#but i tend to like vers/switch dynamics more in my ships

[the-music-maniac]

The severe lack of fics with versatile/switch vashwood is making me want to make fics, but I have no foOking time in my schedule, and it's reaching a point where one of these days I'm just gonna fucking snap and start writing porn at full brightness on public transport

[fairymint]

💌: How would your dynamic be portrayed? What might people focus on most? Any misconceptions?

🤪: What is your trait that fanon would exaggerate?

💌: How would your dynamic be portrayed? What might people focus on most? Any misconceptions?

Realistically speaking, there's 2 routes that I see as far as a canon portrayal- either Felix-muse would be casual buddies with who the ship partner was and fanon would ship them, Or, the relationship would be an offhand and casual confirmation. I don't exactly see the series that I indulge with turning into some dating sim or even focusing on it, even if a tastefully done romance subplot would be nice; I feel like these franchises are perfectly capable of portraying it well, but it's unlikely due to mass appeal/childsafe* appeal. (*even if some kids wanted romance in their stories, their parents might not. especially huge companies like pokemon that're in the public eye.) My favourite series are never really romance-based, I ship within the confines of a bigger adventure.

Sans and Villager! Felix would probably have smash-based shenanigans, or maybe, an interaction at his hotdog stand. ....Come to think of it, probably with the same vibes as anything canon-soriel. Perfectly Platonic,....or is it? leading to shitposting (positive) in the shipping community. Smash itself does like to have fun with subtle implications- charizard handing pikachu a flower, villager inviting Wii Fit to his 'bachelor pad'; things that don't confirm a ship outright but could be a cheeky hint of evidence. Or, we have some weird spirit board valentine's day event to confirm shit, lmfao-

Meanwhile, for Pokemon stuff...It really is hard to say because Felix is a protagonist character. Generally speaking, Everything the protagonist gets involved with story-wise is this big huge thing; There is a chance that the ship would be baked into the story dramatics, during a swelling point of the action itself. It's the question of whether they go Big and follow the protagonist vibe, or go home and follow the general pokemon vibe with romance; shipping in-series generally happens to less important people, as an offhand mention. So, you'd either start off in a ship as this canon's partner while the game was still calm, get together dramatically™️within the story, or have the ship canonized in postgame/future content, like some offhand mention in masters. Also, I feel like whatever we got, fans would bitch about it as well.

The 'worst' would probably be the anime; it'd show a couple in their calm period (like Blossom's parents) with a merely implicit wholesome romance that isn't too on-the-nose, or.....something extremely awkward. They've made a lot of homophobic jokes in the past, so I'd imagine it would have a baby ally's sense of humor- in the 'oh my god they're Gay Congratulations!' sort of sense.

tl;dr, pokemon's sense of seriousness tends to be all or nothing, lmao, so I'd be surprised if it was anything mid or nuanced, for better or worse! <3

🤪: What is your trait that fanon would exaggerate?

well, the canon gay/transness would be a 'hoo Woof' moment, so for lack of a better word, my gender??? I could see someone leaning hard one way or the other with the masc/femme stuff, popular/outcast kinda dynamic. I feel like there's mostly just a potential for mismatched tone; but it'd be more series relevant than mun relevant as far as the dissonance. which happens anyways with fandom. I feel like possibly, people might overexaggerate the effect being trans has on his life, while underexaggerating how he feels about it, or vice versa in the case of bad faith from transphobes. TL;DR I've had more people call me brave than actually had to be brave. most transphobia i deal with is subtle/unintentional, but fandom would either make it a non-issue, or a huge issue.

.....i don't trust most Fandom™️ with the concept of a vers switch, much less series ability to showcase it, so I'd assume casual observers to pick more concrete hetnorm roles- he'd be assigned the 'husband' or 'malewife' of the ship depending on which traits the shipper picked up about him. This would be understandable but possibly annoying/incorrect. this could also extend to writing him as primarily mean or naive, if the fan was going for a flat character. (the character himself has temptations/instinct to weaponize both of these, regardless of his final decision outwardly.)

possibly make Felix over-capable/high energy. It's kinda hard to write true laziness or introversion and have it be actually interesting. ergo. If you know how to improvise as well as i do, it can come off as professionalism/expertise. He's more of a ditto in that way-

on the positive side, people would come up with interesting shit that's on-brand for him and not have writer's block about it. There'd probably be stories and art all about the villager trying to master his transformation powers, or the trainer with some random pokemon. Or, assuming Felix is a real character in a Thing, come up with their own ships for him with Situations-

