Latest Posts by purplepapriika - Page 2

im sexy and i know it girl look a dead body girl look a dead body

Sibling asked how ppl in star wars dance to jizz music and I had to give her an example

I think, on some level, that Shen Yuan is like enrichment for Airplane Bro's enclosure. I think Airplane Bro kind of fucking LOVES having this guy around. Like, I do think their relationship is nuanced, weird and full of contradictions and not always good for them, but I also think that some chaotic part of Shang Qinghua honestly likes having his #1 hater weirdo running around completely fucking up his world.

Shen Qingqiu, grabbing Shang Qinghua by the shoulders: "Why didn't anyone TELL ME that Binghe is GAY NOW?! I'm going to die because of MONSTER DICK?!?!?!"

Shang Qinghua: (internally, probably only half-consciously) "Incredible. Amazing. How did I live without you? You torture me with your bullshit. You complete me in every possible way. I think we might be soulmates and we should make out about it. I hate you. I love you. You mean nothing to me and everything to me. This isn't your story and you stole it from me. I wrote this for you without even knowing you existed. You are a fascinating mystery that I will never solve. I will throw you under the bus at the first opportunity and yet I can't stop risking my life to help you. Your stupid game of gay murder chicken with my emotionally and mentally unstable protagonist is going to destroy the world and kill us all and I've never felt more alive. You have changed me as a person. Let's do this forever."

Shang Qinghua: (out loud) "Lol, sucks to be you, bro. At least you can get laid."

Aand this comic is finally complete! Thank you all who read this and left feedback. Wish I could answer you all but I'm too mentally drained for this, still I appreciate every single comment I receive :> Title: "The Ghost King isn't dressed" Based on the extra of the same name. Contains potential spoilers for the book. Please don't reupload it anywhere.

Tianlang-jun really is the guy of all time. He's a DILF. He's a MILF. He's a manic pixie girl, and a shrewd bastard. He's an aspiring bimbo. A babygirl. He's a fujoshi. A daddy. He swoops you off your feet with a wink in one moment, then falls into your arms with a giggle and a hair twirl the next. He's a guy, just a little guy, and also it's his birthday! He will fuck you up. He runs the economy, but will ask his wife to explain how it works to him. He's the seme of the ukes, as well as the uke of the semes. He is the Gomez and the Morticia. I desire him so very carnally.

jiang cheng and "everything I've let go of has claw marks on it," jiang cheng and "as for love, why is it never enough to save us?", jiang cheng and "and those you do not forgive, you find impossible to forget," jiang cheng and "i am someone who did not die when i should have died," jiang cheng and "am i supposed to be grateful for having survived this?" jiang cheng and "i sat with my anger long enough, until she told me her real name was grief," jiang cheng and "we leave doors open for people who will never knock again," jiang cheng and "you are shaking fists and trembling teeth. i know; you did not mean to be cruel. that does not mean you were kind," jiang cheng and "isn't all that rage so ugly? and isn't it mine still? good god, isn't it mine?" jiang cheng and "if i cannot be loved, then i must be feared."

MXTX Side Character Upper Bracket

Jiang Cheng from MDZS

Submission 1: Extremely traumatized yet also somehow the most normal and functional by the end. Huge bitch but I (and at least one of the other characters) think he deserves to be even worse after everything he's been through

Submission 2: Simultaneously badass and the most cringefail man. Extremely funny and stylish but still manages to be very uncool. Cries a lot. Also he's lost a lot of tumblr polls—let's give him another shot! We definitely love him more than his dad did!

Submission 3: He's got mommy issues AND daddy issues. He loves his sister and his shige so much. He's traumatised and incredibly competent. He rebuilt his whole sect! He's an asshole (affectionate). He's purple! He's got the coolest weapon ever conceived. I'm so worried about his blood pressure basically all the time.

Tianlang-jun from SVSSS

Submission: Incredible character who does it like him

#bro tlj read porn abt his son and his teacher and just assumed thats what happened #and then tried to hook his nephew up with said teacher #he also is introduced lounging in a coffin #oh and he is a sugar baby #its true no one does it like him (via @galsjustwannahavefun)

Additional Propaganda

Liu Qingge from SVSSS

#great sect brother! Dependable reliable and most of the time sorta sane #Great big brother to his younger sister #Stablest person around by a lot (still pretty off the rails) #Fought someone better than him every day for five years to get his best friend's body back for a burial #Got rescued from the plot for the specific purpose of saving someone back #and then had to watch that someone repeatedly not let him save them (via @rights-for-redshirts)

["Anti-Propaganda" that attacks other characters is NOT allowed. Please only give reasons to vote FOR a character.]

