Fans of Danmei same-sex romance stories in China say the government is cracking down harder than ever on the popular genre.
to the best of my knowledge, AP News is now the first (only?) western journalistic outlet to confirm that 袁依楣 Yuan Yimei (MXTX) was detained in 2019 for "tax evasion" ("非法經營罪"), imprisoned for 3 years, and paroled in 2021—there were sinophone reports but with dubious sources. i think we can now take this to be factual.
Yuan Yimei was also (according to 港聞 Hong Kong News) fined 400k RMB, and as always when accosted with this information I have to put my face in my hands and dwell on the unutterably vast amount of capital her IP has been generating (in the United States alone) since June 2019, and ask myself: has she seen even one cent of it.
and, like. far be it from me in these unprecedented times to harsh the global danmei buzz. i can only hold these facts in one hand, and gesture towards @penguinrandomhouse and @sevenseasentertainment with the other, and ask them how well they sleep at night without ever making a single official statement.
anyway here's a petition you can sign! thanks to @elizabethminkel for pointing out this article, and I hope all our beloved and unfathomably nervy writers are safe tonight, at home with people they love.
Creators are being imprisoned. Where is Seven Seas Entertainment?
An infodump about my favorite Honkai character, Fu Hua’s 5th disciple. 🙂↕️👉👈
Her birth name is Cheng Lingshuang, though I’ll only be calling her by her first name for reasons I’ll explain later. While her exact origin is unknown, she was found as a child by Fu Hua as part of the cult of Wangshan mountain, making her likely an orphan or the daughter of cultists. (The former is probably much more likely)
Autism coding point no 1: this is obvious I don’t even need to say anything.
After joining Taixu Mountain Sect as Fu Hua’s fifth disciple, she went on to become the strongest out of the seven, mastering all of the aggregates of Taixu spare for Blade Sanction(/aka Sword Intent). While the reason for her lack of mastery over Blade Sanction is unexplained, mastery of it is not related to skill, so it does not diminish her martial abilities. My personal speculation is that it’s because Blade Sanction involves forming a specific connection between wielder and sword, and Lingshuang practices lack of attachment from worldly things, weapons included.
During the assassination, she was the one to deal the final blow against Fu Hua, striking her in the forehead and shattering her Xuanyuan sword in the process.
Upon her departure from Mt. Taixuan, she went on to defeat multiple masters of martial arts and became infamous within the jianghu— partially because of the fact that she won every battle with only a single move. During this time, she did take up another Xuanyuan sword, but it’s unknown whether that was Fu Hua’s sword or if she borrowed it from someone else. (Su Mei suspects it was Hua’s sword, but I’m not sure if that’s actually true but it’s a valid suspicion)
Anyways she ends up going to jail for her exploits and gets broken out by Su Mei and Ma Yanqing. After, she decides to retire in the northern desert and travels to the edge of the central plains with Qin Suyi. She lives off in her little hut in the desert for several years before Suyi comes back with a kid in tow and asks her to take her daughter as her disciple.
Lingshuang is a person who holds personal debts to a very high importance, as well as a person who is very protective of people who matter to her, even when she rarely shows affection to such people in typical ways. This blind faith in her peers is a nativity that Suyi is able to take advantage of by implanting a false memory in Lingshuang using her Xuanyuan Sword’s Blade Sanction ability. Lingshuang remembers an event which never happened where Suyi saved her life during the time they travelled together, and thus, believes herself to be in Suyi’s debt. Thus, she agrees to take Sushang as her disciple.
One thing to be noted about Lingshuang and her inter-personal relationships is her complete disregard of filial piety. A very important concept in China, especially ancient China, filial piety is the respect one should show for the people in their life such as one’s parents, elders, siblings, master or teacher, and other important life figures.
The first glaring example of her being unfilial is her lack of use of her surname. While it’s common to refer to a close friend by only first name, most often when their name is multiple letters (ex: calling Qin Suyi by Suyi is affectionate, while calling Su Mei as just Mei doesn’t land quite the same way). Lingshuang is NOT an example of this, as she specifically introduces herself as only Lingshuang. Her name tag in the VN only reads “Lingshuang,” while characters like Suyi and Sushang who are often called by only first name still have their full names in their name tags. The only times where she’s called Cheng Lingshuang is when she’s introduced as a toddler, and another example where Senti is throwing shade on her name to Sushang and purposely being disrespectful. Keeping one’s father’s name is an important part of filial piety, and women do not change their surname when they marry to maintain their father’s surname. Changing or removing one’s surname is akin to disowning one’s father.
(Pictured: Senti beef)
Another person one should be filial to is their master, which Lingshuang is obviously not. I actually asked the 7s author to elaborate on Lingshuang’s specific feelings about Fu Hua out of curiosity, and here’s what he said.
“Lingshuang thinks Fu Hua is a mysterious, indifferent, and weird master, and isn’t interested in getting to know her deeper.”
Basically, Lingshuang holds no filial respect for her master, putting the same amount of effort into their relationship as Fu Hua does (Fu Hua dgaf about building genuine deep relationships with her disciples). She is also very unfilial because she stabbed her in the forehead. 🙁
Twenty years later and Lingshuang has in fact taken a couple of disciples of her own in addition to Sushang. We barely hear about them because they aren’t that important to her— she lacks the master/disciple filial notions in both directions. It’s not that she dislikes them, but she only sees them as people who she teaches rather than someone she owes a connection and relationship with.