[blbeloved]

Can’t find the actual My School President review podcast so dropping my listening notes there to spark conversation rather than a definitive response to the whole thing

TEASING THE KISS:

Very often the kiss is left to the end sometimes as a visual BL storytelling convention and sometimes it’s bc the script is weak, but teasing the kiss in MSP felt to me like meta - a giggle between the creators who seem to be really immersed in BL culture and the fandom. In Cherry Magic it’s clearly different; I think the lead actors likely have a standard clause as they were both already established professionals when that adaptation was shot, so those almost-kisses are giving viewers some erotic frisson at regular intervals because they won’t be going all the way there

TOP/BOTTOM IS NOT THAT DEEP:

Same with top/bottom which also reflected on a real life concern at a meta level. Positions are neutral in and of themselves but the politics here that some might miss is that bottoms don’t get the same esteem as tops in the mlm community so I thought MSP played around with it in a lighthearted way again but if you’re not aware of these dynamics it might be mystifying. This is so misunderstood that many believe if a CP is vers that means they’re more equal and again that is relying on the gender binary and hierarchical stereotypes which is regressive. Believe it or not, there was a gay production team in the Philippines that specifically went out of its way to show that its lead characters were visually represented as vers to make sure that people understood they are equal in bed - the gasp I let out! Sexual identity in itself is not a form of politics, directors/writers still need to do the work to unlearn the shame that underlies the socialised instinct that there is something that reduces a bottom, and that something is internalised misogyny. Some bottoms don’t ever want to switch and would be horrified if asked 😀

I know there’s some western distaste for this but that’s evaluating is on western queer politics discourse rather than the contextual relevance and meanings of seme/uke dynamics to Asian BL for the Asian creators and their primary audiences and consumers. https://twitter.com/BLLoversLink/status/1514960559237648389?s=20

I’m also doing a kind of anti bottom-shaming and seme/uke dynamics thread hoping people will spot the larger picture of how BL has been attacking internalised misogyny- the active ingredient in homophobia, as well as femmephobia which is a huge issue within the community itself. This is one of the reasons many western fans who first encounter BL shriek “it’s not realistic”; it’s not realistic because it is not being written from the perspective of the men who are dominant in the community as it tends to be in western queer media. BL is written from the perspective of the men typically marginalised in the community and whose stories rarely get told in the mainstream and therefore is unrealistic because it is the Uke whose story you are experiencing; whose perspective you’re empathising with; whose masculinity is being portrayed as desirable; and who is the STAR of the show and that is why many find that initially unsettling. https://twitter.com/BLLoversLink/status/1668470072304697345?s=20

And that is why I appreciate the rarely-seen deep dive that you give MSP, because I don’t think people understand the radically progressive approach to queer politics that Director Kornprom Niyomsil takes in an ostensibly cute little high school show that series like KP completely fail to do. Like GameBoys Writer Ash Malanum, he is far more radical in his politics than ALL of his peers producing so-called dark and mature BLs we’re seeing in the last three years. His stance on shippers is exemplary for instance; while it’s now very popular to crap on shipping culture because it’s primarily women’s culture, to suggest that women who watch BL are somehow More likely to not support gay men on equal marriage - which is outrageously false, Director Au departs from his peers and tells the truth about the longstanding solidarity between women and queer men which has been well-documented from the time social attitudes research began half a century ago, which any Director not still struggling with his own internalised misogyny could know.

I always say this is a man not only who does not hate women but loves women and you can see it in the way that he embraces the genre women started and welcomed queer men’s participation into. The way he mobilises BL tropes with depth of understanding while many others just sprinkle them on like croutons and it’s really obvious they don’t understand what that trope is meant to be doing doesn’t ever not impress. Many directors misuse tropes because they haven’t given the work that they’re doing adequate respect and certainly not enough research.

BL as a technology, (technology, meaning an innovative system of practices), even when it is talking about heavy and dark issues is traditionally seen and experienced as a narrative of hope, and I think many new creators in trying to make series more like mainstream (read western) gay media, the vast majority of which is porn - which is a separate matter, are literally losing the plot in terms of the specific value added BL provides to women and queer men. Unless a writer/director understands the value of the female gaze, especially to mobilise what bell hooks calls the oppositional gaze, they run the risk of reimposing the mainstream male gaze (white, western and unqueer) because they fail to ACTIVELY RESIST the imposition of Dominant ways of Knowing and Seeing. In focusing on familiar visuals, male-gaze BL leaves out the part that Director Au gives us in heavy doses, and that something is delivered straight to our veins using affective hermeneutics - the secret ingredient that MSP enjoyers report improves their mental health https://twitter.com/BLLoversLink/status/1646384845088518144?s=20