If SVSSS was a AO3 fic it would be very difficult to tag for because, as one example, it doesn't have necrophilia but it does have a guy using a corpse as his emotional support body pillow for 5 years in a tragic display of devotion that makes everyone around him deeply uncomfortable

And there really isn't an adequate tag for that

"the svsss fandom is much less toxic than other fandoms" i’m literally trying my best YOU try starting serious discourse abt a novel in which one of the main characters canon fujoshi dad walks in on a medical procedure and immediately tries to initiate an orgy with his son his son in law AND his nephew u don’t know me u don’t know my story

MXTX Side Characters Tournament

Mobei-jun from SVSSS

Submission: He's a demon tsundere who doesn't realize his human boyfriend is scared and easily squishable. Got demoted from king to cabinet minister during a hostile takeover but is pretty chill about it. Huge boobs. 

Zhuzhi-lang from SVSSS

Submission 1: Snake boy my beloved

Submission 2: I love him

["Anti-Propaganda" that attacks other characters is NOT allowed. Please only give reasons to vote FOR a character.]

MXTX Side Characters Tournament

Su Minshan / Su She from from MDZS

Submission 1: Idk I just kinda like him

Submission 2: Look at him having his own life and grudges and friendships and priorities completely unrelated to the main characters! He was so right to curse Jin Zixun 

Tianlang-jun from SVSSS

Submission: Incredible character who does it like him 

["Anti-Propaganda" that attacks other characters is NOT allowed. Please only give reasons to vote FOR a character.]

Also I talk a lot about how embarrassing it is to be in angry love with Wei Wuxian, but when they first have to recite the Wen laws, and he activities little shit mode to be like “I’ll read the Wen laws :)” and then recites the precepts of the Lan Clan—if I was Lan Wangji coming fresh off my clan’s recent massacre, I’d also be so so so in love with him. That’s sexy and deeply romantic on both a personal and a geopolitical level. That’s the best kind of complex and sexy. I’m actually insane about this relationship. We say this a lot on this ole website but biting and biting and ripping and tearing for real, dude, for real.

The secret to a good Luo Binghe characterization is that he's always the smartest most fuckable person in every room. His IQ is as high as his dick is long and his issues are as vast as Mobei Jun's bossom. He'd grab his husband's hand and say with starry eyes: "I never needed a father, I had you" and mean it.

i don’t often think of bingqiu and hualian in terms of parallels because their stories are so different and the parallels i’ve seen discussed have felt a little intuitive, but one that i’ve never really thought about isn’t a parallel between the red/blacks and the white/blues, but instead luo binghe and xie lian, and consequently shen qingqiu and hua cheng.

we’ll actually start with shen qingqiu and hua cheng—who are they? well, they’re both strong individuals that are originally (or throughout the story) cast in sort of villainous, disreputable roles. the ghost king, the scum villain. their styles of devotion are completely different in that hua cheng is infinitely more demonstrative and verbally/physically affectionate than shen qingqiu, completely lacking any shame when it comes to xie lian, but they’re both in some way quietly (and sometimes less quietly) devoted to their partner, to the point of physical sacrifice for them. devotion is obviously a key theme throughout all three of mxtx’s work, there’s more to it than that with tgcf and svsss.

neither hua cheng nor shen qingqiu are all that aware of their own innate value to the world around them. and, consequently, neither quite understand why their partners are with them, consciously or unconsciously. shen qingqiu spends plenty of time mentally blue-screening the first few times that luo binghe shows him affection and wonders why he isn’t bestowing it upon his theoretical future wives, and hua cheng was so ruthlessly tormented for his appearance that he can’t fathom being called handsome or worthy of so much as a touch on the hand from xie lian. the roles they’re cast in by their societies further drive this: shen qingqiu doesn’t internalise the good he’s done in changing the world of pidw, the people whose lives he’s saved or positively impacted just by existing, and hua cheng is hua cheng. immensely powerful, frighteningly knowledgeable, endlessly devoted. he’s an excellent artist, a clever mouth, a talented carpenter (sorry)—all of this, external to his vices and usefulness as a ghost king. they both have their values to the world that we the audience can pick out, but when do either ever say, “hey. i did a good thing, existing. my existence has value, and i should protect it accordingly,” (looking at you for that self-detonation, shen qingqiu)

