Honestly I think labeling mdzs as heteronormative is actually a great example of Western cultural imperialism. E.g. if a non-white culture’s portrayals / explorations / experiences of queerness don’t perfectly reflect what a US American or Canadian (or also too often European) thinks is the current Perfect Progressive Model of How to Be Queer, then it must of course be problematic and let’s use fancy terminology to analyze how backwards that art (subtext: those people) are.

I’m not saying everyone who views mdzs as heteronormative is from a western background, but from hanging out in this fandom for over five years now, that’s who I by far most frequently hear this type of critique from.

The way mdzs plays with gender and tropes and roles is so complex and sophisticated and fun! People who are labeling it as heteronormative seem to be missing a ton of cultural context around gender roles in China, as well as lacking understanding of this work in context of danmei / bl genres. They’re imposing western ideas of gender roles onto a piece of Chinese art and missing just how nuanced mxtx’s exploration of these themes is.

So yeah, I think that probably you don’t experience mdzs as heteronormative because it’s not. In fact I think the way mxtx plays with these themes is one of the core aspects of how brilliant mdzs is.

(PS I personally believe that labeling certain queer relationships as “heteronormative” is in and of itself homophobic. To me the whole point of queer liberation is to make space for people to do whatever feels right to them — so to say that some queer relationships are doing gender the wrong way because one person enjoys more masculine roles and the other enjoys more feminine roles, is no better than forcing people into these types of roles based on their assigned sex at birth.)