This has turned into a Director Au appreciation spill, so I’ll stop here. Happy to engage, and thank you for sharing the excellent, deep dive into MSP that it deserves

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[enden-k]

God as an irl gay person the top/bottom stereotypes annoy me SO MUCH, and also how no one seems to understand that sex positions are just a preference and don't dictate the entire character dynamic 😑 like the top doesn't have to necessarily be the one to bring gifts of ask for dates (in good relationship you both should do it?) And it shows how much people treat top/bottom as like a traditional men/women dynamics, why are y'all trying to make gay couples be straight couples from the 50s 😑

Sorry for the rant lol anyway best dynamic is switching 🤪 (bc at least then people treat them more equal)

thanks, thats literally the same with me (also gay here lmfao) and what im thinking and why it annoys me too lmfao. idgaf about this whole thing and made it clear already that i enjoy both ttl and zc/vers in general, in all my ships (description says it 🤗 tho like i said i tend to do more zc bc this whole stereotype thing is applied to zhongli so much in ttl by some people for some reason, that i fear people might automatically assume my zhongli is like that "common" picture too that they have of him in those works)

anw yep cant add much to that bc you said it all what im thinking about this!

[uzunofu]

My dash brought me several posts on the same topic at once, and since I couldn't choose which one to reblog, I decided to make a separate one and tag the OPs, lol. @jaebald @withinsnow @grewlikefancyflowers

I love both vers and switch!wangxian (a friendly reminder that switch and vers are different terms) because reading the same kind of smut over and over is boring and I start skipping, but initially I was in favor of switching them precisely because of power dynamics. And not WWX being the badass YLLZ and thus being the one more suited to topping (what even is that logic, heavens) — no, it was about how during the course of the book we see WWX vulnerable physically and emotionally, injured, distressed, needing help. (Even more so in the show, but CQL has a different relationship dynamic altogether, and since their preferences in CQL aren't expressed, I can vibe with nearly anything.) We see him like that way more than we see LWJ like that. LWJ is the love interest who, in the present timeline, swoops in and saves him, who takes care of him, who is the rock WWX can lean on. In the past timeline, the Xuanwu cave is the only time we see LWJ in distress.

Thematically, it fits that in his second life WWX finally gets that one person in his corner, finally has someone who will help him and stand by his side. Thematically, WWX can fight his own battles, but it's nice when he doesn't have to. I can acknowledge all of that and still wish that we had more moments of LWJ in a position of vulnerability and WWX being his rock.

For me, it's not about their power objectively. They're both shown as badass during the plot. It's about how LWJ, despite his adorable drunk shenanigans and offended princess act, fulfills the narrative role of the LI saving the MC. That's why I adore WWX's tendency to swoon over LWJ being soft and cute, to call him a good boy, to fuss over his dirtied robes, to treat him like a spoiled princess. It evens it out somewhat.

It's also why I like their sexual dynamic as it is presented in the book (chapters 111 and 112, I didn't read the incense burner extras) — despite WWX physically bottoming, he is the one who takes initiative, who tells LWJ what he wants him to do ("Wouldn’t it be convenient if you take off your forehead ribbon and tie my hands up?"), who plays at being a helpless victim with gleeful abandon. He plays at it. He blabbers not because he wants LWJ to shut him up but because he wants to egg him on. He laughs, he has fun, he doesn't take any of it seriously even in the heat of the moment. Their dynamic isn't the typical dom/sub you see in fics, or the typical smut, which is why fics that have them as vers or switches tend to get it right more often since they throw "typical" out of the window. Funnily enough, I have seen more BJYX (the actors' CP, if you're out of the circle) fics nail that exact dynamic than actual wangxian fics.

Sometimes people have physical preferences, and maybe WWX isn't into sticking it in or LWJ isn't into taking it. Sometimes people have psychological preferences, and maybe WWX isn't into doing the work, he wants to be a pillow princess and feel pampered (hello to LWJ bathing and dressing him, that man is the best, WWX really lucked out). Sometimes those two overlap, which is why people tend to conflate top/bottom with dom/sub and probably why the "YLLZ is a top" take exists — when you're into someone being forceful and powerful in life and you want to see them behave that way in bed, it doesn't usually translate to envisioning them topping from the bottom. When I see that take, it usually comes across as someone wanting WWX to be absolutely in control and drive the encounter. But if we look at MXTX's books, the ship that is the most traditional one in this sense is actually hualian. From the glimpses we get of Xie Lian remembering their first time, it was exactly that.

