#iron widow xiran jay zhao

[charlesartthings]

Xiran jay zhao has MASTERED marketing.

I’ve never seen anyone online talk about their book before, exept them, and I saw it in the book store and thought “oh it’s the book from that one person” and BOUGHT it. I’ve never read anything else by them, but I bought their book solely because of them, without knowing them as a brand name and that’s a real achievement in this world.

Edit: I just saw their tumblr account and therefore preferred pronouns, my bad

[theinyshlobster]

“Men want us so badly for our bodies, yet hate us so much for our minds.”

Xiran Jay Zhao, Iron Widow

[iwouldliketoeatrandy]

As im rereading Iron Widow im reminded that I also binge-read it the first time, and both times I have done so and been like "oh right, this is what reading is supposed to feel like."

[heavenly-memerant]

Wu Zetian moodboard

[coikoi1]

[daisymooonart]

May my Emperor live ten thousand years!

An (un)official painting of the Emperor and Empress of Huaxia. I would absolutely bow for Wu Zetian. Maybe not Qin Zheng, but he is hot and communist so I am tempted.

This took me around 15-20 hours to make and it was so worth it <3

Details under the cut!

First off: the faces.

Because of how obscured it was going to be, I wanted to get a good sense of what Zetian would look like before the makeup and the mask. I tried to give her a kind of average appearance, because I wanted to try and make her look like a normal person under all of that Empress garb (she's only 18... she should have been at the clurbbb). Her face is purposefully a little asymmetrical.

For makeup, I went for the blush-that-makes-you-look-drunk look that was apparently fashionable among Tang ladies. Her lips and yedian are pretty standard. I saved the xiehong on the wrong layer like a clown 😭 but it's still visible under the mask. Not entirely sure if her huadian would be accurate, but it's the one on the painting of Empress Wu that I see most often.

Would Qin Zheng have a stroke if he saw Zetian hang out with men wearing this mask? Absolutely. Am I Qin Zheng? Nope I'm an artist who spent wayyyyy too long drawing Zetian's face and didn't want to cover it up fully. Her haircomb is in the shape of an upside-down butterfly. The sharp bit on the collar is inspired by a shirt I saw in the Hunger Games once, it's a style that's supposed to force you into keeping good posture. I hc that Qin Zheng included it to piss her off, and it's definitely working...

Now for Qin Zheng's face. I tried to go for a simple, smooth-wing look. I never really envisioned him as twink-y when I read the book and tried to go for a hot-and-scary-man look whilst keeping it a little bit androgynous. He'd never ever have his hair down for a formal painting but I want to separate his face from the rest of the piece. His eye is weaker on his scarred side. He looks a little feverish and a little bit infuriated: he is probably wondering why the hell he needs to be painted when photographs now exist.

It's a very busy painting and I fully expect people to gloss over this, so here's a little zoom on Qin Zheng gripping Zetian's armour. He's a freak.

Now for the throne. I tried to do a dragon/phoenix piece but it didn't show very well in the actual painting, so here it is. You can really tell how much I love scribble art lol.

And here's the base of the throne, with two dragons to keep our lovely tyrants company

I opted for a double-seated throne because I accidentally drew them too close together and couldn't move them because of the layers because feminism <3

Now for clothing. I noticed that on the HT cover, Zetian has a white gem whilst Qin Zheng has a black gem, but the clothes underneath are the opposite colours. I made the details on Qin Zheng's armour white and Zetian's details black, but Qin Zheng's armour ends up being darker whilst Zetian's armour is a lot paler. Symbolism... or something... Also they both get a heart because its cute, like a friendship bracelet.

I really can't draw scales though so erm. Yeah.

If you notice any er,,,, imagery in their lower robes it was unintentional I swear

Even though Qin Zheng is very much the taller, dominant figure in the piece, I tried to actually put the focus on Zetian, by making her armour a different shade of gold to the throne and by keeping her closer to the centre. I don't know if it worked but my eyes think so. I think out of the entire piece though, Zetian took me the longest because I hadn't settled on what look I was trying to go for her. I redrew her armour about five times, but thankfully by the time it was done I had pretty much solidified where I was going with Qin Zheng's armour and I finished that in no time.

Again I absolutely loved making this painting, it was SO worth it. It might me my most detailed ever. I adore Heavenly Tyrant so so so much it might actually be my favourite book ever lol.

[charlesartthings]

TLDR, but I think a lot of people (me included before I started reading) think book 1 zetien is a feminist. She’s quite the opposite, with strong “not like other girls” vibes, she’s the one chosen women who can keep up with the men, and she judges other girls who aren’t acting like her, ignoring if they have the capacity and possibly to act up and change their fate. She looks down on women who aren’t as strong as men, ignoring that not everyone can or has to be, not even other men.

Zetien from iron widow is a very insufferable girlboss “feminist” who fully ignores that different women have different abilities and needs, and that women shouldnt need to live up to the men around them to be worth living.

So yeah, she’s a flawed character, but she’s intended to be a flawed character. She’s been written like that on purpose.

As the author said, iron widow is not intended to be the end of the story, and characters should be allowed to grow and change their views.

