#there should be trans men and women bl and gl

[jade-len]

i adore how mxtx sorta flipped the idea on the whole top/bottom thing with svsss, and just BL relationships in general.

making bingqiu very open to switching, not making the "bottom" super feminine and actually leaning more to the handsome side compared to the "top", how luo binghe is manipulative sensitive and cries easily, etc. one of the main themes in svsss is literally about sexuality (and possibly even about gender roles).

as a queer asian man myself, i absolutely despise the "yaoi archetype" and it was one of the reasons why i avoided consuming BL media. hell, years ago when i first saw heavens official blessing, i mentally groaned and went, "ugh, let me guess, the bottom is super feminine and innocent, while the top is masculine and experienced." of course, that's not the case now, but it's disappointing how that thought was there purely because of the god awful way fetish-y media portrays homosexual people and couples. because, believe it or not, we are not assigned male/female typical gender roles just because one likes to top/bottom (and even then, it's not even like that! some people have preferences, sure, but it's not so strictly "i'm top/bottom")

so, while i absolutely LOVE the english novel designs (especially luo binghe's cute curly hair, gongyi xiao, etc, and personally believe a lot of the takes from the western artist on the designs are an improvement), i am greatly saddened by people subconsciously assigning shen qingqiu as someone more delicate and feminine and luo binghe as someone super masculine and muscly. like, if you're going to have luo binghe depicted as the western design (i believe this stems from binghe being applied to more western ideals for men, and, admittedly, i actually really love his design), at least don't make shen qingqiu feminine and delicate? don't have his appearance play into the stupid yaoi thing?

i get that people have different takes on svsss, especially how the western version depicts it. but, people just... seem to very over exaggerate the top/bottom roles when it comes to bingqiu (again, these two are, canonically, VERY open to switching).

it's weird, it's uncomfortable, and it comes across as, "so, who wears the pants in the relationship?"

so, can we please have more canonically handsome shen qingqiu? canonically beautiful and pretty boy luo binghe (they literallly state that binghe looks EXACTLY like his mom, su xiyan! while a more handsome woman, is still very beautiful!! plus it is stated several times that binghe is slim, and that shang qinghua made him that way!) or at the very least, a BL couple who actually look like normal people (ok thats a little hard considering binghe is literally supposed to be perfect) and not just a stupid fetishized version of themselves.

and no, i'm not saying that queer men shouldn't be feminine or men who are feminine shouldn't be in a relationship with guys who are masculine, etc.

TLDR: please stop twinkifying shen qingqiu and going against what mxtx defied for us queer men (the stupid yaoi roles). and for the love of whoever you believe in, do NOT think that i hate the english design or people's personal interpretation of characters, i just hate the subconscious assigning of gender roles to bingqiu and how media portrays and fetishizes LGBTQ+ relationships in general.

edit: also i love teardrew's (check them out on twitter!) interpretation of shang qinghua. while i do really like the the eng novel design's tiny scared hamster vibes, teardrew's version just radiates "up to no good, paranoid but suspicious looking bitch" rat man and i love it so so so much. i'm not gonna repost their art bc i don't know how they feel about that but perhaps you can search up "svsss designs" on here, you'll see it pop up eventually lol.

edit 2 (1/16): i just saw someone reblog a post (that im pretty sure was referring to this one because, well, if you saw it i think it'd be a little clear kahxj) that was about how bingqiu switching and completely eschewing traditional top/bottom dynamics was a fandom idea or smth? so now i'm wondering, since i swear i remember that they were open to switching, but it's just that sqq preferred to bottom and/or was just a little too lazy to top. plus, sqq is a pretty unreliable narrator who says he doesn't want something one moment and then he does. how could he say no to bingbing? esp if he seems to wanna try bottoming too. perhaps i'm mixing things up though, idk? so if anyone can find that passage that says he only and strictly wants to bottom or whatever please show me! but i think the point of this post still stands haha (i wanted to ask about it, actually, but when i clicked on the og post's user it turned out that they blocked me ? so that was a little surprising oops. hey if ur somehow reading this, im... sorry for making you want to block me bc of this post? akdhxjj)