compare these two to their husbands—brilliant, beautiful, devastatingly, mouth-wateringly powerful luo binghe and xie lian. luo binghe knows his strengths, even if he places all his value in the hands of his shen qingqiu—he knows he’s beautiful, he knows he’s strong, he knows he’s clever and talented and all these things. despite how these things have no value to him if shen qingqiu doesn’t care for them, he’s still conscious of their existence. similarly, xie lian was crown prince of xianle, the strongest martial god, so talented that he ascended at the age of 17. again, he knows the nature of his strengths, even if they matter little to him in the grand scheme of his 800 years of ascent and descent, suffering and anger and thinly-veiled depression.

it’s an interesting contrast to what you’d expect, that when it comes to their feelings towards their relationships—the fact that they’re actually involved with these people that they admire so deeply, are devoted to in ways that are either heartbreakingly over-the-top or subtly devastating—hua cheng and shen qingqiu are the ones that share this glaring similarity.

🐹

[x]

does jiang cheng have a choice?

antis hate Jiang Cheng for ‘abandoning’ Wei Wuxian, but did he realistically have any other options available? 

for my money, the non-negotiable goals for Jiang Cheng in this situation are

keep Wei Wuxian alive and not in the custody of another clan

ease the pressure from the other clans to take responsibility for/act against Wei Wuxian 

maintain the Jiang clan’s autonomy and standing amongst the clans

and the non-negotiable goals for Wei Wuxian in this situation are

keep Jiang Cheng and the Jiang clan safe, alive, and out of the direct control of other clans (especially the Jin) 

undermine Jiang Cheng’s authority as clan leader as little as possible 

keep the Wen safe, alive, and free (ish– at least as free as they are now) 

continue trying to save Wen Ning/keep him ‘alive’ once he’s revived 

do not reveal to anyone that he has lost his golden core 

do not give anyone the Yin Tiger Tally 

Wei Wuxian returning to the Jiang is off the table because he won’t leave the Wen. Wei Wuxian AND the Wen somehow coming into the custody of the Jiang isn’t possible because Jiang Cheng doesn’t have that much clout, and it’s hard to believe that Wei Wuxian would accept a situation that would necessarily have to look a lot like imprisonment for the Wen if the other clans were going to accept it. so already, the only way for Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian to both achieve some of their key goals is for Wei Wuxian to stay in the Burial Mounds with the Wen somehow– which means the only goals remaining to both of them are ensuring that the Jiang clan doesn’t get punished for that, or placed in a situation where they’re forced to act violently against Wei Wuxian/the Burial Mounds/the Wen (and yes, obviously it comes to that eventually anyway, but a lot changes first). and canon is explicitly clear that the other clans are absolutely not about to let the Jiang off the hook for what Wei Wuxian is doing. they want and need him to turn on Wei Wuxian, and if he won’t, they don’t really care about dragging this decimated, teenager-led clan down with Wei Wuxian. 

the Jiang clan has nothing at this point, barely even a home. even if the other clans were open to reaching a compromise in terms of the Wei Wuxian situation, who on earth is going to believe him if he says, I’ve got the Wei Wuxian situation handled, I’m going to leave him in the Burial Mounds and keep an eye on him, he’s my problem not yours? 

and that’s the final, essential element– Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian are not in a fair fight. the other clans are actively pushing them towards conflict, and won’t accept any outcome besides a complete break, or a complete capitulation by Wei Wuxian. 

maybe I’m just not feeling creative today, but I genuinely can’t come up with a single other solution beyond the one that the two of them find and implement in canon– a fake schism and staged fight. 

Into the Abyss by esama Pixel art inspired by Esama's work, "Into the Abyss" where Shen Yuan is a feral (badass) hunter in the Endless Abyss.

the pussy flower and testicle grapes made me cackle so hard i had to draw them

Mi Binghe bb from hell

Thinking about how Ballister tried to convince Nimona to conform when he’s been singled out and targeted his whole life — how the whole kingdom was against someone outside the original knight bloodline joining them, how he had to work harder and still faced backlash, how even on the day he was supposed to be officially made one of the knights he still visually stood out because his armor was black while everyone (save Ambrosius, Glorith’s descendant) wore white