This brings up the most important point— why isn’t she like that with Sushang? It’s because Lingshuang doesn’t lack care for other people; rather, she cares for people based on genuine closeness rather than because of titles such as disciple or master or family. She doesn’t feel obligated to be close to someone society would expect her to be filial to when they aren’t someone she cares about. So, Lingshuang’s care for Sushang comes from a genuine familial affection rather than an obligation as a master. Even SENTI acknowledges the two of them as having a familial relationship.
(She is definitely not talking about Suyi since Suyi is the only one who didn’t participate in the assassination.)
Sushang isn’t the only person she’s close with— she does have a sense of camaraderie with her fellow disciples, while not as deep. Lin Zhaoyu did partially raise her, her thoughts about Su Mei are unknown, she was willing to risk fighting her master to save Jiang Wanru, she enjoys somewhat affectionately tormenting Ma Yanqing, and overall she’s probably closest with Qin Suyi even though I wouldn’t call them quite ‘friends.’ She is nowhere as close with any of her martial siblings as she is with Sushang.
Next to continue on the autism coding point:
(Pls take my translation with a grain of salt and not total accuracy because I don’t speak Chinese and am just googling what things mean 😭)
“As the fifth disciple of Taixuan, except for Chiyuan Zhenren (Fu Hua’s title, “red kite true Daoist spiritual master”), she is the only person in the past 100 years to have comprehended the supreme skill “Edge of Taixuan.”
At the age of two, she began practicing martial arts, and achieved the level of “Taixuan” (Highest level of Blade Mantra) at the age of 12. She was known as a master of the blade, at ease, indifferent, and an unparalleled swordsmaster.
Lingshuang has been holding a sword for 37 years of her life, but she has never truly stepped into this world.
She has never experienced setbacks, never experienced failure, and is bound by neither desire or attachments.
Common sense, rules, logic, rationality, worldly affairs, binds to all things mundane, these were things Lingshuang never cared for or payed attention to.”
(And an excerpt from the next part that tumblr won’t let me post the screencap of cause I can only post 10 images wtf 😭😭)
“Those lucky enough to be familiar with her (Lingshuang) will know…
She claims to have a foothold of independence and self reliance in the world.”
To clarify what this means, historically, the kind of lifestyle she lives is very unusual for a woman in 15th century China. She’s essentially a single mom, she lives in her own house, farms her own food, makes her own wages, is unmarried and uninterested in marrying, lives in the middle of nowhere, lives a lifestyle focused around martial arts, and hardly ever talks to people. Societal rules and standards mean nothing to her.
So, saying she “hasn’t entered the world,” refers to her lack of interaction with society and its expectations, yet her claim of “independence and self reliance” means that she does in fact live her life, just in her own way. Essentially: she lives in her own world.
My next point on the autism coding: the literal entire description on her specific daily routine.
“When it was still dark outside the window, Lingshuang had woken up. She always wakes up at this time, neither early or too late.
After washing in a basin of cold water and getting dressed, she meditates cross legged on the bed and recites the Blade Mantra silently. One thought might take two hours to pass, and even a strike of lightning couldn’t disrupt her.
Then, she gets up and sweeps the floor with a broom. When the house is cleaned, she’ll go to the small nearby market to buy some pancakes and mutton.
If she were to run out of water, she’d have to travel to the well to bring a few buckets of it.
After breakfast, she’d sit down next to an old loom and spin silk. Once, she could spin a satisfactory silk in one day. After having taken in Sushang, the process was greatly slowed down. Now, it can take up to a week— and no shorter than four days.”
Next: about her stigmata! Lingshuang is one of the few characters to have a natural stigmata. While we don’t know what it looks like, I personally suspect it’s the Taixuan sect symbol (Lin Zhaoyu’s huadian and Totori’s stigmata), located on the forehead. There’s a lot of importance placed with the diamond shape on the forehead, from Senti having a diamond from her hairpiece dangling there, Fu Hua having been stabbed there, and Totori (a bearer of Fu Hua’s stigmata in GGZ) having her stigmata there, and more decorations used when characters (Kiana, Senti, Sushang) are using Eminence.
A quote, Kevin speaking to Durandal in reference to Lingshuang, “After all, except for someone a long time ago... You may be the first human being who will not be negatively affected by a stigmata at all.”
And a conversation between Fu Hua and Senti:
HoS: …Is Lingshuang still around?
FH: it’s been five hundred years.
HoS: …Oh, that’s a pity. The kid was the real monster. You didn’t tell Kevin about her, did you?
FH: He knows.
HoS: Oh, that’s why he feels so confident about his Project Stigma. Such a perfect example for him to follow.
My last point about Lingshuang is her sense of humor and playfulness that’s often missed or misinterpreted by the people around her. Most people perceive her as cold, to the point where Ma Feima is surprised that she is upset he wounded Sushang, not thinking she would have genuine care for her disciple. This is partially exacerbated by the fact that her jokes are said with a straight face and taken at face value. Ex: Ma Feima was talking about his horse, and she asks him if horse meat tastes any good, which he takes as an insult rather than a joke. Sushang was uncomfortable sleeping in a bed with a man and Lingshuang remarks she’s a bad teacher for not teaching her kid sex ed jokingly, during a serious conversation. She also asks Otto to strip naked to check his wounds in a very straightforward way that confuses him. She is misunderstood a lot by the way she makes joking comments and playful jabs which she sees as affectionate, but others sometimes do not.
Tldr: Lingshuang is the strongest human being of her time who stabbed her master in the forehead, fucked off to the middle of nowhere, and accidentally became a single mom.
I honestly don't know how popular or unpopular this is already but I was thinking: I usually joke about how much I want a cover à la trashy novel for 2ha and while they aren't giving us that, we're getting the romance-type font and I love it.
