the only time homophobia is used as a "plot device" in MDZS is to illustrate that the society is inherently homophobic, to the point of socially isolating someone, but mxy's "madness" is far more of note than his gayness, since the rumors say he had a thing for his own brother.

"cutsleeve" being used to describe gay people is the norm here, so I don't see a point in attempting to call this fetishization. this is retained even for when wangxian eventually get together. it's frowned upon by many, but they're not going to be shunned entirely for it.

jiang cheng's outburst at wangxian being in the ancestral hall is not an expression of homophobia, but outrage@ how wwx stepped foot into it while knowing he was "responsible" for jyl's death as well as his parents' to an extent, which is a discussion they need to have eventually

as for the novel's "dubcon issues", since people insist on going back and reading extras they can skip over, some thoughts:
- wangxian are into bdsm
- the dominance/submission aspect of their relationship is glossed over in the other adaptations but it's blatant in the extras

neither of them are condoning any kind of rape, no actual rape happens. the only instances of "dubcon" in it are in dream sequences, which are not only a controlled environment, but wei wuxian actively eggs lwj on. he also brings up rape play to lwj OUTSIDE of the dream extras.

"but the fact that mxtx wrote this at all is terrible" not really? different people have their own kinks. in svsss' bingqiu's first time was situationally traumatic, so they're unlikely to ever indulge in the same kind of play. that being said, there's a huge difference between -

"this novel has the ML raping the MC" and "this novel has consensual roleplay where the MC and ML pretend to take each other's virginity by force because it gets them off"

if you're uncomfortable with that kind of play, don't read the extras, but don't get on the author's case.

one last thing: this is coming from a nonbinary bisexual asian (because that's the only time any of you EVER listen, when we precede our tweets with our Credentials), homophobia is a reality of our daily lives, and it's not going to magically go away bc a couple got together.

if you haven't read them yet: the society in SVSSS doesn't even blink at gay people, and TGCF also doesn't tackle hualian being gay at all. so no, this is not a recurring issue across her novels, but MDZS feels more real to me for it, because wangxian exist against all odds.

they don't have to "prove" anything about themselves to people who disapprove, they just exist and have a son. that's already incredible and a fantasy concept for some of us, and seeing that dismissed as Unrealistic Fetishization bc some of you don't live in asia is very jarring.

explicit kinky sex is not a crime. when you're agreeing that the heavily censored narrative cql provided is "better" than the novel by virtue of taking out practically every overtly romantic scene and them eloping at the end, you're the one being insensitive towards lgbt+ asians.

over the last year I've seen an influx of people, not just via cql, mostly white, who think that they have the right to comment on the novel setting and everything about it, despite not being part of the demographic the novel was intended for. MDZS is not Western Representation.

It's uniquely Chinese, and will keep being so, which also means the society depicted therein is adjacent to Chinese society, which MAY resemble other asian societies. It is part of why it resonates with me and many others.

If it doesn't resonate with you, find another novel.

Not every romance novel dealing with lgbt+ people has to cater to lgbt+ people living in a first world country. It does not have to conform to standards set by western canon. MXTX does not owe you anything, neither do the legions of other danmei authors. Neither do we, actually.

I've been very patient since 2018, I'm willing to talk it out with people confused about exactly what MDZS is about, or how it has changed my life for the better, but when your critiques border on an inherent misunderstanding of culture I begin to question why you're here at all.

There's a disturbing trend where 99% of the people involved in these critiques have never written anything, so forgive me if I don't care about your opinion on whether wangxian should have sex in missionary position every night in order to be righteous proper gay representation.

If you don't like MDZS, no one will force you to. But no one is going to stop liking canon or writing fics that mirror canon because of it. Stop embarrassing yourself, and by extension, us, by peddling misinformation to people who have never read the novel or never will.

by "stop embarrassing yourselves" these kinds of threads are what I mean.
I've talked to mlm too. I acknowledge that MDZS has issues that plenty of people will not be able to get over, but I don't consider them defects, but deliberate. https://twitter.com/kiiwipop/status/1250271591901966339

we have acknowledged and reacknowledged people feeling uncomfortable with the novel's extras for YEARS before any of you were reading it, before the donghua finished airing, before cql was just a concept. It's fine to say "this isn't my thing" and drop the novel altogether.

the issue right now is white people barging into POC spaces to tell them how WE should feel, how WE are terrible for liking a novel with fetishizaiton (no one has ever managed to give me an explanation for what, exactly, it is fetishizing), how we should listen to THEM on this.

The fandom blew up this morning because a westerner was convinced that MDZS *isn't set in China*. That's the fucking problems we're facing, rn.

The MDZS fandom's current influx of RACIST ideology needs to be acknowledged by people who use fetishization as a catch-all buzzword.