#JOIN THE 'STOP TWINKIFYING SQQ' GROUP #did i make sense? i have no clue i just wanted to rant about this #i really pulled a cucumber bro there huh #this also applies to GL #thinking about it more #there should be trans men and women bl and gl #and not in a fetishy way #of course luo binghe is still the big strong protag and taller than sqq but come on #i dont believe luo binghe is a twink exactly?? maybe?? but just feminine in a historical chinese male ideals way #for edit 2: #i was just saying how it made me happy that mxtx didn't follow the yaoi archetypes and how i lov her for it <3 #never said bingqiu was never done before and COMPLETELY flipped it over skdhjx #but i do believe that bingqiu did a good job providing variety and such :) #same goes for mxtx's other works as well i love her stuff sm #svsss #mxtx svsss #the scum villain's self saving system #luo binghe #shen qingqiu #luo bingge #shen yuan #luo bingmei #bingqiu #luo binghe x shen qingqiu #danmei

[mypersonalityistired]

Scrolling through Viki's I guess what we'd call their pride month collection "love is love is love" and it's all BL dramas with one GL "yuri or another" which I tried to watch once and was so bad and homophobic that I couldn't finish watching it. It's like they are not even trying at all. Love is love is love more like attractive boys love is love is love, don't get me wrong I love BL as much as the next BL lover but why aren't we demanding more genuine honest and diverse representation from this genre. Is BL more widespread and "productionized" because straight women just want to see boys/men kissing? Are queer people just irrelevant unless we're profitable and consumable? All the performative allyship and rainbow signalling that we see during pride month but nothing tangible to show for it.

After spending most of my life since I was 14 (I'm 30 now) searching for and watching queer content all over the world wherever I could find it: soap operas, that one coming out story in a series, the lword, queer as folk, coded queerness in series like Xena. If there was a whif of gay, lesbian or trans I was watching. Discovering BL was like woah this is different and exciting, its a world where gay people exist without anyone questioning it, or apologising for it, there was little or no angst due to sexuality and it was mainly just boys /men falling in love there's always problematic concepts in any genre especially one overdominated by the unrepresented group itself i.e. straight women typically write BL more but there are also some absolute gems and bangers that will have you questioning your entire existence and the ideas of love that you've had all your life and wishing you could find something as beautiful in the real world. But after a year of obsessively watching BL I'm just sad because the genre is in fact exploitative of gay people and queer people and yes it's nuanced it's also challenging straight people's perception in different ways as well and creating beautiful stories of gay love which we all need in our lives but I also just want more and want them to do better, more GL that is actually really good, more trans representation. Can I even ask for that or should I just be grateful I get to watch all these BL dramas whereas for all those years I had to scour the dregs of the internet for even just one story with gay people in it?

#i need gl recommended #gl recs #pride month

[souyaf]

hi i just wanted to ask how women reading yaoi/yuri is automatically fetishism? im sorry for asking its just i could not understand that. a lot of trans individuals discovered their proper gender/sexual identity through such media, im non-binary and bi and media exposure is what made me understand myself in a homophobic/transphobic environment...and cishet people can read or produce it as well. is consuming or creating mlm/wlw content exclusive to the individuals only? i will absolutely not say that a lot of people are not creepy, they are weird about fictional stuff and that leads them to be weird to real people too. again my apologies, i just wanted to understand as english is not my native language so i just wish to be respectful. sorry for the long ask

hi! my dni specifically states "if you're a cishet woman and read yaoi/are a fujoshi/fetishize mlm/wlw."

so i would like to preface and say there's a difference between yaoi/BL and yuri/GL. since my dni specifically mentions yaoi i'll go there.

so first it depends what your intentions are when consuming the media. if you're reading BL why are you reading it? do you just like that it's two guys and you find that hot/cute? or do you actually enjoy the storyline and characters and how their relationship forms and grows.

if you're reading it because you just like to see two guys romancing each other because they're guys...then that's weird. but if you're reading it because the storyline and character growth is really enjoyable then that's okay!

as for yaoi....i don't think there's really any reason a cishet women should be looking at straight up yaoi for any reason other than that she's getting off to it. yaoi in this instance is porn. it's just straight up porn. even worse if they identify as a fujoshi and read yaoi.