I'm not into telling people what they should or should write, nor am I into judging other people's fanons. Fandom is transformative. It makes sense that people would change stuff to their liking. But when you take a canonical dynamic that is subverting the stereotypes both from a "personality" perspective (the reserved one topping, the bold one bottoming) and from a smut perspective (the top taking cues, the bottom remaining himself instead of getting overwhelmed and lost in his own head) and try to claim it homophobic, that's where I draw the line.

[aijee]

On the “issue” of tops and bottoms in Asian fiction

It still astounds me just how much top/bottom discourse there is in Asian-leaning MLM media—published, fanfic, online talk or otherwise. There’s nothing wrong with having those roles established, but sometimes I wonder if it’s coming from an unintentionally not-so-good place.

In some ways I understand that it exists. Assuming that content like BL and shipping tends to be a way for (mostly) women to explore sexuality, given society’s oppression of their ability to do so openly, inclusion and dissection of “traditional” or socially prescribed sexual roles is unavoidable. Gender roles in many Asian cultures also seem much more rooted in behavior, responsibilities, and interactions with other people rather than your physical presentation (hence, the general acceptability of androgyny). Thus, it’s also unavoidable that the giver and receiver dynamic is present in the bedroom. But there is something inherently reductionist, if not oddly heterosexual, about (mostly) women attributing a top/bottom relationship based on certain characteristics, or applying certain characteristics to a top/bottom.

I have found this mostly in published media, like webtoons and manga, but it certainly pops up now and again when referring to K-Pop ships. Readjng and creating MLM relationships through a heterosexual lens exists because, really, a heterosexual relationship is what mainstream society and media has drilled into our minds. And yes, I totally get that ships don’t run that deep sometimes. This is mostly in discussion of more seriousl-driven, fictional MLM in Asian content and media, ships or otherwise. For example, I have seen far too many people delegate the “housewife” to being the “woman” and therefore “bottom” in a relationship, which really doesn’t sit well with me when it’s so widely applied. A “feminine” man does not a bottom make necessarily.

Yes, I love the closeness of two men—wrought by an inplied background toxic masculinity—sloughing that shit off and giving in to an intimacy that history and privilege have only allowed for heterosexual relationships. There is something so very intimate and lovely about a male individual trusting his partner through this moment of vulnerability, especially in how it in defies such toxic expectations for a man’s role in the bedroom. And then there’s the experience of being the giver, in (ironically enough) receiving this gift of being the one who is shared this vulnerability. And having preferences is also very sexy.

But have fanfic writers and artists ever considered...versatility? I don’t know why I’m thinking about it, really. Maybe it’s because of the dearth of vers couples in fanfiction. But, in my humble opinion, if the intimacy in a unidirectional give/take dynamic is intimate, a bidirectionality is exactly that but magnified—and this goes for literally any pairing, regardless of gender and who is putting what where. And the “switching things up” part doesn’t have to be solely physical, either. The sheer love and trust involved is enormous, whether it’s to give into one lover’s interest in trying the opposite thing or the communication involved in figuring out who’s doing what. I am biting my figurative handkerchief just thinking about it.

Like, I absolutely love couples who are just set on what they’re to do; the comfortability of that dynamic is delicious. Give me that shit all day, every day. But then I also love couples who switch it up now and again because mmmm yes love that new flavor of deep-seated trust between partners. I definitely need more of that.

[the-music-maniac]

I'm not sure in terms of top/bottom discourse in ships (especially in fandoms where the canon material has fixed roles, but applies to fandoms that don't too), why people tend to act like liking the couple as vers/switch is 1. Such a huge deal, 2. A "moral"(???) choice?? Perhaps not the right wording, but basically assuming that the only reason why people like vers/switch headcanons for couples is because those people somehow think rigid top/bottom dynamics is wrong, or they think it's more fair or something.

No. I see all my ships as vers/switch because I want to see both characters get railed. As a treat. That is literally the only reason. It is the only reason I need. I like both characters a lot - why wouldn't I wanna see them have fun both ways?? Why wouldn't I want variety? It's fine if other people don't, cause I know many only like one specific dynamic for a ship (which is valid) but I personally actively want changing dynamics. Even in characters where canon has established a definite role. It doesn't have to be "in character". The world is my oyster and canon is my plaything. That is, after all, why we write fanfiction and come up with headcanons, no?