86 replies to this topic

[MonkeysTotallyRock]

okay. so i've been writing a story that has come to a point where i need to know what the pairings should be. yes, i don't make an outline, and yes, i'm a bad author so like every irresponsible fool, i make up my stories as go. which is partly why i stink. that, and i'm too lazy.
which brings me to my next question. what do you guys think of yaoi. i personally don't mind it. you could even say i'm a fan of it. so why is it so bad? why do people make such a big deal of gay people. just need some info on the pros on cons and your opinion of yaoi/yuuri.

me, i see nothing wrong with it. so i'm going pro:
1) "love knows no gender." got that from someone's fanfic i think.
2) freedom -- you're free, you should be able to marry who you want, right? in the us, isn't that one of the rights? persuit of happiness?

[desaix]

The problem isn't so much with just the existence of Yaoi\Yuri. If done well, it can be fine... not my taste, but fine. The problem is, it's so overdone, especially by bad fanfic writers who have no sense, and almost always SO far out of character for the characters who are part of yaoi\yuri pairings, that they smear good fanfic writers of the series for which the yaoi\yuri fics are written. Naruto has a HORRIBLE reputation in the fanfiction community because of the sheer number of bad, out of character yaoi\yuri fanfics.

[Shadowspawn]

I have no problem with yaoi/yuri in theory. But the problem is, being straight, I tend towards fics with het pairings. Crack at the most. And having to sort through all the yaoi parings that Naruto seems to provide gives me a headache.

[MonkeysTotallyRock]

hm. so all in all, it isn't bad, just has a bad rep cuz of all the oc-ness in fanfics. so when a fanfic is yaoi, people tend to critisize is without even fully readin.

[Wrathchylde]

Sadly. I personally steer clear of yaoi in general cuz it's not my cup of tea. I don't even like tea for that matter. I'm extremely strict in what I read and it usually goes by pairing, as shallow as that seems. If I see a NaruSaku that also has KibaAkamaru, I'll steer clear. That's a more extreme example, but you get the point. The only yaoi couple I could possibly entertain as long as it wasn't the focus would be HakuZabuza. That'd make sense.

[Vivi]

I don't believe in Yaoi/Yuri, but you're right it is a free country....it just isn't right to me..But that's just a personal type of thing... Freedom of Speech and all...

[MonkeysTotallyRock]

Sadly. I personally steer clear of yaoi in general cuz it's not my cup of tea. I don't even like tea for that matter. I'm extremely strict in what I read and it usually goes by pairing, as shallow as that seems. If I see a NaruSaku that also has KibaAkamaru, I'll steer clear. That's a more extreme example, but you get the point. The only yaoi couple I could possibly entertain as long as it wasn't the focus would be HakuZabuza. That'd make sense.

your last comment got me. that'd make sense. do you mean if the characters were IC, and a series of events caused a yoai pairing, would you like it, or would you still avoid it. yeah, you're last comment seems to be the opinion of a lot of people. i used to steer based solely on pairings alone, but lately something's happened. i used to hate narusaku, but now i love it... i dunno, now i love all pairings. ''^^ i'm a strange person. anyways, yeah, please reply. this is really helping.

[FullmetalNinja25]

I'm not homophobic but that doesn't mean I have to read a story that involves Yaoi or Yuri, I can't stand it.

[surlymoogle]

There's nothing wrong with yaoi. I for one am a fan (though I didn't get into it until I was around 18, and in the beginning I was incredibly picky about my pairings--I would only ship the "almost canon" ones like Touya/Yukito from CCS. Now I'll pair up anybody for crackpurposes. ).

Some people just don't dig it, and that's cool, it's their right to not read it. What's not cool is when some virulently anti-yaoi types start harping about how it's sick and wrong and a perversion of the canon. (All fanfic is a perversion of canon, that's why it's fanfic.)

Naruto has a HORRIBLE reputation in the fanfiction community because of the sheer number of bad, out of character yaoi\yuri fanfics.