fetishizing mlm/wlw just means that when you're, say, scrolling down tiktok and see two dudes just being pals you immediately go to ship them. because they're guys. and they're friends!!!!! so they have to be dating bc gay people can't be friends with someone of the same sex without being gay together!! that's 1. kinda homophobic and 2. fucking weird.

this is a huge reason i strongly dislike shipping culture in general. most of the time it just feels like people see two characters of the same sex and go "🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰 they have to date now!!!!!" even tho there's no real substance to their personalities and sometimes they never even interact. it gives a very weird message of "MEN MUST BE TOGETHER SO THEY CAN BE GAY ABD DO GAY THINGS" if you yourself are a gay person and ship ppl to be gay that's fine but if you're straight and immediately go to make everyone gay....again....ask yourself why you do that...is it because "ugh gay relationships are SOOOOOO much cuter than straight ones!!!!"

so essentially, it really comes down to your own intentions. naturally, i don't know your intentions when you're reading content or doing whatever but you do. and i like to make it clear thru my DNI how i feel about it. if you know you're reading the content for a good reason then fine but if you find yourself reading the content for less than ideal reasons then...u know, smthn to think about i suppose.

also to tack on; i don't like when cishet people create wlw/mlm/nblw/nblm content or whatever mostly because it's going to be told thru a cishet view. it's not really their content to be creating or their stories to be told. they don't know what it's like to be gay in a gay relationship all theyre going to have is their third party views and that just....again, begs the question of why is a cishet person wanting to insert themselves into non-cishet content

#[+] — love note #[+] — love anon #i hope this makes sense my hands r fuckinf freezing #and it's hard to type

[the-ghost-king]

You know how everyone has at least one minor rrverse character with no significance but they're you're favorite? Okay Mitchell from the Aphrodite Cabin is one of mine...

Make him Italian, probably Southern Italian I like to imagine his family immigrated from the Florentine area

Trans masc

At first he thinks he's just a gnc trans guy but after he starts medical transition he realizes he's nonbinary

Uses he/they pronouns generally

But when people he's close to talk about or to him and they're using nouns to describe him they use female gendered nouns (ex: daughter, lady, girl, etc), and yes these are a part of his gender expression

Also the type of person to hyphenate their deadname with their original middle name as their new middle name

They definitely are the type of person too who just invites invasive and awkward questions (as long as they're being asked in good faith) for educational purposes, and he'll give you the most derailed answer if that's what you want

Also he might be femme but he's not weak and he will beat you up if you're just being unnecessarily transphobic

His dad is a high quality fashion designer and because of this Mitchell is kind of spoiled (okay very spoiled) about clothes, always having high thread count clothes and also personally tailored pieces

They've got some casual plans to take over their dad's business but he thinks that he wants to expand it out into a more affordable fashion market for the average person (they like affordable and sustainable fashion too! The artistic pieces are nice but it's not a long-term sustainable business model!)

He personally dresses very camp, even the cishets look at him and go "oh he's you know... _/‾"

They love a good suit, very gender to him

Him, Nico, and Chiara all getting together to talk in Italian; and have culturefests or something

Watching Italian films, and TV shows, updating Nico on modern Italian culture, etc

Bi or Pan, but doesn't really feel the need to label himself, usually just says multisexual or mspec unless someone doesn't know what that means

His attraction to women is gay, his attraction to nonbinary people is gay, his attraction to men is gay... If you can't handle that you're not their target audience

Idk how old they are but Rick's timeline is fake and so are ages then, so him and Austin are dating

Very cute couple, very casual dynamic, probably have won "cutest couple award" or something at some point

Definitely went to all their high school dances together

Their favorite color... Probably green or pink... Yellow is also a good option

Mitchell probably wears glasses for the "aesthetic" but has worse vision with them on

Would not put it past him to be a social media influencer but have a secret Twitter account for BL

He definitely reads GL too

Very into anime, jdrama, and manga, likes manhwa and kdrama and any other variation of those things

Yeah probably kpop too

They probably like stuff like "My First First Love" and "Cherry Magic!" etc

First anime was probably one of the ones everyone seems to start with so maybe "Your Lie in April" or "Ouran High school Host Club"... His all time favorite is probably "Given"

First Manga... Probably "Orange" or something unexpected like "Black Butler"

He's definitely the person who introduces Nico to anime and such... The whole thing just sort of confuses Nico but he likes a couple of them, "Death Note" and some other psychological or horror type stuff

