Don’t Pick Up Boyfriends From the T*ash Bin Chapter 135 Discussion

So, what more can I say about this work? The users earlgreyt, hy-d-ra, and IndusEla have pretty deep reviews about this novel already (Use Ctrl + F to find their reviews). You can check theirs to get the feel on the characters (awesome and real), the plot (dynamic) and the relationship progression (actually realistic). I'll aim to touch in passing what they've covered and break some new ground here.

Warning; will probably get meta at the second half.

The writer is very skilled and competent at their work: Where most quick-transmigration settings suffer from infodump-itis, this one doesn't. Author knows just how much information to give, and at what pace to give them. Sometimes the reader wishes they know more, but just like Chi Xiaochi knowing that it's more important to act at the right time than to know everything, we move with him, planning and even improvising on the spot as the situation develops.

It makes everything feel more real, the risks more acute and the stakes higher. Chi Xiaochi is risking his own safety too, in every world. He's not just an omnipotent passing saviour.

The MC doesn't always know everything immediately and I love it: You actually see how smart the MC is here, instead of it being something mentioned over and over by the third-person omniscient perspective. This is one of the few works where I'll say that the writer manages to write a genius in his own field of improv acting and troubleshooting. Yet Chi Xiaochi is still human enough with his own flaws and foibles that he doesn't feel like a Gary Stu.

Now, I'll second hy-d-ra's words here. This novel will make other works of the same genre feel inferior and shallow. This is 1000% true. Why?

Depth and Layers:

Most c-novels are the equivalent of snacks. You know, easy to consume, you don't need to strain your brain too much to read it, and most of the time has zero nutritional value. They're nice, bite-sized pieces of endorphin rush that helps you get through your day. How it achieves this is by relying on a grab-bag of tropes, established setting and even scenarios (which is why rebirth and/or transmigration is a popular concept). This is fine. Not every written work has to be Finnegan's Wake, Dream of the Red Chamber or La Divina Commedia.

There are always risks associated with this that has to be kept in mind, though.

That means that such a novel relies a lot on stereotypes, on clichés, on the relentless drive to reach happily-ever-afters. I've become too used to those that I can immediately gloss over such annoying writing bugs in the next random c-novel I'm reading. The difference here being, this novel isn't content with that. Even as this novel entertains you, pulls you along with its excellent plot and the pace that Chi Xiaochi takes care of the original host's problem, it forces you to face the fact that life isn't simple.

Some wounds will forever scar the people who received them.

Why should some scum ML's be forgiven? Why should the trauma received by the original host be waved away? Some relationships are broken, and some people really can't be a good partner for the original host to be in a relationship with. This is one of the few danmei/yaoi/shounen-ai novels I can actually get into, because the number of times I just want to punch the ML in the face and then geld them is uncountable.

That might sound a little hypocritical of me when I can read het novels a lot easier with rather... odd ML's, but that's because I already don't identify with the FL's that much. I didn't grow up being expected to smile and be friendly to everyone. In my youth, I don't get reprimanded if I wasn't 'nice' enough to some a**holes and have to adjust my behaviour, while later I realised that this is the expectations that some girls have to grow up with. They have to manage other people's emotions and feelings and making them their responsibility too. That if they get harassed, it was somehow because they dressed 'too s**tty'. These are all the things I only understood much later in life, and gave me the strange realisation that I've figured out a large chunk of why some girls' behaviour were incomprehensible to me when I was younger.

That's why I can tolerate FL's reluctance to reject jackasses outright, for one, or their dogged and determined friendliness even in the face of characters whose faces I really want to blow up. They grew up with a different upbringing than mine, walking a narrower tightrope. I swallow that down and cheer for them to succeed, because I want to see them finally live a better life. Even if I don't give a damn about the ML.

When the MC is a guy, though...I can't even fall back to those excuses I tell myself.

I can accept if the author wrote them well. Chronic ab*se warps a person's thought, making them believe they are not worthy of many things. It is sad but not a surprise if people with such background end up in a relationship that in some ways mirrors their earlier abusive one. It's the same with people from difficult economic backgrounds, already used to tolerating so much from life that tolerating this as*hole who loves them that has a great background, family and wealth sounded like a reasonable proposition for them. There are countless other ways that a psychological quirk or flaw can be exploited by the jackholes of the world.

But some writers, relying overly much on tropes, clichés and established settings can easily fall into a trap of just chasing for that happily-ever-after without wondering on how and why it is achieved.

Why would some male MCs still tolerate such crappy behaviour when their background seems okay enough? Why wouldn't they just punch them in the nose and dump the arse? When they accept these sort of behaviours that are controlling and/or abusive? When the writer makes seemingly well-adjusted people accept a partner with these traits, they normalise them. They make it seem like being controlled or ab*sed is just something you'll experience in a normal relationship. And yet we see this often in these works.

The writer here? They don't accept all of this. This is not normal. In every world, they proceed to tear apart every ML's shitty justification and excuses. Chi Xiaochi gives the original hosts wings and escape plans, giving them the opportunity to stand tall once more and see their life is their own once more. Crappy people has no place in them.

TL;DR summary: Stop cooing at that pile of manure. Please put scum ML's where they belong, in the tr*sh bin. Planeswalker/world-hopper Chi Xiaochi is here to give you a masterclass on how to brutally disintegrate your tr*sh completely, as well as to how to love and respect yourself first before considering on entering any relationship.

Some Matrix-like grand overarching plot of us-against-the-system happens too, first in the background, and then slowly gathering momentum and intertwining with Chi Xiaochi's work. The more that Chi Xiaochi risks himself in each world, the less system 61 is content to stay as a passive AI system either as he tried to gather his fragmented memories.