And the number of bad, OOC het fics has nothing to do with this? I have a much harder time finding readable, non-nauseating het than decent yaoi.

It's True there's a ton of yaoi out there that is crappily characterized and badly written (which I don't see much of since I mostly stay the heck away from FF.net), but compared to the amount of crappy het fics, they come out about even.

I think part of the reason why Naruto fandom (totally random speculation here, BTW) has so much "yaoi appeal" is because of the disproportionately male cast. We have a whopping four genin girls to go around and a slightly larger pool of older chuunin/jounin women. And a whole lotta dudes. Now, it's established fact that main-character OCs suck, so the next logical step is to start pairing the guys up.

That and the fact that relationships like Naruto and Sasuke's are absolutely classic textbook yaoi fodder.

[Sono]

In my honest opinion, yaoi is just a bunch of fangirls who have nothing better to do with their time. I can't with every fiber of my being imagine Naruto and Sasuke going past the point of... well... that point. I mean, fanfiction is indeed fiction, but still, I think there's a line at what's appropriate.

[Vespar]

Firstly Monkeys, I would recommend writing a story for yourself and not succumb to public opinion. You can't please everyone, so atleast be satisfied with it yourself first and then see if anyone else happens to like it too.

Here I would like to point out that whether you like yaoi/yuri or not, everyone already has a preconceived notion of 'acceptable' and 'preferred' pairings in mind. If something doesn't match that, then there is little possibility of people sticking around to continue reading it. There are some exceptions though (which I will get to later)...


Now, my stance on Yaoi...
I find nothing wrong with yaoi, but it's just not one of my preferences.

One time, I gave the benefit of the doubt and stuck through a yaoi fic because it was just so well-written. Grammar, spelling and a plausible (if highly improbable) but compelling and well-planned storyline. I did skim some sections though; it really wasn't my preferred reading.
And I'm not direct linking it, because me thinks it breaks atleast one H&E rule, but it is a favourite (yaoi sole favourite) of Geno Calamari's -one of the reasons I was curious about it really.

So yeah, I learned that I don't care for yaoi, though I do encourage literacy.


And my stance on Yuri...
No argument from me. I love the stuff.

Now I just wish I found some really well-written ones...
Oh well, if you can't find a fic you want to read about, then you might as well write it, yeah?
Though I wouldn't trust myself to write a well-written shoujo-ai either...

[desaix]

Naruto has a HORRIBLE reputation in the fanfiction community because of the sheer number of bad, out of character yaoi\yuri fanfics.

And the number of bad, OOC het fics has nothing to do with this? I have a much harder time finding readable, non-nauseating het than decent yaoi.

Yes, the REPUTATION of Naruto fanfiction is that if it's a Naruto fanfic, it's a crappy yaoi fanfic. That there are bad het fics in the Naruto series may be true, but that has nothing to do with its reputation.

And I'd like to point out this bit of trivia from ff.net: There are 1441 pages of Naruto fanfiction on ff.net. I went through to see how many of them had ANY female characters listed as part of their pairings through the character selection tool.

I don't think it can be called precisely accurate (thanks to people who make Haku female, for example), but 1043 pages of the 1441 fanfics on ff.net DON'T list a female character on the top two. There is a REASON people who don't know about the series except through fanfiction assume the yaoi is canon, and can be violently defensive when this is proven wrong. The significant majority of Naruto fanfiction is BAD yaoi fanfiction.

Again, there's nothing WRONG with yaoi. It's just that it's symptomatic of severely out-of-character behavior, especially for certain pairings, and the sheer predominance of it has negatively effected Naruto's reputation. There's bad het, too, but... well, unless you start using character filters, it gets drowned in all the yaoi. So, the bad reputation for Naruto among the fanfiction community comes from all the yaoi, not from the bad het.