Definitely has some talent when it comes to hair styling, lots of people at camp are always going to him for haircuts and styles so he starts charging $2 or something for it and basically has a summer job at camp

He lives in the New York area year round (honestly, he probably goes home on the weekends sometimes from summer camp and goes to camp for the weekends sometimes in the school year)

Because of how close he is to camp other people in the area will often call him to do their hair and makeup for homecoming/prom/etc and he always agrees unless he's visiting family in Italy or he's touring with his dad

Likes to chill with Austin at the infirmary, partially to hang out but also probably because that's one of the few places in camp that has air conditioning

Will is always getting after him for sitting on the counters, something about it being unsanitary but they don't think it should matter as long as they're not in any of the operating rooms

Austin likes him too much to tell him no but yeah it's not sanitary, but to Austin the choice is a sanitary counter or a happy and comfortable boyfriend... He's picking happy boyfriend

Also Mitchell is very supportive of Austin's music career and always trying to convince Austin to let them use tracks of his music on the runways at their dad's shows

But Austin always says no because he wants to "make it big on his own" which Mitchell thinks is a bit silly but if it's what Austin wants he'll support it

Mitchell is super into camp's drama, they don't do anything with the information or all the secrets they just like knowing all of it

If you ask them to keep a secret they absolutely will

But that embarrassing story about you that went around camp five years ago that you lowkey wish everyone would just stop talking about, he's the one that keeps restarting the cycle

He babbles to Nico all the time about all the ongoings of camp because Nico is also good at keeping his mouth shut, but Nico doesn't care about the drama for the same reasons though (Nico: "Hold on, back up, you said Drew knows Sadie Kane? Interesting..." Mitchell:"okay Mr. Ominous, and also yeah, I did say that, so anyhow... ")

Very artistic person in general, he can probably play the piano okay, he's no professional and no Apollo kid but he can play some songs, and they have enough practice to learn new songs on their own!!

Definitely was voted by camp to have the worst taste in music though

Says his favorite movie is probably "Bring It On" or "Heathers" of something similar, but his actual favorite film is one of those cliche silent black and white ones that's only available in French

They definitely did dance for a few years growing up, has a ballet, tap, and hip hope background to work with but he left it behind when we was 13 or so but eventually they start to get back into hip hop and keep up with various types and lessons and places through their 20s

He's always the person to start groupchats

They think they're fun but they rarely take off without prompting from him

Also often times plays matchmaker for people ("they would be a cute couple wouldn't they? I don't know though, does she like girls? I think so?")

Those are just some ideas off the top of my head, hopefully you enjoy!

#i also think it's important to mention that some of these headcanons I picked up over the years from other people's fics and works etc #so some is mine but some is not and now he has a personality!! #mitchell aphrodite cabin #mitchell #pjo

[stray-tori]

Omegaverse & Understanding performative Gender & also Homosexuality in a meta sense

Whilst I lied awake last night at 6 a.m., listening to Connor read BL, he read out loud “omegaverse - a universe where ANYONE can get pregnant” and little smartass me thought “thats not the definition of omegaverse*”.

* except if it is in that particular instance, it’s a pretty freeform universe asdhjds

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Introduction

For those not deep enough into the rabbit hole to know what omegaverse is, let me give you a short definition:

A subgenre of erotic speculative fiction (originating in fan fiction) in which humanity is divided into a biologically-determined social hierarchy based on stereotypical wolf pack dynamics, consisting of the fantasy genders/sexes of alpha (sexual dominants), omega (sexual submissives), and beta.

aka Alphas impregnate and Omegas receive (at least in a lot of variants, sometimes they just add the dom/sub smell or furry-ish and hierarchy elements).

So yes, that means alpha “Women” can impregnate and omega “Men” can be pregnant, don’t think too much about it and don’t google it, be safe.

This is somewhat common in BL (I don’t see it in GL as much but I’m also not that deep in GL), which makes some sense because the Universe largely negates the gender-variable (though you could also just make everyone lgbt+ positive in your work so yknow). It doesn’t matter if you’re female or male, it matters if you’re alpha or omega (or beta, but betas are weird because they’re essentially normal humans in most interpretations).

