there are many more who really like to eat this set*.

*Eat this set- literally will eat the presented set meal given by the other party. Multiple meanings but all pretty much mean, like the idea or belief in an idea. Eg. Person A talks about the earth being flat, most people will not eat this set.

But obviously, since Jia Hyson was here, there were going to be some flaws.

For example, there are many complaints about how cliche it was, how the supporting characters were more like background characters that only entered the spotlight when they were useful, and the lacking character development for everyone, even though the stakes should be high, it didn't feel like it at all, especially since nobody seemed to have changed much or grown as a person.

The only ones that did show growth were pretty much Jessica and Damien, the main characters. And even then, they would often backslide when the near book comes out just so they could have more relationship drama. Jia Hyson wanted to ask them if they had goldfish brains. They constantly had to relearn to trust and accept each other for who they are.

Which, is like, the basics of a relationship to be honest. Like. Come on. If you can't figure it out by the second book then you should really just break up in Jia Hyson's opinion.

But such problems couldn't be called severe or fatal to the story. It's a teen romance, after all, you don't expect perfection and to be honest, you sort of expect half a soap opera romance wise when you get into this genre.

No, what was wrong with the series wasn't these small flaws. The reason why the story was so heavily impacted is because of the controversial and problematic handling of a character.

That is the original body Jia Hyson had entered. Alaric Rong. A supporting male character in the second book Miss Fang and the Vampire Academy who continues into Miss Fang and the Rise of the Vampire Emperor. The third book is where the controversy begins and ends.

Alaric Rong is written as an incredibly rare pureblooded vampire with a mixed appearance of Chinese and European descent. Jia Hyson can't see his appearance yet but from this alone, he was fairly assured of his beauty index.

Because vampires originated in Romania it should be impossible for there to be Chinese vampires, however, the Rong lineage indeed had the delicate features and somewhat similar body types of Asians despite having the power of a pureblood.

To cover their asses, the author god especially went through describing the background of this character... by saying the true reason for their appearance was unknown and lost to history.

Jia Hyson: Ha ha ha ಠ_ಠ

The most popular theory in the vampire community is that the Rongs were not originally named the Rongs. During the first vampiric war, they used the chaos to escape, taking advantage of their somewhat similar appearance to Asians and run to China with changed names.

Staying in China for so long they found some people compatible with themselves and produced offspring and lower class vampires there, expanding the originally rather small family into a large one. This caused the Rong family to step by step alter their whole look as well as expand their power in a place with very few rivals and competitors.

A few centuries later most felt nostalgic about their original home country and came back. However, they liked the Chinese culture a lot and many young vampires still considered themselves Chinese as well. Over time this brought about this confusion over whether their family heritage came from China or Romania.

That wasn't important though.

Jia Hyson, whose face hadn't been that great reading a teen vampire romance, had turned completely black the more he read about Alaric's role.

People had opinions. Some were good like everyone should make an effort to recycle more. Some were controversial like putting milk in a bowl before putting cereal. And some were downright wrong like blaming the victim in a r*pe scenario.

In a story, it is especially difficult to hide an author's opinion on things but generally, that's not a bad thing. It gives the writing a source of strength and enthusiasm and should be encouraged... Unless of course, your opinion is really especially problematic.

To give a good idea, these were some of the reviews for Miss Fang and the Rise of the Vampire Emperor:

[I was a big fan of the first two books but this one is both uncomfortable and disappointing to me.

Wow, to be honest, the writing is good but the author is garbage. Please keep your trash opinions to yourself.

Don't understand all the hate. I think author should have treated Alaric a bit better but honestly, if this was another normal character nobody would be this mad, it's a bit ridiculous. Alaric was a piece of shit in the second story and we all hated him. Anyway, the story is good, if you can ignore the controversy everything else is decent. The plot is tight, I do wish Kylan had more screen time and Jessica did get kind of annoying and dumb.

Dropped this. The author is a bigot who thinks transgender people should be villainized.

Upstairs, Author clarified that being transgender had nothing to do with it, the character isn't trans in the first place, and that she supports LGBT+, it's just a character trait that the character happened to have.

