~the fiction~

writers are the most neurotic, egocentric folk i know. and they carry machetes. don't bother me... i'm writing.

Yaoi - Strictly speaking, m/m stories, usually in cartoon format, drawn by fans using other people's characters. This fan-drawn yaoi is found in fan publications called doujinshi.

Yaoi is an acronym for 'yama nashi, ochi nashi, imi nashi': no mountain (ie peak; climax), no point, no meaning. As the acronym suggests, fannish yaoi tends to emphasize the sex over the emotions and can do without plot entirely. Yaoi takes any kind of relationship and sexualizes it: "These guys are brothers, let's put them in bed together." or "These guys are on the same soccer team, let's put them in bed together." or "These guys are sworn enemies, let's put them in bed together - or even better, have one guy tie the other guy up and rape him."

Yaoi is equivalent to slash in English but with certain cultural differences: Most slash uses characters from live-action tv shows. Also, slash looks for evidence in the original series that two characters are devoted to each other before sticking them in bed together. Finally, slash is overwhelmingly text-based: 98% of it is short stories.

In contrast, most yaoi uses characters from cartoon series (anime), video games, and comics (manga), in that order. Yaoi will also pair characters together regardless of how they feel about each other. Finally, yaoi is largely visual: about 90% of it is in comic format.

In its broad sense, yaoi has come to be used (incorrectly, of course) by us westerners to mean male/male comics and fanfiction in general, whether series-based and amateur, or original and professional.