#same goes for mxtx's other works as well i love her stuff sm

[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)