And then, 6 a.m.-awake me was like “but if omega/alpha/beta are essentially the new sexes doesn't that mean that alpha-omega relationships can't be gay” - and yes, stupid me, that’s the point ffs, but that lead me to think a bit about my perception of sexes and by extend gender.

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So in A/B/O, I think it’d be the most logical to replace our sexes with the A/B/O categories (which imo is the case), because it’s what gives information about the reproductive function, just like the (biological) sexes of “female” and “male” tends to.

Now you could fairly argue that “female” / “male” isn’t really giving definite information about reproductive functions anyway, which is true (intersex & trans people). So from that perspective, this AU is really interesting too, actually. But that’s not something I feel educated enough about to tackle with tact and competence as an outsider looking in.

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As for the whole “where is the line to homosexuality?” argument, here we go.

OKAY, so let’s say A/B/O distinction is based on common reproductive functions within that group. Then if a male omega is with a male alpha, that is by all accounts straight, because “male” wouldn’t be a sex anymore, it would be a visual descriptor. Or well, it would be the descriptor of the “variant” of the alpha.

The AU often tries to really only have A/B/O distinctions but fact is if you base your weird mixer biology on real sexes, you’re gonna end up with a problem - that being that male alphas and female alphas are so biologically different that you’d likely have to separate them into two groups for medical reasons.

So either each sex gets a subgroup, for convenience “male” and “female” (though they only refer to appearance this time, which could be argued is already the case in our world anyway - hi performative gender theory), or we make each combination its own gender - so we now have alpha-m, alpha-f, beta-m, beta-f, omega-m and omega-f.

Betas do really ruin this entire thing because now, suddenly, omega and alpha don’t give away the bodily function anymore, the terms female and male do (because they’re normal humans), so in order to be consistent, they should actually be called beta-a and beta-o....

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So the next argument is whether or not bodily difference would contribute to “homosexuality” in the universe to begin with -- as an example, the fitness of people in our world. You can be attracted to thin or chubby or muscly people (the visual factor), but just because you’re chubby and your partner is as well, you aren’t gay. Because homosexuality refers to the sexes, but those are distinctly visually defined in our world, whereas appearance doesn’t give away your A/B/O, it’s your pheromones (and those are the same across alpha-f and alpha-m).

If we take the performative / aesthetic definition of homosexual attraction, then I’d argue it is still gay if two -m variants get together, at least per our definition, even if the reproductive function is different (oh hi, performative / aesthetic gender theory).

If we don’t, then only alpha x alpha or omega x omega can be considered homo, including alpha-m x alpha-f.

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Tori bashes fulfillment fantasy

I’m aware, once again, that it’s effectively the point. As long as it's omega/alpha it's essentially the A/B/O equivalent of straight, both in “function” (pregnancy) and socially (accepted etc). And that’s a fantasy, of course, it’s a universe where you can have someone with a “male” body and still have kids and, well, be straight basically.

Which, I understand the want for being socially accepted, but I’m a bit iffy about the fantasy of essentially being straight, including pregnancy. I don’t know, it feels a bit like admitting “that way” (being gay) of life is not “ideal” and you SHOULD have all those “straight things”, for the lack of a better word. Fantasy affirms the Standard/perceived Ideal.

I’m also pretty sure that while a/a or o/o would be considered gay, a/b or o/b would just be a mess because it’s not accepted but it’s not EXACTLY homo either, it’s just completely deviant, though it would probably be treated like a/a or o/o. Especially when it’s a variant where betas can’t reproduce with a/o (somehow) (afaik).

I just can’t help but find irony in a universe that very much tries to make homosexuality part of the norm, but in the end only creates more “deviant” combinations that could and probably would be discriminated against.

And that’s why I found the “anyone can get pregnant” so thought-provoking, because if that was the case, that would firstly be a whole other mess biologically, BUT that would truly be an equivalent thing, as long as everyone can also impregnate. And on top of that, if everyone’s the same, then everyone is “homo” (attracted to the same), because there’s literally no other option sexes-wise. Big brain.

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I kind of lost aim so I’m going to stop now. Maybe the goal was the Thinking About Performative Gender Theory we (I) did along the way.

Thanks for coming to my TedTalk.

#omegaverse #a/b/o #tori talks #tori has opinions #deviating au