Hahaha, upstairs, it's true that you can have gay, trans, and disabled villains but the author clearly didn't treat it like a footnote or a little extra thing to round out the character. Instead, she made it be the final straw that literally kills the character, as if because he was like that he deserved not to be happy. In fairness, I do agree there's no confirmation he's transgender, he just likes women's clothes, but honestly, I can see why others think he is because the author clearly is ignorant and it shows.

I've also dropped this story, sorry, but this is disgusting? You spent five chapters on Jessica's pain of being called dumb but you just brushed over falsely accusing some guy because he wore women's clothing and then tossed him to jail and killed him off-screen. Like what the actual hell.

Honestly, I didn't like Alaric because he was an asshole. Like he was the typical overly strict rule-abiding and annoying character, and he was just this arrogant piece of shit, but this really wasn't cool. Like I don't suddenly like him, don't get me wrong, this guy sucks, but he didn't deserve that, at least not for the reasons based on his preferences. That was unnecessary. He should be judged because he sucks as a person, not because of what he likes to wear and stuff.]

Alaric Rong is described to not be very muscular, more like a slim but stern-looking beauty with some feminine features like a soft jawline, long lashes, or meticulously manicured fingers.

Like his appearance, he's strict and cold. His role is one of the advisors of the coven and childhood friend of the princes but tries not to favour any of them due to his responsibilities, however, he is closest to the eldest Prince Silas. Essentially he's the future secretary of the next vampire king.

Since the story starts off being set in a human high school Alaric Rong is more in the background, accompanying the eldest prince occasionally. He will only step into the spotlight in Vampire Academy where he is part of the Student Council with Prince Silas.

Alaric Rong could be described pretty much as the typical strict, inflexible and cold-blooded advisor character that disproves the human Jessica Fang's existence in the coven. In fact he disproves of all the lower class vampires and humans, finding them filthy animals. A typical noble cannon fodder really.

In Vampire Academy he was one of the main stressors and many were unsatisfied that he had gotten off so easily for his rather repulsive and unkind behaviours in that book.

However, he has a secret that is revealed in the subsequent third book.

Alaric Rong is a crossdresser.

And in the story, he is condemned by the main character Jessica for this. Jessica exposes him, publicly humiliating him and turning the coven's opinion of him as a hardworking aloof man into a depraved pervert. Due to this he is stripped of his title and banished from the coven in disgrace.

It was understandable at that point if Alaric blackens and does his best to bring down the coven with the main villains. However, Alaric still held love for the Golden Rose coven and had always been ashamed of his strange desires so he felt that this was acceptable and left bitterly. Of course, this was explained by the author as part of his cowardice and self-hatred.

But the problem was that Alaric was not only a pureblooded vampire but one that knew many of the Golden Rose's secrets. When there was suddenly a leak in information in the coven to the hunters, Jessica almost immediately determines the culprit as Alaric who acts as a very unfortunate red herring.

Alaric is dragged in and due to being self-deprecating, depressed and bitter, he, of course, fails to communicate that no, he is not the culprit, and ends up talking vaguely like he's trying to skirt around the truth. This aspect, Jia Hyson has to admit, was totally Alaric's fault, like come on.

That self-sabotaging behaviour plus motive plus the lack of evidence really made Alaric seem like he was the culprit and so he is imprisoned and tortured by the people he swore to protect once upon a time ago.

Later on, it's revealed that Jessica herself was the leak.

Her step-family were secretly vampire hunters all along and used the information from Jessica's phone and diary to infer information about the vampires once they realized who her boyfriend was. They used this information to send various important and confidential files to rival covens in other for them to fight each other and allow the family to swoop in like vultures and gain more fame and prestige in the community.

This was both a relatively interesting and intelligent twist. Unfortunately, Alaric could not appreciate it because he died.

Jessica and her hot vampire friends forgot about telling the coven about this plot twist in order to deal with it themselves and also avoid revealing that Jessica was the reason for the leak until they caught the criminals first. This meant that by the time they came back after confronting X, fighting Coven Y and revived Vampire Z, Alaric had been beaten, tortured and humiliated to the point he had committed suicide ages ago.