He was ignorant and sheltered, and he was also a queer elder seeing a queer kid embrace things that scare him because he was hurt just for existing — imagine how much worse it would’ve been if he intentionally rocked the boat like that

Thinking about how, despite everything he tried, he was still labeled the villain and she was still called a monster, and eventually he was willing to throw away everything he knew and loved to protect her. Thinking about the joy he experienced once he started cutting loose and questioning all the limits he put on himself and others put on him. Thinking about how he was tokenized and targeted growing up, thrust in the spotlight from a young and how even then very few people were willing to try and actually see him for who he is. Thinking about how he saw Nimona

Thinking about evolution and growth within the queer community, about in-fighting from actual good (if fear and ignorance based) intentions can be even more damaging than malicious intent, about how for some queer people being seen as “just like cishets” is a matter of life or death while for others embracing being “different” is the thing that keeps them going, and how empathy and understanding of others can unintentionally heal yourself. Something something something, we come together and then we win

yeah sure Across the Spiderverse is about being doomed by the narrative and knowing you’re doomed by the narrative, but also it’s about how different people react to that, and how no one reaction is the right one, like Peter B. has lived as Spider-man long enough that’s gone through most of the “canon events” and he’s in a place where he’s like “yeah, alright, I can work with this” and is afraid of doing anything drastic because after being a screw-up for so long and finally, finally getting it right wouldn’t you be afraid making a mistake again?

And Miguel is angry but resigned because the one time he tried to defy the narrative it spat in his face and beat him to the ground. So now he’s doing what he genuinely belives is to everyone’s benefit. Without a hint of flexibility. He’s even angrier when Miles suggests that fate can be defied both because he’s convinced Miles is wrong and is going to get people killed and also if Miles is right than Miguel has to reckon with the fact that he’s convinced so many Spider-people to just “follow the script” and let their loved ones died because he was convinced there was no fighting the narrative. That not everyone is as doomed as he is.

And Hobie, who knows he might be doomed but is dead-set on spitting in the narrative’s face for as long as he can regardless. A different kind of acceptance. A kind of acceptance that’s covered in spikes and has teeth. If the narrative is gonna take him down he’s taking as much bad guys as he can before he bites it. And he’s isn’t going to be nice or polite about it, and he sure as shit ain’t gonna be quiet. Proper fucking punk, right there.

And Gwen, who is on the fence, but is sad and tired and just doesn’t have the strength to try anymore. She doesn’t have a home to come back to, or at least doesn’t think so, she’s stressed out and angry and she found out that as Spider-Woman that was always going to happen to her. She’s ready to give up, because being doomed is kinda freeing, if she was always doomed to fail, lose her friend, lose her dad, than it takes the pressure off. Sad as it was she could live with that. Until she sees Miles bite and fight and scream when he finds out he’s doomed, and that one little push gives her the courage to try and find out just how doomed she really is.

And Miles!! Free spirit, radical free thinker, “just let him spread his wings, man” Miles Morales. Who is trying so, so hard to figure out what his narrative even is, but is determined that he can figure it out, that he can spread his wings and manage on his own and find his place and be himself. Miles finding out he might be doomed is a slap in the face that he’s completely unprepared for. And he denies it completely. He refuses to lay down and just take it, he’s going to punch and kick and save everyone, no matter that every other Spider-person, Ham and Miguel and Gwen and every one, who’ve been doing this spider thing for much long tell him he can’t. And this radical rejection earns him pity, and earns him enemies, but he’s not backing down. He can’t back down. Because even if he is doomed he’ll never be able to forgive himself if he doesn’t even make an attempt.

 Across the spider-verse is so fucking good you guuuuuysss

He dies if you don't pay attention to him, its a very urgent situation for an uncle to attend to.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

I love how Sha Hualing is trying her best to be the hated misogyny bait character that steals the man and creates all the relationship drama for the popular ships but she does such an incredible girlfail girlunpaidintern job at it that she's instead universally loved by the fandom and gifted 300 girlfriends for her efforts

You know what I can't get enough of? Speculation about what the fictional novel Proud Immortal Demon Way says about its fictional author. Because it would be completely possible to make a story like this without that connection. I'm not sure I've read any other transmigration story where the author was a character, so just that addition adds a lot of interesting texture to the situation even without getting deep in the author's head, but it's so interesting how deep I can speculate in so many directions if I think about getting in his head.

