catalogust

Top 5 reasons why fengqing is yuri

Meme image of two girls in lingerie on a bed blushing and covering their faces, edited to have a caption of 'and so... they were both martial gods of the south'

Art credit: Mikawa Miso, Neko to Neko no Owaranai Yoru

This zine was originally created for a weekend zine challenge over on Mastodon. There is also a printable pdf version so you can put my deep and insightful analysis on your bookshelf.

Another TGCF zine created for this challenge was Ling Wen ships: RANKED! by sophia_sol.

The whole zine is digital and written in a basic sans serif. Title page is overlaid with a grey line drawing of lilies. Title: Top 5 reasons why fengqing is yuri, by gold

1. They are the same height according to mxtx. This makes it impossible to decide who is the seme or uke. Therefore, fengqing is not yaoi, but it’s still gay so it must be yuri.

2. Still haven’t decided a winner or loser in fights, lantern battles, idiom training, etc. No power imbalance? For 800 whole years? This is a typically idealised and unrealistic yuri dynamic.

3. Both moving into Xie Lian’s house (Note: abandoned shack) and taking care of his parents for him. Two housewives = obviously yuri

4. Mostly happens offscreen. All we get to see of their dynamic is the part relevant to Xie Lian, which is characterised by negativity and conflict. Anything positive is shown only through implications. This is an example of what Iori Miyazawa refers to as the yuri of absence.

5. 'Who knew who threw the first punch. but (...)' TGCF, Vol. 1, Ch.2, tr. Seven Seas. Violence as a mutual act without a clear subject and object = yuri?? I could swear there are other instances of this sort of description in the books but I couldn’t find them

Bonus: reasons why fengqing is yaoi. 1. Shipping two guys. 2. They argue and fight a lot like classic yaois do (narusasu, shizaya, etc). 3. They are narrative foils which is also a classic

Bonus: Lilies in TGCF. There are none. However, Jian Lan’s name is written 剑兰, which is the name of a type of gladiolus flower. In English gladioli are sometimes called sword lilies. There is a small grey line drawing of a lily at the bottom

P.S. In case it wasn't obvious this zine was made as a joke. Sorry for blaspheming yuri.