#qintian

[xiranjayzhao]

I could call what I wrote "commentary on the historical tension between male and female socialists" but sometimes u just gotta slap an "ENEMIES WITH BENEFITS!!" tag on ur book to get people interested 😩

[heavenly-memerant]

what was his problem 😭

[daisy-mooon]

AITA wanting to break my wife's legs?

I KNOW this sounds wild. Let me explain. About a year ago I (240, M) was arranged a marriage with my wife (18, F) by the gods. Neither of us were happy about it. I admit, in the beginning, I was cold (imprisoning her in her rooms, confiscating her wheelchair, threatening to kill/torture/force fem her boyfriend (19, M)) and she chafed under my boundaries (not having her face seen or her body touched by other men, me knowing her whereabouts at all times) HOWEVER over the months when she broke up with her boyfriend for making our non consensual son (its a long story) she grew closer to me and slept with me multiple times. I was so nice to her. I let 2 women into the government and even freed people being wrongly imprisoned when she asked! I even gave her a safe word!

Fast forward to THIS WEEK. My wife and I were killing the gods. Then, out of NOWHERE she STABS me. I thought at first it was due to her ex boyfriend who was there (he poisoned and falsely imprisoned me for several months so that I couldn't be with my wife and I planned to smash him to death with a hammer) but THEN my wife says that she HATES ME? and wants me DEAD? Even though she had sex with me?

Long story short I am now in hospital hooked up to machines waiting for a heart transplant. This is so traumatic to me. So I called her lady friends in and told her I planned to get her back by breaking her legs and making her be my tradwife. They both told me this was "extreme" and that I am "crazy" and "abusive". But our son will be born in a month and I have few options of how else to get her back! Plus she stabbed me in the heart, I feel like I should get some revenge? PLEASE give me your thoughts! I am out of my wits end!

[daisymooonart]

Woe. Doodle and "I'm not finishing this" art dump be upon thee

[incorrect-ironwidow]

Qin Zheng: I love you so much. I wish I could build a giant maze in a parking garage or perhaps an abandoned factory and put you in it and watch you solve various puzzles in order to recieve peanuts and seeds.

Zetian:

Zetian: what

[xiranjayzhao]

Time for me to come clean about the obscure c-drama that was a big source of inspiration for Heavenly Tyrant lmao. It's called The Legend of Dugu and it's based on the Dugu sisters, who in history became empresses of three different dynasties. Qieluo from Iron Widow actually shares a historical inspiration with one of them, but in the show she's characterized very differently from how she typically is in popular consciousness. Her eldest sister Banruo (shown in this edit) is depicted as the more hardcore, ambitious one and gets entangled in a power struggle with the villain, Yuwen Hu. Their dynamic is IMMACULATE and contributed hugely to me writing Zetian vs Qin Zheng. Jeremy Tsui may not be styled as an edgy dark lord in this show like Dongfang Qingcang or Tantai Jin, but he very much embodies Qin Zheng for me.

[xiranjayzhao]

I am fully aware that Phantom of the Opera is a very weird inspiration to suddenly pop up in book 2 of a sci-fi take on China's only female emperor but listen...I imprinted hard on Phantom when I was little and connected a lot with Christine's struggle to break free from manipulation by a man who's alluring in some ways but deep down you know you gotta leave him. You also can't write a Wu Zetian retelling without a middle part where she plays mind games with a shady manipulative emperor obsessed with her. The Phantom parallels weren't intentional when I started writing the book (I swear, not even the half mask at the end of book 1 was an intentional reference), but once I realized them I was like OH SNAP here we go. Instead of teaching her singing he teaches her dialectical materialism.

(Stitched video is from AnaisElysium on TT)

[heavenly-memerant]