Honestly, it would have been better if the author had just forgotten about Alaric completely but no, they had to bring him back up after x chapters just so Jessica could say the angsty teen equivalent of, "Oh, that sucks." And then spend three chapters showing some guilt then justification with her choices which can pretty much be surmounted to- well, he was a crossdressing pervert who also had different opinions to the protagonist so it's a good thing he died instead of another innocent person.

Maybe back in the old days when political correctness isn't as strong and many minorities and kinks were used as jokes this wouldn't be such a huge deal. But since it's written in more modern times where most people have a better understanding that our choice in gender, love and other such things should not be mocked or derided this isn't exactly a story many people would be happy about. Especially since this was such a minor thing too and yet the author proclaimed it as a death sentence.

It also didn't help that Alaric was the only sort of Asian character present as well. That brings up all sorts of messy connotations and suggestions.

Now some readers may say, hey, it's just a story, you're reading too much into it. Jia Hyson truly understands that logic and has even used this argument when defending his own works before.

But it's very clear to most that this doesn't contribute to the story at all, and instead, there is a lot of genuine bigotry being vented out, hidden in the words describing Alaric.

For example:

'Despite his cool taciturn demeanour, Jessica knew he was probably a foppish and flamboyant drama queen.'

'It was disgusting how he could just act like a normal man.'

'To be such a traitorous coward and spill secrets and endanger the people who grew up with him... well, Jessica shouldn't have expected someone like that to have any standards in the first place.'

Jia Hyson who read this couldn't help but grind his teeth in frustration. It was like an itch at the back of his brain that only got worse as he read on.

It was a bit difficult to tell from the story, but Alaric had been written to still identifies as male, and in terms of sexuality, it was not described. Jia Hyson can only assume that Alaric was most likely a straight man who simply enjoys stereotypically feminine clothing and other items like soft toys and makeup. It was not such an incomprehensible thing.

Jia Hyson clicks his tongue irritatedly. There were always bigots like this. If you're a man who likes girl clothing you're either gay, trans or a pervert.

They can't understand that one could see themselves as a different gender despite their current biological sexual organs saying otherwise, and they definitely will be even more confused about the concept that a normal straight man would even remotely be interested in 'girly' hobbies and fashion.

Being into drag doesn't mean you have to be gay or transgender the same way being gay or transgender doesn't mean you like wearing high heels and rainbow bows in your hair. You can just like what you like regardless of sexual preferences or gender identity, they are simply facts unrelated to anything else.

You're a lesbian and you like to eat churros. Coincidence? Yes.

You're bisexual and are a slag. Does that mean all bisexuals are like this? No, it means you, specifically are a slut that happens to be bisexual.

You're gay and prefer pineapples on pizza? That just means you have great fucking taste, you liking dudes has nothing to do with that.

Anyway, life is filled with assumptions and connections, this sort of confusion while annoying is normal, and isn't too bad if people have good intentions, a lack of malice and a willingness to learn and change. But demonising and generalising to such an extent like in this story is really too ugly to look directly at.

"Bebe, I really don't want to help this author improve their popularity," Jia Hyson groans. "If anything I want them to drown under the spittle of the netizens and then get framed for something and sent to jail for at least four and a half years."

Bebe: ...how vaguely specific.

"Seriously, ah," Jia Hyson sighs heavily, "I know my three views are a bit skewed but I rather not help a bigot if I don't have to. Especially not a stupid self-righteous one."

"It's not really..." Bebe hesitates, it also understands what Jia Hyson is uncomfortable with. "If you improve the position of Alaric into something less... demeaning, then the systems who try implement the process to get the author to rewrite the story will do their best to subtly convince the author and change their mindset to fit the story's views."

Jia Hyson was surprised, "You guys are willing to brainwash authors?"

