Chinese Novels

Answering my own prompts!

Yes, I love tragedies! I love deaths (but the deaths need to have an impact or at least not feel "cheap"). I love the hole in the heart left behind when a favourite character dies. I'm also always chasing after the high of reading/watching a Good Death (e.g., character did what they wanted to do and die) or the Inevitable March to Death (e.g., character is dying so you know they will be dead by the end of the story, or there's no way out of the political quagmire besides death). I love it when characters are torn up between duty and love (family/friends/romance, etc.).

But if it's done in a way that I feel emotionally manipulated (I don't have a good cnovel example for this, but hm... some Violet Evergarden episodes), then it does nothing to me. I just feel neutral. But the balance of constructing a good tragedy vs. being too explicit about the emotional manipulation vs. too much drama is probably different for everyone, I think.

also yes, I will totally read a story where the main CP dies (or one dies, the other stays alive).