Hi, I'm polytropic, though most people call me "please stop talking." My pronouns are they/them and he/him.
I blog about things I like: speculative fiction, bright colors, queerness, subversive masculinity, theory.
I used to blog about activism and current events: now I'm a movement lawyer in my daily life, so I don't use this blog for that any more, because boundaries are important.
I welcome messages, including if you're struggling with gender feelings and want some support or advice.
Please don't message me for legal advice. I'm a lawyer, not your lawyer.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
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fwiw, if money is short for you, my goofy gay cyberpunk heist novel is now on itch with a "pay what you want" option, so you can get it cheap as hell if you like!
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Built on the bones of a former northern England shipbuilding town, Unity City is an extraterritorial city-state fully owned and operated by worldwide megacorp Imperium International LLC. Renji Starkweather has everything he needs to succeed within Unity: confidence, a fast mouth, and most importantly, a famous aunt. But despite his coveted position within the city’s enforcers, restless Renji has never quite fit in with the company values, and when an impulsive stunt involving an airship and far too many bladed weapons sends him plummeting into Unity's buried depths, he begins to see the real human cost of those record profits.
Thrown into the path of a notorious gang of criminals named The Loose Ends, Renji is keen to help them even the score; and once an unfair gas bill threatens to leave the city's poorest freezing in their own homes, he finds himself with a chance to do just that. Teaming up with a gruff single dad on a mission, a laid-back hacker DJ, and her furious bruiser of a sister, Renji has a plan involving an audacious heist of tonight’s company Christmas fundraiser– but in order to pull it off, he’ll have to dodge his vicious former boss and avoid his terrifying aunt, all while gaining the trust of his new allies.
What could possibly go wrong…?
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Click here to read a free two-chapter sample, or here to grab it on itch!
It’s unfortunate that MDZS isn’t mainstream enough to reference in casual offline conversation, because “this is what killed Nie Mingjue” is thee best possible way to describe an offensively grating piece of music and there is simply no normie equivalent.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
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on that long bus ride home where the provided films for us bus riders was the 4 hour Snyder Cut, my "has a crush on Superman but won't admit it" kiddo cousin wanted to watch the Snyder Cut multiple times for Superman. I had to explain to her that Superman doesn't show up until 2 hours into that film because he died and his friends were trying to bring him back to life. The kiddo was confused. "But Superman is the strongest!! How could he be killed??" and I explained "Sometimes Superman fights stronger villains, it's a challenge for him! And this time, the bad guy was so strong that Superman lost the fight." She had to sit with that for a moment but came back with a drawing that I'm doing my best to recreate. It came with kiddo commentary.
"Let me explain this to you. This is the big monster that is so so big, he's very strong. Stronger than Superman"
I remember seeing a reddit post going around that compared pidw to the popular light novel Against the Gods to great comic effect, and the whole thing might honestly be more comical than what the memes suggest.
Because as far as I can tell, these two novels started serializing at almost exactly the same time.
If the publicly available info is correct, this means that neither work could be directly inspired by the other, and goes to show just how derivative and predictable this genre of power fantasy has become at this point in time.
A more direct translation of this type of fiction is the "stud novel", initially said with some humor and probably some self-deprecation. The thing about the word "zhongma" (种马), or stud, is that it doesn't have the same kind of situationally flattering connotations as its English counterpart, and literally just means a male horse used for breeding. You'd never see a popular lady's man and say "ah, what a zhongma." The more romantic translation of "stallion" came later. It's considered a sub-genre of the broader "YY novel" genre (lit. translation "mentally masturbatory novel), which just means fantastical wish-fulfillment light novels with no interest in realism, and does not necessarily have to do with sex.
(As a side note, "shooting airplane" literally means "to masturbate". It's not so much a metaphor as just one of the most common and direct euphemisms for masturbation.)
I've seen too many "stallion" novels, mostly from the 2000s, that follow the exact same formula as both pidw and Against the Gods that I honestly can't tell you which ones probably went into inspiring pidw, because they all blur together into a giant skinner box of never-ending dopamine loops and same-y story arcs.