"What part of subtly do you fail to comprehend?" Bebe snaps, "There are various ways we can help open up someone's mindset that doesn't include non-consensual mind alteration ah! The systems can do something to the school the author goes to and introduce LGBT+ awareness or maybe they'll go teach a creative writing course and tell people to write something supporting such themes.

We can also use subliminal messaging like in ads, and internet recommendations. Some more extreme methods can be inserting a system acting as a gay person to befriend the author in order for the author to humanize them better, or hiring a host of the same sex into seducing the author." Bebe pauses as if thinking of something before coughing and muttering quietly, "...But if all else fails, then yeah brainwashing isn't necessarily off the table."

Author Jia Hyson shivers.

He didn't really pay attention to what the systems did in order to convince the authors to improve their stories to such specific specifications, but now that he hears a few listed out he's a bit perturbed. He's sure that most of the easier less extreme methods worked harmlessly and successfully but some of the more radical methods are very sci-fi horror-esque ah.

Of course, even though he was disturbed it was only a fleeting emotion. People were naturally like that. When it doesn't directly affect you, the attitude toward tragedy is more like a melon eater*. Jia Hyson was naturally even more apathetic than most people so how can such a thing really bring him down ah.

*bystander watching big gossip. Typically, people crack melon seeds as their snack while watching a good show.

Besides, Jia Hyson never had much patience for bigots. Nor hypersensitive people to be honest. Though they were both extreme opposites on the political correctness scale, he had to admit he disliked them both equally as their attitudes were honestly quite similar.

For example, an author can make a mistake about Canada being in America. It's a very silly mistake and most readers will laugh and point it out with good humour and some lighthearted ridicule.

However, bigots toward America may say something like, 'As if Canada can be the same as America, are you dumb, America has x and Canada has y, y is clearly better than x. It's incredibly disgusting that you would even bala bala bala.'

Conversely, an oversensitive reader may notice the mistake and say 'As a Canadian, I am sorry to tell you Canada is not in America and I'm deeply offended that you would think this way. I'm sure that you just didn't do your research, or just didn't think about how this affects Canadians who see this but I can't just sit by and let you think this is okay when it's clearly hurting so many people and bala bala bala.'

In short, for things most people will not feel very concerned about, and even feel like it's a stupid mistake that needed a gentle reminder at best, these two extremists will act like the author had personally come into their houses, spat in their faces, slapped their mothers and singlehandedly offended an entire group, race or country. Most of the time their views are polar opposites but sometimes they become surprisingly similar.

The topic of whitewashing in a way could be construed as a good example of that overlap. A bigot could say, why should white people write people of colour. An over-sensitive person will say they don't agree with the bigot's opinion, but they will still happily criticise a person who writes other races in a way they aren't happy with.

Maybe they will snidely comment along the lines of 'clearly this author isn't from X race or they would've known better,' 'How can this white man talk about non-white women issues? How could Asians understand the racism of Africans?'. And it's true that nobody can fully understand the plights of someone else. But then again, Jia Hyson has never experienced what it's like to be a horse, does that mean he is inept to write about the problems of horses even if he does the research as best he can?

In this way, they may not be for whitewashing but indirectly they are promoting writer discrimination and a narrower worldview. White people should only write about white people and draw western comics. Asians are best in writing asian themes and drawing manga aesthetics. The only difference in Jia Hyson's opinion is that between a bigot and an oversensitive politically correct social justice warrior in this matter is one acts more pretentiously than the other.

Bebe: '....Those are some very specific examples.'

Jia Hyson: 'Tsk. Obviously, I've had personal experience ah, If not I wouldn't be so worked up about it.'

Which writer hasn't written a character and commented on their skin colour? Many people will say this girl's skin is as white as snow or pale like jade. This young man was tanned like healthy wheat.

However, once you write a black character and said they had skin like coffee, chocolate, and chestnut it becomes a hate crime in the eyes of some people. Jia Hyson has seen people blast him because their skin colour was not coffee coloured therefore he is racist, that they have never read anyone describe skin colour so he must be a bad writer, or even that it's okay to say a person is black but it's over the line to say the shade and tone of their skin.

He can only say one thing to those people.

Jia Hyson: '...Are you sick?'