And oh man, I could talk for AGES about how Shang Qinghua and his iconic protagonist reflect each other, but a lot of people have written about that already! Including in the medium of fic, which is my favorite way to consume that kind of crunch. So let's talk about familial neglect and mistreatment and the author's favorite character.

Honestly, when I look at how iconic this ship is, I'm astonished there aren't more hit novels where the author gets yeeted into their own book and has to navigate platonic or romantic relationships with their own characters. A lot of the parallels between Shang Qinghua and Luo Binghe are about them being alike in ugly and vulnerable ways, ways I don't think either of them likes about themselves, and regarding aspects of their personalities that I don't think they'd be happy discussing period. Like, Binghe very much hates himself, that's right there on the page. And Shang Qinghua is a ridiculous character, he's very funny, but he's also not stupid. He's very aware of who he is and what he is, and makes a decision to behave the ways he does. I'm typing this up because I was scrolling through an old chat looking for something and tripped across a conversation about shang qinghua and fawn trauma response.

He knows he does this thing! He has an easy opening to turbokill Mobei-jun while he's unconscious and decides to go the route of begging for his life and trying to ingratiate himself after Mobei-jun wakes up instead, which is a much trickier process. He says it himself, that Mobei-jun is his ideal, that he embodies everything Shang Qinghua wants to be, that etc. And that's hilarious and all, especially in light of the eventual romance and the clownery it takes to get there, but in classic svsss fashion, it also becomes a lot sadder when you add up all the pieces and see everything Shang Qinghua hates about himself.

In some ways he's an even more avoidant narrator than Shen Qingqiu, he deflects and jokes like a motherfucker, so it really is a matter of assembling all the pieces and seeing where there are gaps. But what really underscored the connection for me was Mobei-jun's reaction to parental neglect. Because that's what pushed Shang Qinghua into being an author in the first place, his parents divorced and remarried and kinda just.... forgot about him.

Mobei-jun's dad doesn't exactly do that, but he is operating without a mom in the picture, and rather than remarrying, he just chooses to ignore the thing where his shitty brother is persistently trying to kill his son. That really sucks! But Mobei-jun never shows the smallest hint of weakness or vulnerability over this, even when it would have really helped to use his words, like 'hi my uncle is coming to kill me and i trust you to protect me.' He's everything cool, aloof, arrogant, proud, all a bunch of adjectives that really do not apply to Shang Qinghua. Mobei-jun honestly looks like a boring character if you just stick to the main story, because he's so self-contained and controlled. Compare and contrast to Shang Qinghua, who accidentally outs himself as a transmigrator like two minutes after showing up and proceeds to be hilarious for the rest of the book.

(Brief aside to say that I don't think Mobei-jun is necessarily a happier or healthier person for all of this, lmao. The conversation that fawn reaction thing came from was talking about freeze (tee hee) versus fawn in response to threats or stressful situations. But that goes along with the svsss theme of people used to engaging with this universe as a fictional property coming to terms with the depth and complexity of other people's emotions and not just seeing them as simplistic not-real characters in a book)

(Additionally, this makes the ship hilarious as a take on 'opposites attract,' but also it gives me actual Emotions that Shang Qinghua's ideal who he wishes he could be, purely incidentally, he is able to value and love Shang Qinghua in a way that Shang Qinghua can't and doesn't seem to totally understand)

And what's very interesting here. Is that Shang Qinghua made these two characters, Luo Binghe and Mobei-jun. His protagonist ultimately reflects a lot of his own vulnerabilities and insecurities (secretly and quietly in pidw, much more.... overtly in svsss), and Mobei-jun corrects for his vulnerabilities and insecurities. He's the person Shang Qinghua wishes he could be, which is basically... the opposite of Shang Qinghua, to an almost comical degree. And he then gives Mobei-jun the VERY BEST plot armor he can devise. It's hard for a male character to exist near a stallion protagonist without getting swept up in rivalries/suspicions/etc and getting killed by the protagonist, but he makes sure that his favorite character is safe from these things. He's protecting the character he wishes he could be from the character whose faults most reflect his own. That is very sweet and weird and sad, and that's very reflective of the svsss experience, I think.

So.

