villainess genre hateblog

Gaslight. Gatekeep. Girlboss.

Inha Baek

Zetian [talking in her sleep]: fight me, motherfuckers… i think the fuck not… who the hell do you think you are…

Yesterday I finished Iron Widow, so since I can't stop thinking about it, here is my dream cast:

WU ZETIAN as Ni Ni

I mean, look at her in one of their photoshoots! The fox-girl, the Iron Widow!

LI SHIMIN as Remy Hii

I just think he would be perfect in it, also look at this gif and imagine if Shimin had grown up with his mother's people!

GAO YIZHI as Gong Jun

Baby beautiful, baby angel, baby perfect! Also, look at his heart eyes for Shimin and Zetian!

BONUS: EMPEROR QIN ZHENG as Luo Yuxin

I mean, let's embark baby!

Shimin: No, after you.

Yizhi: I insist, after you-

About what Hualian admire in each other…

In this post let’s talk about an important quality that Xie Lian and Hua Cheng admire in each other - courage and bravery, and hopefully also go through some translation issues.

Why is it that I think “courage” is the quality that Hualian most admire about each other? Let’s start with Hua Cheng’s description of Xie Lian as “a brave, noble, and gracious special someone.” As I explained in an earlier post, the word “noble” here in the original Chinese doesn’t have the connotation of “having fine personal qualities and high moral principles,” it only refers to Xie Lian’s noble birth. And the words “gracious special” in Chinese also refer to Xie Lian’s noble birth as well as implying the help Xie Lian gave to Hua Cheng. So the only word here that really emphasizes Xie Lian’s good personal quality is “brave.”

Hua Cheng loves Xie Lian’s bravery, which is also obvious from the quotes below:

Zen is the biggest Shirayuki/Obi enabler there is! He's the one constantly sending him after Shirayuki and finding ways for the three of them to be together.

Shirayuki tells Obi that her and Zen are only as happy as they are together because Obi is by their side.

Obi just flirts with Zen ALL THE DAMN TIME! He says that he's happily but his reigns in his master's hands? That he'll serve him AND Shirayuki for the rest of his life? How much queerer can you GET?!

I mean, look, I'm sure that Akiduki-sensei was just out to write a non-toxic love triangle or something but in doing so has written a really healthy and narratively engaging Polyamorous Relationship!

I make a lot of jokes about being in love with Maven Calore, and I am not afraid to admit that Maven is my favorite character in the series. There's generally two types or reactions this gets me. There's always the logical "Ew, what the fuck have you even read the books?" and the "OMG IKR HE'S LITERALLY SO SEXY!"

But here's the real tea.

Maven Calore is a very complex character and there is absolutely no black and white with him.

Yes, he is incredibly toxic and manipulative and abusive. And yes, that's only because of how badly he had been manipulated and abused himself. Both are true and one does not outweigh the other. I see a lot of people jumping to extremes, either demonizing or fetishizing him and everything he's done, and I just- No. His actions are not entirely his fault, but they are in no way justifiable. You have to look at the coin from both sides.

From a very young age, Maven had been both abused and neglected and used as a puppet. His father was consistently emotionally unavailable, and always treated Maven as less than his brother, and everything his mother did always had some sort of ulterior motive. Because of her mind-altering ability, she was able to shape and mold Maven to be exactly what she wanted and needed.

Just pulling from his wiki page and my own memory since I am currently not at home and do not have access to the books for reference, I can recall several occasions mentioned of Elara's mental abuse. She took away his love for both his father and his brother because it was getting in the way, took away his ability to dream because his nightmares were an inconvenience to her, and added and subtracted so many aspects of his personality to the point where Maven could no longer tell what was his and what was hers. All while he was still a child. Because of this abuse and manipulation, Maven in his later years was what I would consider extremely mentally ill, having no sense of self and being unable to fully experience emotions and such as most people would.

Another thing she did was change his definition of love. After the death of his former lover, Thomas (which I can say with certainty was incredibly traumatic for Maven, seeing as he was there and the one to cause it), Elara learned that she could not erase that type of love from his memory. She tried anyway, of course, but that only fucked him up more. After Mare, however, she realized that she still couldn't erase it, but she could change it into something that could be more useful to her. Obsession.

Now, like I said, there are two types of people here. There are the ones that refuse to acknowledge any of his past, and there are the ones that romanticize all of the trauma he's been through.

Maven is not a good person, no matter how you try to paint him. But that is partly because he never got the chance to be one. We don't know anything about how he would've turned out without Elara's additions and subtractions. All we know is what her handiwork turned him into. And that person. That person. Is, as was stated before, toxic and manipulative and abusive. Which should not at all be treated as hot or sexy.

His story isn't some romantic tragedy, and it isn't about a true and total monster either. It's a story of repeated mental and emotional abuse and the consequences that can have on someone.