What, your skin is different to the described person's skin? It's not like each race comes in one monotonous skin colour. Some people are just darker than others and some are lighter. As a writer with a specific image in mind one wants to most accurately convey this image to the audience.

If you've never read anyone who has mentioned skin colour in their story then aren't you just poorly read? It's not like you can imagine a person's appearance and race by costume and hair alone given this melting pot of society now ah.

And isn't not being able to specifically call out the type of skin colour and assume they're all the same, standard colouration, in fact, a form of generalisation and stereotyping in itself? Peh, isn't the implication of this more racist?

In short, no matter what's outside, aren't we all human beings? Why be so nitpicky? Describing skin colour should be like describing hair. There shouldn't be such a fuss. Unless you purposely described their skin with clearly negative words such as brown shit, yellow piss or white ejaculate, there's really no need to get upset.

Bebe: 'Are you done?' …Also who would describe someone's skin as the last one?

Jia Hyson: 'I'm never done but probably yes.'

Anyway, the point is Alaric Rong was considered quite problematic. It's fine for minorities to be presented as villains or cannon fodder characters just as it's fine for them to be presented as heroes and supporting characters. However, it is how they are represented, and how the focus of their traits is handled.

Alaric Rong as a villain and red herring is fine. But it shouldn't be based solely on the fact he had an 'abnormal' interest. Unless that abnormal interest was like, killing people to wear their skin as an apron while cooking their organs for dinner. Because that was pretty suspicious.

Generally, as long as someone's interest or lack of interest in something doesn't harm society or pose a threat to others, Jia Hyson feels like it shouldn't be so difficult to accept. However, maybe he himself only felt that way because he was already somebody who harmed society and posed multiple threats to others. Like a leopard watching people be afraid of a black cat, he could only feel it was ridiculous.

Yet despite his own tendencies and messed up past, he didn't feel that his view was wrong or should be invalidated just because of it ah. Why attack people slightly different as if their very sexuality and choices in what they like were personally offending all nine generations of your family? It was really shameful.

Anyway, the problem with Alaric is indeed hard to handle. Jia Hyson didn't think there was actually an easy way to let him be accepted into the protagonist well given the strong bias against his interests. After all, if it was simple to change the mind of a racist or a homophobe then world peace would have been established years ago and slavery wouldn't exist.

The first idea is to become friends with the main character Jessica Fang. Once you become a good enough friend and confidant, after revealing your secret in a controlled environment, there is a good chance after a period of reconstructing their world views, they will slowly accept you.

However, that is deeply reliant on exactly how deep the prejudice is and how stubborn the person can be. There are many cases of not just friends but close relatives by blood disowning someone who they found to be 'abnormal'. Therefore this path is a path with uncertain success.

Another is simply to not do anything. Like the saying goes, if you only have mean things to say, then just don't say anything at all.

Take Alaric out of the story and put him in the background with minimal lines as a minor supporting background character and don't interact with Jessica Fang at all. This is the simplest and easiest way, as well as the safest, most assured path to success.

Jia Hyson is more inclined to be an opportunistic person who will only strike when he knows he has a very low chance of getting caught. The safe path of course is much more preferable to him than the uncertain path where he has to rely on not just others, but a bigot's ability to reform.

However, it wasn't that he didn't feel guilt for Alaric as well. The man was wronged in so many ways, it also didn't feel very good to silence him to appease a piece of shit.

The coffin was quite spacious, Jia Hyson could easily move his arms so they can massage his throbbing temples. "Bebe, does Alaric have any side missions?"

"Do you want to see the other side missions as well or-"

"No," Jia Hyson was fairly rich now, he could afford to be impetuous and fickle. Right now his current plan will be unfair to Alaric so if he could, he wants to help fulfil any of the vampire's requests. "Just show me Alaric's requests, I don't need to take on anything else."

Bebe does not protest. It was also not desperate for money either and after so many years more or less understood Jia Hyson's mentality. He wasn't completely apathetic and psychotic.