One thing about these books is that most (successful ones) were not the kind of ultra pornographic, out-there kinky stories we sometimes associate pidw with, and they were more concerned with massaging the (default straight male) reader's ego and their dopamine addiction than their cucumber. Some had decent female followings, too, though women were clearly not the main target audience. One story I do still remember, funnily enough, had a protagonist also named Bing something, and I remember it mostly because it was a sort of bizarre combination of Ramsay's Hell's Kitchen, high fantasy wizard fights, revenge drama, and the usual harem shenanigans.
That is to say, the idea of a gary stu demon emperor who also mains cooking isn't all that strange for a Chinese power fantasy protagonist. Most of these protagonists all share very similar origin stories. The secret heir of some great power, a pretty-boy blessed with a special "golden finger", which only unlocks after a obligatory whump period to make the eventual payoff all the sweeter.
Many of these protagonists, a stereotypical "straight dude" Western™️ reader might find goofy, or strange, or straight up effeminate. They embody a very Chinese millennial kind of machismo that's less Batman and more Monkey King but unimaginably conventionally attractive--conventionally attractive as in tall, athletic but still slender, pretty but not girl-pretty. The truly androgynous sort of look is usually reserved for antagonists (hi, Dongfang Bubai). The hunks are usually the sidekicks (hello, mobei-jun).
But don't mistake most of these "softer" harem novel mcs for anything but raging misogynists; it's just that often times, when looking in from another culture, their brand of misogyny might appear to flip flop between cartoonishly heinous to too subtle to notice. To be fair, I don't think most of these authors were deliberately writing misogynistic stories to make some kind of political point, it's just that the end result is usually no less grim or revealing. It was a sort of "naive art," especially during the early days when the genre was still consolidating into the cultural behemoth it eventually became, and direct engagement with gender discourse was low.
So here comes Bingge, who could almost, almost be considered a working class hero if you disregard the fact that he is literally royalty, and that he acquires inconceivable wealth, and that he eventually becomes the absolute monarch of the entire known universe. He supposedly comes from nothing, and was probably considered no better than a slave during his early childhood arc (all we know is that his mother was a washerwoman who worked for some noble house. This was usually a slave or indentured servant's job.)
The brief facade of an underdog narrative is all but mandatory in these types of stories, and it speaks of the contradictory impulses that demand the protagonist be simultaneously relatable and all-powerful. He should become the preeminent establishment, but also be anti-establishment in a cool rebellious way. He should destroy all the corrupt sects, kill all the evil shizuns, slay all the unjust gods, but only if he gets to replace the gods and be even more powerful than all of them combined.
The harem part of the stories also hone in on the same kind of contradictions. The protagonist spends pages waxing poetics about the women he meets, but is too cool for school and usually doesn't care much for actual believable relationships. He's kind of down-to-earth, but also an untouchable sex god. Everybody he non-cons falls in love with him eventually. He is also non-conned sometimes but it's fine because he likes it. There's this palpable sense of earnest anguish to the whole sex god thing that you'd probably immediately pick up on if you read one of these stories, in that it's painfully clear that neither the writer nor the intended reader has any idea what a plausible sex god might look like from their own pov.
This leaves Bingge in a bit of a strange place, because svsss' parody of a stallion novel is more or less a perfect copy of these patterns, until it all falls apart the moment Bingge gets displaced into the "main" svsss world. It takes him all of two hours to start questioning it all, leading to one of the most weirdly macabre moments of the novel. I don't think the Bingge vs Bingmei incident was even meant to be all that disturbing, but it ends up creating something that comes across as indescribably miserable, as the fandom is deeply aware. This cheerfully fan-servicy wish-fulfilment story, created by some (probably closeted) young author to cheer up, de-stress, and numb the pain of millions of readers with gratuitous dopamine loops, accidentally results in existential dread so uncontainable that it breaks dimensions and grows genuinely monstrous in all its assumptions and implications.
