#and this is a very thorough embodiment of that affection post btw

[augment-techs]

OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG--WORLD OF THE COINLESS BULK X JASON; I’M GONNA DIE!!!

Secondary prompt (because their adult forms are actually quite nice...except for Jason's beard later down the line) for Bulk x Jason; post-Drakkon~

I did a lil sketch page for this one because I love soft affection

[verycharismaticdragon]

Okay, as threatened promised, I am elaborating on why I think BingQiu is guy yuri in more ways. This is written as someone who submitted both of these ships to this tournament (as in, see the propaganda they have under the poll? for both ships, one of those quotes is mine), and consistently voted for both throughout the entire bracket. I very much think they both deserve to be considered guy yuri, but: BingQiu simply matches HuaLian point for point on every count, and then has some more qualifiers on top of that. Here we go:

Popularity of femslash version in fandom: both have dedicated tags for f/f content, #lesbingqiu and #hualesbians. Equally matched.

Gender shenanigans:

Hua Cheng has a (canonically mentioned) female form, and Xie Lian can swap his gender (as other gods canonically do). Neither of those things however actually happen on page. Xie Lian does dress in female clothes several times, and his Heavenly Ceremonial Procession costume is canonically noted to be designed with both feminine and masculine markers. But as for Hua Cheng, there aren't really any femme markers aside from the aforementioned never-seen female form, and many have actually noted that he is rather transmasc coded.

BingQiu, as already mentioned in the og propaganda, embody multitudes. Shen Qingqiu often casts himself as a wife, and sometimes also as a mother. At the same time, he consistently refers to his Luo Binghe as Bing-mei (little sister Bing) to differentiate him from the original toxic-masc version, and often compares him to a delicate-hearted young maiden. (If you didn't click thru the links in the og post, Pio has a nice compilation of Shen Qingqiu mentally femme-ing them both up here. This is far from complete list though there's so much more.) On Luo Binghe's side, while we don't get his inner monologue like with Shen Qingqiu, we do know that he very much performs the duties of ancient Chinese wife. This includes not just things like cooking and keeping the house clean, but also waiting on the husband and running the household. Like, when Luo Binghe does paperwork for Shen Qingqiu's Peak? He's putting himself in the role of a wife. Also, when he was proposing, he explicitly offered Shen Qingqiu both options for which of them would be "marrying in" - as in, which of them would be "the wife" socially. He was ready to take either. Additionally, while I think the genderfuckery described above is more guy yuri than what I'm about to say next, I'd be remiss not to mention that their dynamic lends itself nicely to t4t f/f reading. As previously mentioned, moving away from (toxic) masculinity is a major theme, and the ending in particular can be read as a transition metaphor. Like if you wanted to write a fic where they are transbians post-canon? You wouldn't need to change anything, you could just follow the thorough-line charted by canon.

On this aspect, I'd say bingqiu are having more fun with it.

Applicable lesbian stereotypes: hualian are u-haul lesbians who moved in together the day they met; bingqiu are toxic lesbians with tons of drama and a blast radius of Their Entire Deal affecting other people's lives. Equally matched.

Religious themes:

Wait, you might ask, how is this even related to yuri? Well, consider how many yuris are set in Catholic schools and the like. Yuri loves its religious imagery and themes. There are some real-world considerations we could have about that, but for the purpose of this funi little poll, we will not be discussing that and just take the genre as it is, okay? Okay.

In hualian, we have yuri where gay love and devotion to God are considered as similar, one understood through the other. In an extremely on the nose way with Xie Lian literally being Hua Cheng's one and only god.

In bingqiu, we have yuri where gay love is explored instead through the motif of temptation and original sin. (This is not, btw, necessarily a negative in yuri. Some of them use God/religion as stand in for the patriarchal, so.) It even does something neat with it, by having the outward perception of bingqiu and the actual inner workings of their relationship not match. On the outside, Binghe is "the devil" (literal demon) corrupting Shen Qingqiu - who, similarly to Eve, is perceived as a witless victim: if only they could see it is the devil speaking to them, if only they took a moment to think and perceive the lies, then they wouldn't have sinned! But when you look deeper, Binghe is the one who was corrupted ("blackened") as a result of Shen Qingqiu's actions. And this is ofc paralleled with him being corrupted/"bent" - in Shen Qingqiu's perception - into being gay, also as a result of SQQ's actions. Even the heavenly demon mark on his forehead is called, canonically, a mark of sin! So: Binghe is Eve. Shen Qingqiu is the snake/the devil. And SVSSS is the kind of yuri that goes 'fuck the idea that female choice is inherently sinful and that being a man is inherently better than being a woman. Also Eve and the snake are girlfriends now.'

So: both are yuri-coded in this aspect, just use different themes. Equally matched.

Yuri-like plot points:

Dying for the other party (Hua Cheng: 3 times, Shen Qingqiu: 3 times. Luo Binghe arguably 1 time; an attempt was made.)