(Edited to fix a dropped word, as referred to in my post below. The 'vast majority' of Naruto fanfics do not feature females)

[Wrathchylde]

Sadly. I personally steer clear of yaoi in general cuz it's not my cup of tea. I don't even like tea for that matter. I'm extremely strict in what I read and it usually goes by pairing, as shallow as that seems. If I see a NaruSaku that also has KibaAkamaru, I'll steer clear. That's a more extreme example, but you get the point. The only yaoi couple I could possibly entertain as long as it wasn't the focus would be HakuZabuza. That'd make sense.

your last comment got me. that'd make sense. do you mean if the characters were IC, and a series of events caused a yoai pairing, would you like it, or would you still avoid it. yeah, you're last comment seems to be the opinion of a lot of people. i used to steer based solely on pairings alone, but lately something's happened. i used to hate narusaku, but now i love it... i dunno, now i love all pairings. ''^^ i'm a strange person. anyways, yeah, please reply. this is really helping.

I like to think of myself as a writer who can keep a character IC and I won't read anything with a character terribly ooc. Well, that's not true. I've stuck through a few super powered, mature naruto fics but they're like bad action movies; still enjoyable if you don't analyze it. Anyway, the Zabuza/Haku thing was an example of a yaoi pairing that would still keep the characters IC. There's plenty of others that could do that if you think about it. Chouji/Shika experimentation would be another example but that's up to an author to decide. In the end, I'm the norm. I read what I want and skip what I don't and I follow the same pattrern for writing. Hell with what anyone else says.

[desaix]

Hm... just a thought.

All of my objections are to yaoi, not yuri. My reasons are that the yaoi has 'taken over' the fandom (what I didn't say when I gave the stats in my last post was that it was a SIGNIFICANT change from when I first looked into Naruto fanfiction -- when I started in the fandom, there were more Naruto\Sasuke fanfics, most of them heavily out of character, then there were all het fics combined. The situation has much improved). It's happened to more then one fandom I'm aware of, but... even though I've often heard the 'predominant male sexual fantasy is two women' (or some varient of that) I've never known a fandom to be taken over by YURI fanfics. Does anyone know of a such a series (with a significant enough fanbase to matter -- if there's only one fanfic and it's yuri, that doesn't count)?

[Wrathchylde]

Hm... just a thought.

All of my objections are to yaoi, not yuri. My reasons are that the yaoi has 'taken over' the fandom (what I didn't say when I gave the stats in my last post was that it was a SIGNIFICANT change from when I first looked into Naruto fanfiction -- when I started in the fandom, there were more Naruto\Sasuke fanfics, most of them heavily out of character, then there were all het fics combined. The situation has much improved). It's happened to more then one fandom I'm aware of, but... even though I've often heard the 'predominant male sexual fantasy is two women' (or some varient of that) I've never known a fandom to be taken over by YURI fanfics. Does anyone know of a such a series (with a significant enough fanbase to matter -- if there's only one fanfic and it's yuri, that doesn't count)?

Utena? I dunno. Yuri is actually a staple of the main characters if what I remember is true. Then again, it bored me to no end so I didn't watch hardly any of it so I could very well be, and most likely am, wrong.

[DazeDreamer]

I personally was converted to a yaoi fan because of Sharinganks' fic. (Go yaoi!) ALthough I'm not fond of of yuri, I do accept it. Like it says love knows no gender! :thumbs: Personally I love SasuNAru and NejiGaar. (all IMO)

[MonkeysTotallyRock]

hm. it seems yaoi is more accepted now. i think i'll make a narusasu fic one day. thanks guys! B) you guys rock.

[surlymoogle]

I don't think it can be called precisely accurate (thanks to people who make Haku female, for example), but 1043 pages of the 1441 fanfics on ff.net list a female character on the top two.

So...the vast majority of Naruto fanfic in the Quagmire ff.net involves at least one female? I think I'm missing something here, as that makes it sound like yaoi ISN'T the norm.

Anybody who actively looks for fic on ff.net should not be surprised that most of it is BAD, and the percentage that is actually really good is buried underneath all of that and too exhausting to dig up. Especially in a fandom like Naruto, where most of the fans are under 18 (well under 18 in some cases) and really haven't had much time to develop their writing skills.