As long as his own interests weren't too affected he could be kind and generous. But even if his own interests were violated, if Jia Hyson felt that he owed something to the other person he will still do something if it was in his power. There is still a sense of guilt and obligation in him, as well a fairly strong sense of responsibility.

"There are two side missions made by Alaric," Bebe reports, "The first one is that he wants to find the true traitor who betrayed information to the hunters and, if possible, solve the problem quickly so fewer vampires become implicated. He is willing to give 12,000p and three vials of noble vampire blood."

"And the second one?"

Bebe fell silent for a minute, "This… the second one… Alaric wants to find people who will accept and praise him when he crossdresses. He is willing to give 2,000p."

Hearing this, Jia Hyson sighs heavily, "What an idiot."

You could tell Alaric really loves the Golden Rose coven. Whether it might just be because he was raised like this or he naturally has a very patriotic demeanour, it was undeniable that while the man's personality was not likeable and prejudiced about humans and blood purity, he did want the best for the coven.

Not to mention, that second side mission… It was clear Alaric didn't put much stock into it when you compare the two rewards, but honestly if you really didn't mind then why put the request in the first place? It was a contradiction. Alaric wanted it but also felt guilty for wanting it at the same time.

"Accept it."

Bebe silently complies before asking curiously, "Host, how are you going to do this then? Accepting the second mission especially goes against your original plan to not let Alaric's secret out."

"Don't worry," Jia Hyson was already thinking of a few plans, "I have a certain direction I want to try. Besides, worst case scenario I'll go burn all of Alaric's secret clothes, murder a bunch of people and finding out whether I like to wear a skirt or not will be quite irrelevant."

Bebe: "…Why is violence always the answer with you?"

Jia Hyson shrugs, "It's the best last case resort, sue me."¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Now that he had most of everything in his head sorted out, he kicks open the lid of the coffin and sits up to stretch his sleepy muscles.

Jia Hyson is not someone who believes he can easily produce winds and waves, and he does not hold any delusions about reforming the system or having the ability to either. He can only think of doing small changes with the things he is capable of doing. Whether it can become big or not is out of his hands.

Still, that didn't mean there wasn't something he could do ah.

Maybe it would have an impact on the main characters of the story. Maybe it won't. But hey, if it makes an impact on someone, then his efforts won't be necessarily in vain.

...

....

Authors Note:

Hello hello~ I hope you like the premise ah~

So tbh I'm not 100% sure if I need to talk bout this but the lgbt+ community scares me a bit. So I figured I should clarify a bit. This arc has more on the theme of toxic masculinity and gender stereotypes than anything, and while it touches on maybe some other things like transgender, I'm pretty sure it doesn't count. It's like saying I touched a river and therefore I touched the ocean because eventually, the water I touched reached there. Like it kinda counts because it's all the same water but also no. I dunno this was written at midnight lmao.

Honestly, the issues aren't really going to taken apart in detail and stuff at all? I'm just a bit scared people may be upset that I've gone a bit serious but also never addressed transgender issues. Which exist. Obviously. Many issues. And honestly, I'm not obligated to address them either in this story, because obviously, this is an arc about crossdressing vampires in a story about fuckboy Hyson and his beta bitch Bebe.

Fuckboy Hyson and Beta Bitch Bebe: …yo wtf

I am not denying transgender themes, I don't wanna invalidate or hurt so I don't wanna touch on it in detail or anything since I am not confident in writing it well enough.

If you're trans I hope you know that I don't mean anything for not like mentioning much about the subject. However, I hope that you take some of the acceptance of being ok to be yourself that I'm trying to convey instead (don't fucking take all of it, we need to share it with the other troubled people which is everyone here because you guys are all weirdos who shipped a chicken with a dragon).

Honestly, I think regardless, of everything, all of us can relate on some level to something here.

I love ya'll equally regardless of who you are. Hope you have a lovely day <3

(…That's not true, I'm a liar. I'll love you more if you review and donate >;3)

Oh fuck right. This arc will have some non con, dub con themes and scenes which I probs should have talked more about ah but yeah. Gonna get some blackmail, dub con etc hehe.