According to @demiace-wen-ning​‘s iconic post, every MXTX novel has:

A red/black, morally ambiguous, all-powerful bastard man

A fan wielder who is much more than meets the eye

And a fucking Jiang Cheng

Now we, as a collective fandom, have decided with our communal braincell that in SVSSS, the “fucking Jiang Cheng”™ character is Liu Qingge. And on the surface, this seems Right and Good:

HOWEVER! I posit that these aspects are only the most superficial and external aspects of the vast and multi-layered Dagwood sandwich that is fundamental “fucking Jiang Cheng”™yness. “fucking Jiang Cheng”™ has LAYERS. And for all that I love Liu Qingge, I love him in the same way I love the Sonic franchise’s Knuckles the Echidna:

This is emphatically NOT how I love Jiang Cheng. Furthermore, this is demonstrably NOT the sort of character that a fandom becomes viciously divisive about. This is the sort of character you either like or dislike and move on with your life because he is not deep and complex enough to Die On This Hill for defending. (This is a Feng Xin or Nie Mingjue sort of character.)

So what makes for a “fucking Jiang Cheng”™ character? What are the quintessential “fucking Jiang Cheng”™ characteristics that result in a complex and divisive character? I propose:

ambiguous/unexplained actions

refusal to explain motives

canon selfless actions missed or negatively interpreted

socially over-conscious while still socially detested

harsh and contemptuous outward behavior

honestly, naturally is an asshole, but holds back just enough to get away with it

hard-working but overshadowed by upstart prodigy

childhood trauma that fundamentally affected behavioral patterns

aggressively focused on their cultivation and consequent social status

secretly heartbroken about a perceived betrayal regarding the protagonist

yay, war crimes!

These attributes all describe Jiang Cheng. All but the last one describe Mu Qing, with the second-to-last applying in a way where HE is perceived as the betrayer. None of these attributes describe Liu Qingge. But you know who they DO describe in SVSSS?

Shen Jiu.

The ORIGINAL Shen Qingqiu.

An undeniable asshole who nevertheless gets punished for every good deed he ever did, who clawed and scraped his way to the top of the cultivation world and ensured he stayed there no matter how many bridges he had to burn or enemies he had to make along the way, who acts like a bitter tsundere to the person who matters most to him because said person broke their promise and never explained why, whose childhood was a never-ending parade of trauma and abuse that molded him into a harsh and suspicious individual, who (though we don’t find out until the extras) shows no sexual interest in anyone, whose own path to cultivation was so difficult and traumatic that they could not stop themselves from jealously lashing out at the heaven-blessed prodigy standing right next to them.

Shen Jiu is the TRUE “fucking Jiang Cheng”™ of SVSSS, and I cordially invite any haters to bring it on because this is My Hill and I am ready to fight for it.

(05/??)

Part 1 & 2

I don't know which is the original manga but once I saw it I knew it had to be turned into Bingqiu

Original:

He has the range

comission for @pengiesama! YEAH FENGXIN IS BEING A HYPOCRITE!! 

original meme base:

i would love your madam yu thoughts please

I have to admit this was not someone I was expecting to be asked about! But I actually do have thoughts on her, because even though I never talk about him JC is in my top 5. And you really cannot engage with JC without engaging with his mother.

What I think YZY exemplifies is the way that in MDZS the narrative depicts nuanced characters without falling into the tedious trap of either condemning or endorsing them. It's not particularly interested in telling us whether YZY is a bad person or a good person, because it doesn't consider that kind of sweeping judgement helpful or even necessarily relevant; but that also doesn't mean it's taking a mealy-mouthed neutral position on her either. Her parenting style is presented as unambiguously wrong, both morally and in the sense that it is not achieving her desired result.

YZY is selfish and domineering. She tears down both of her children, and neither of them will ever be good enough. She actively targets WWX. But this behaviour is firmly situated in context: she's from a clan where women hold a lot of power; she's frustrated with her husband's behaviour; she's frustrated that her son is outshone by WWX; she's concerned about WWX's power and attitude and how that could destabilise the Jiang. All of these are sensible and realistic motivations, and her concerns are presented as legitimate even as her way of dealing with them is highlighted as both harsh and counterproductive.

The text doesn't let YZY off the hook for her behaviour. She's not redeemed or 'good, actually' just because she does ultimately love her son and because she's in a frustrating position. But she also isn't condemned as an irredeemable abuser either. What should be taken from that is not that it's not worth discussing the good and the bad she does. It's just that it's vitally important to remember that morality is not the only metric by which a character should be analysed or responded to. What I like about YZY is that I have a very clear sense of who she is, why she is who she is, and why she does everything she does—all of which drives the plot forwards and enriches our understanding of more central characters such as JC and WWX.