I disagree on OPs view that the book shouldn’t need to be feminist, because it does, since the core wishes of the MC is equality, but the main character grows and changes, and that’s way more interesting than someone who doesn’t. The book should be feminist, but it’s not and that’s okay, because it’s not the end of the story.

Also I feel like people are used to second books being lame cash grabs stand alones, and not a continuation of the Main Story and judge it without knowing the full story.

It’s like watching half of Truman show and complaining about how oblivious and unaware of the situation he is.

TLDR; IRON WIDOW ISNT FEMINIST AND THATS OKAY!!! READ THE SECOND BOOK!!!!

I'm thinking about a criticism on iron widow I saw a while ago, that people got bad vibes from it because there aren't any positive relationships of the main character with other women.

Now, never mind the dead sister, but also let's all remember that not every story can be everything.

I do know that there is a systemic issue behind what stories are more common than others and of the phenomenon of the "strong female character (yay feminism!)" who actually shits on other women all the time and looks down on femininity and womanhood.

But not every book has to be centered on womanhood and sisterhood, not even to be feminist, and not even if it's written by an assumed female author. And even if it does center those, not every book centering women has to do so in the same way.

The stories of women and particularly shitty things happening to women because of misogyny are very prominent in the story. Avenging her sister who would usually be a sidenote in history, who is yet another woman fed to the furtherment of others and used by powerful men because of her being a woman, is the whole motivation. Women's right to agency is a part of the core message. The main character being isolated and her sister as the one person she had being taken away causing her to go to extreme lengths is important for the plot happening at all.

The fact that it features other women upholding the patriarchy with violence, and that the patriarchal power centre where women are cannon fodder is dominated by men, is not diminishing that message. If anything, it's adding to it. For example that women aren't faultless innocent beings but instead regular people (and often an underrepresented mechanism of misogynistic harm in a system (patriarchy) that denies that women have agency). And wow, i wonder why a story about a woman rising to unusual unprecedented power in an environment dominated entirely by men is prominently featuring men in said environment. Really puzzling what kind of story the author is trying to tell with that. Perhaps that women are actively being excluded from the power structure?

And the second aspect of "not every story can be everything" is that not every story can be focused entirely on your most prominent topic. Not every story is just for you.

The second part of the core message is disability. In case you have missed it, the main character is disabled. And because of misogyny too, like damn maybe this topic is relevant to readers focused entirely on feminism.

Disability and violation of bodily autonomy (another topic relevant to feminism, damn that is wild) are very prominent aspects of the story, and letting disabled characters be angry and have agency and not be perfect victims is another highly underrepresented kind of story.

So is polyamory (and bisexuality) btw, another aspect of the story, and this being not only a highly underrepresented story but also in contrast with common love triangle stories that often enforce the mindset that women are prizes to be won and don't have agency.

But i suppose people weren't willing to consider all those important aspects to the story and take the story as it is, but instead took the story as they wished it were, and decided to complain that a story inspired by a woman in a typically men's only field (China's only female emperor) doesn't focus on her positive relationships with other women. That's not what the book is about, not every story can contain everything, and not everything is for you.

[else-creates]

So I didn't preorder "Heavenly Tyrant" by @xiranjayzhao because of the delays, I just decided that I'd get it online or in person when it was released.

I genuinely thought it came out at the end of this month, I didn't know it had already been released until I saw it on a shelf today.

My girlfriend managed to swipe it out of my hands before I could pay for it though.....So now it's a Christmas present.

[axolone]

Gao YiZhi in Heavenly Tyrant by @xiranjayzhao!

He was my surprise favorite in this book, I loved so many of his scenes, especially the hair cutting one.

[queenavryofkazan]

Finished Heavenly Tyrant and my main takeaway rn is that if Qin Zheng wasn't so possessive he could've had not just a ruthless thicc murder wife but also a ruthless pretty boy strategist husband and a hunk nerdy cinnamon-roll-who-can-kill-you husband.

Like man could've had the most ruthless polycule by his side ruling Huaxia and he fumbled it.

[viinas]

Girls like me are karma I'll rule the earth, I'll be the sky And I'll be all of your worst nightmares

My friends and I made an EP inspired by Iron Widow by @xiranjayzhao called Empress of Nightmares and it's streaming everywhere and to celebrate, I drew this Wu Zetian.

(lyrics are from @soc-ck's Concubines song Girls Like Me Are Karma)

[charlesartthings]

My post on the last reblog, reposting because the text was too long to be seen

[theinyshlobster]

“I am exactly the kind of ice-blooded, rotten-hearted girl he fears I am. And I am fine with that.”

Xiran Jay Zhao, Iron Widow

[ashmackenzie]

It’s release day for Heavenly Tyrant, the sequel to Iron Widow, by Xiran Jay Zhao! I'm still proud of this one a few years later, if you haven’t yet it’s definitely worth finding a physical copy to see the full wraparound. I also have prints available in my print shop!

Many thanks again to AD Terri Nimmo for working with me on this one!

[heavenly-memerant]

if Twitter existed in Huaxia...

[daisymooonart]

Everybody's favourite Empress Wu Zetian from Heavenly Tyrant by @xiranjayzhao 😁🤩