A writer for a women-targeted otome RPG got caught mocking a segment of her own player base as "factory girls" (流水线女工) — which is already wild enough. But when you dig into the actual game's storyline and find plots about stealing men's underwear, writing smut fiction, and the female lead getting slapped in public, you start wondering: does this writer even like her audience?
An NGA user compiled a "highlight reel" of old receipts involving the writer behind Code: Vermillion Bird (代号鸢), known online as "Futanari Lemon Tea" (扶他柠檬茶). The post came with a screenshot of an essay she wrote that appeared to condescend to working-class women.
The OP then listed some of the game's most infamous plot points: Xun Yu dropping lines like "slay the emperor, slaughter the lords"; Zhou Yu declaring that "cockfighting is more fun than chess"; the protagonist stealing Lü Bu's underwear while Sun Ce quips "why didn't you take mine?"; and the absolute classic — Xiao Qiao writing erotic fiction. Each one is enough to make any player's jaw drop.
In the replies, players piled on with even more examples: the female lead caught mid-sex with Sun Ce outdoors by bystanders, the protagonist dying hundreds of times, and the territory supposedly selling hundreds of thousands of copies of smutty books. One commenter nailed it: "This game's audience is supposed to be women? That first screenshot pretends to speak up for factory girls but is dripping with condescension. Plus the panty-stealing, erotic writing, and skull-cap incidents — is this game secretly anti-women?"
The real irony lies in the game's supposed "strong female protagonist" marketing. Code: Vermillion Bird pitches itself as a story about a woman becoming emperor, living independently — and plenty of female players promoted it exactly that way. But eagle-eyed players discovered the in-game text contains the phrase "a hen crowing at dawn" (牝鸡司晨), a classical Chinese idiom used to criticize women who overstep their "proper" role. A former player shared screenshots, noting: "They always hype up the 'empowering empress' angle, but the actual writing literally insults them for overstepping." Another user's savage take: "Classic female-lead romance — a very capable heroine finds an even more capable hero, and they end up together. Basically a helpless wife fantasy."
A few voices tried to defend the writer. A player from Taiwan argued you can criticize her for being lowbrow or uneducated, but calling her a "literary snob" (文青病) is inaccurate, sharing screenshots as evidence. Others noted that earlier versions of this drama involved a Douban user being falsely identified as the author and getting harassed, and that the original essay was about supporting cultural accessibility for working-class audiences but was taken out of context. However, the majority of the thread wasn't buying it — the in-game plot points speak for themselves and are hard to explain away as mere misinterpretation.
As the thread wound down, someone asked "when is this writer finally going to get fired?" while another pointed out the game has actually launched (without a mainland China server) and is doing decently in revenue — "the explanation? Girl fans love it." The final nail in the coffin came from one last commenter: "Everyone hypes the 'female emperor who rules independently' angle, but the protagonist is actually disguised as a man and most people don't even know she's a woman." Case closed — the so-called empowering women's game might not be as empowering as advertised.
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