Watching the other party die (Hua Cheng had to watch helplessly as Xie Lian was killed again and again over the course of one night; Luo Binghe had to watch Shen Qingqiu die in his arms on three different occasions, the last of which prompted the aforementioned attempt to die too.)

Long term pining (yes, Hua Cheng did 800 years and Binghe only 11. But considering it as relative to potential lifespan, we only know about a version of Binghe going up to 200 years in age, and it's implied he is dying eventually; Hua Cheng could theoretically go on "living" indefinitely. His scale is naturally going to be different. Also, I'm inclined to give Binghe extra yuri points for tenderly and intimately caring for Shen Qingqiu's corpse, preventing it from decomposing, for 5 of those years. Reversing time in defiance of natural order is very yuri.)

This far, pretty matched. However!

SVSSS has an additional edge here because, as previously discussed at length, its entire plot is built on not one but two very yuri-like thematic frameworks. TGCF simply aint got that.

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So, to sum up: bingqiu has pretty much all of the guy yuri features hualian does, but are having more fun playing with femininity and their novel's plot is much more yuri-like. They deserve the first place.

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Addendum (1):

Actually, both Luo Binghe and Shen Qingqiu also have some interesting feminine-aligned coding that's not so much guy yuri as it's just. there, existing, which I want to point out for completion's sake.

Luo Binghe is an example of a danmei trope shàonǚ gōng - lit. young maiden top. I wrote about it in some detail before, for another character in this poll, but the short version is: the purpose of this trope is to fuck with the portrayal of the top as traditionally masculine, and it's done by giving him traits, values, or interests that are considered traditionally feminine. (This specifically originated as pushback against 'masculine top, feminine bottom' stereotype in BL.)

Shen Qingqiu's arc throughout the book, in a way, is him transitioning from fanboy to fangirl. (/a joke but not entirely) To explain: there are two pretty distinct styles to fannish activities, that I will call 'lore-keeping' and 'transformative' (because I lost the article I got this concept from and dont remember which words it used) We all know what 'transformative' means. For 'lore-keeping', think Star Wars fan who knows every kind of ship and every alien species in its extensive canon - in other words, it's a fan who expresses their love through knowledge of canon. Now, while both styles can be performed by people of any gender, and while any particular fan may perform both styles to some degree, due to the particular fannish spaces where each style originated, lore-keeping tends to skew male (fanboys), and transformative tends to skew female (fangirls). Applying to Shen Yuan|Qingqiu, you can see that he starts very much on the lore-keeper side. His gripes with canon are due to plotholes and structural problems and other things he finds lacking, which he expresses thru trying to shake those things out of the author. However, by the end of the book, he admits to himself that filling plotholes and knowing more brought him no joy or satisfaction, and only made him sadder for the characters. Instead, he finds happiness in transforming the original PIDW into a gay love story where his blorbo ends up happy and content. So: Shen Qingqiu went from demanding the story to be changed for him to changing the story through his (fan)work. From lore-keeper to transformative. From traditionally male-fan-performed fannish activity, to traditionally female-fan-performed one.

Addendum (2):

It isn’t easy being a cultivator girl… (famous bingqiu pad commercial, now in gif form)

⭐ Guy yuri tournament finale ⭐

All propaganda under the cut!

For Bingqiu: "One is a housewife and the other is a trophy wife. They both want to be each other's wife so bad (even though Shen Qingqiu would never admit it)"

"Where do I even start... Housewife x trophy wife. Every gender havers. Shen Qingqiu can't decide if he himself is wife or mommy, but is convinced his husband is a delicate lovesick maiden. Luo Binghe has self-assigned himself all of the wifely duties of an ancient Chinese wife years before Shen Qingqiu has become remotely aware of his crush. Also later in the novel he acts like a jealous girlfriend. And specifically girlfriend, like it was an important part of his arc that he stopped acting like a jealous boyfriend and started acting like a jealous girlfriend instead. This has won him his man."

"They're insane, fucking unhinged"

more here and here

For Hualian:

"Xie Lian is a god and Hua Cheng is his devoted believer, which is very yuri. They've also been separated for 800 years, which is very yuri too. Oh and they've been through The Horrors! With one of them forced to helplessly watch as the other suffered unimaginable pain! Now that's extremely yuri of them, if magical girl animes are to be believed..."

"What's more yuri than 800 years of devotion? Nothing that's what! Ghosts usually move on and disappear after a century of so, Hua Cheng is fueled by love so strong he very literally crawled out of hell, became a Ghost King, fought and defeated 33 gods and searched for his love for centuries until they were finally able to meet again. Hua Cheng and Xie Lian are so yuri there's an entire section of the fandom that just draws/writes them as women, not too weird since being separated and then connected by fate to ultimately defeat a really powerful evil god together is sapphic culture"

this post as well