RIP Bingge. To yall reading this, thanks for coming along for the rambling ride, and I hope you never find yourself stuck at home and your family keeps buying you random stallion novels off the bestselling rack because they seem to be popular with the Kids. Unless you're into that kind of thing, of course. Fiction!
#I think the fandom would benefit from reading more genuine stallion novels and/or webtoons#bc it really does enhance one's understanding of bingge AND shen Yuan#ALSO bingmei ie how he very much diverges from a “stallion protag” in both his purposeful actions like whining/crying#and his more genuine moments where he's emotionally volatile and clearly hates himself#(not to mention that he dreams of domestic peace and bliss above all else) - via @ruri-rari
just realised that if jin guangyao had in fact let lan xichen stay and die with him then all 3 of those assholes wouldve been in the torture coffin together. imagine being nie mingjue trying to enact 100 years of vengeance upon the lying bastard who murdered you but your mutual boyfriend the conflict mediation pervert is sitting there like "guys stop cant we all just talk about our feelings :("
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
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t minus 14(ish) days until @dcpridefanzine drops… here’s a sneak peek of line art for the piece i wrote, ‘supernova’!!
i’m so honored to have a team of wonderful artists working on the flats, shading, and lettering, and of course to @mustasekittens for the wonderful line art!!! you saw my vision so clearly.
i’m THRILLED to be able to share this piece with the rest of you!!! transfem kon-el kent i love you forever and ever and ever
Key "evil praise kink" of the Cauldron kneeling over from just sucking poison out of a woman he now refers to as "Boss", getting turned on when she pats him on the head and turning his head into her hand like a dog YOU WILL ALWAYS BE REAL TO ME
Usually I find communication problems as the basis for a relationship somewhat annoying....in this particular case, though, the communication problems are "he is following her instructions to the letter while she is unaware she is giving instructions. And unfortunately, they are about murder" and it's SO funny
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
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New banner for this month (and maybe forever if it sticks)
Wanted to show off the amazing color diversity of isopods! All of these are cropped images of isopods, with little to no color adjustments. (I can list all the species I used if you’d be interested! And try to find the original image sources again..)
Image breakdown time! Apologies that many of these image links are to shops. Some of these colors are selectively bred morphs.
The red stripe is an Ardentiella sp. (formerly called Merulanella sp.) “scarlet”, and the orange stripe is a Porcellio laevis “orange”.
Image source - - - - - Image source
The yellow stripe is a Cubaris sp. “blonde ducky”, and the green stripe is a paridotea ungulata!
Image source - - - - - Image source (inat link)
The blue stripe is an Armadillidium vulgare with iridovirus, a disease which is, unfortunately, fatal. The purple stripe is a Bathynomus giganteus!
Image source - - - - - Image source
The white stripe is from a Platyarthus hoffmannseggii (there are many white isopods so I tried to go for one of my lesser-known favorites!), and the teal stripe is from a stunning Burmoniscus sp. “ice blue”.
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There are two pink pods in this flag- Androniscus dentiger and Cubaris sp. “sakura/cherry blossom”!
Image source - - - - - Image source
(Continued in a second post since I can only add ten images at a time)
a belated second post! sorry that its no longer pride month, i got distracted trying to find the images sources, and well: it's done now!
The brown stripe is a Trachelipus rathkii:
Image source
And the black stripe is two isopods again! A Porcellio scaber, and an Armadillidium vulgare, (although the close up of the stripes on the flag does sort of look like Armadillo officinalis)
Image source - - - - - Image source
the yellow and purple in the intersex triangle are the same isopods as the yellow and purple stripes :)
get incredibly horny and aroused when x IS involved in sex
don't find interest in sex if x is not involved in some way shape or form
then congratulations, you have a fetish!! and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that! fetish isnt a bad or ugly thing, it's just something that's a part of your sexuality, and it's nothing to be ashamed of.
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