I generally stick to going off recs from LJ communities. Much higher quality assurance factor.

So, the bad reputation for Naruto among the fanfiction community comes from all the yaoi, not from the bad het.

A lot of people complain about how yaoi automatically constitutes "OOC". I'm pretty sure that Kishimoto never came out and definitively stated what every character's orientation was. Some we can take a pretty solid guess at; some other characters do not appear to have any orientation, like Sasuke, who's never shown a bit of interest in anyone, period. That's because it's not an issue in canon. Which is good, because it gives us more leeway in fanon.

Therefore, most of the yaoi pairings themselves aren't any more OOC than the uncommon het ones.

And even utterly outlandish pairings with zero basis in canon can be made somewhat plausible if the writer is willing to rise to the challenge. It's an all too rare event, but yes, it's been done. Whether you're talking about yaoi, yuri, or het.

So, sorry, but as for the sullied rep of the Naruto fanfic community, I'll continue to point my finger at the fact that most of the people writing...can't write.

It's happened to more then one fandom I'm aware of, but... even though I've often heard the 'predominant male sexual fantasy is two women' (or some varient of that) I've never known a fandom to be taken over by YURI fanfics.

No, because girls account for the vast majority of fanfic writers. And for the most part (there are exceptions, of course), girls don't write yuri, because it doesn't push their buttons.

I'm totally fine with yuri--there are even a couple of pairings I support, like Tatsuki/Orihime--but I almost never go out of my way to read it, because, well, I'm not a dude who thinks LESBIANS ARE TEH HOT. Therein lies the major appeal of yuri--just as yaoi's appeal primarily lies in "two dudes are better than one."

[Sono]

If you do not prefer reading yaoi, like me, then just put two characters of the opposite sex on your ff.net search menu. Personnaly, I can't stand NaruSasu because I find it WAY too much fiction. I mean, fiction is good, but only to a certain extent, that also goes with every crack pairing but remember this is MY opinion.

Then again, however, my opinion is probably crazy in the Naruto community. If you look through the AFF site on Naruto almost everything is yaoi/yuuri/some crazy crack pairing; or maybe this is just AFF.

[desaix]

I don't think it can be called precisely accurate (thanks to people who make Haku female, for example), but 1043 pages of the 1441 fanfics on ff.net list a female character on the top two.

So...the vast majority of Naruto fanfic in the Quagmire ff.net involves at least one female? I think I'm missing something here, as that makes it sound like yaoi ISN'T the norm.

Er, that was a typo. The vast majority DON'T feature at least one female.

Anybody who actively looks for fic on ff.net should not be surprised that most of it is BAD, and the percentage that is actually really good is buried underneath all of that and too exhausting to dig up. Especially in a fandom like Naruto, where most of the fans are under 18 (well under 18 in some cases) and really haven't had much time to develop their writing skills.

Yes, but we're talking about reputations, here -- perception, not reality. Which means you have to go through the biggest source of that perception -- ff.net.

I generally stick to going off recs from LJ communities. Much higher quality assurance factor.

Meh, our experiences are different -- most of those fics I found off of LJ communities were horrendously bad, worse then even sorting out the good fics from the dross in ff.net. But I haven't followed LJ communities in a long time, so I admit that may have changed. Different communities have different people to draw their fics from. I'll note I've found more good IN character het fics for Naruto then I have well written yaoi fics, regardless of how in character or out of character they are... but then, I'm probably looking in different areas then you are. And there is a MUCH wider base of yaoi fiction to sort through to find the 'good' then there is het fiction to sort through to find the 'good,' so if you have 'best of' communities, you'll find more 'good' yaoi fanfics then 'good' het fics, even if the percentages of good to bad for yaoi and het would indicate otherwise.

So, the bad reputation for Naruto among the fanfiction community comes from all the yaoi, not from the bad het.

A lot of people complain about how yaoi automatically constitutes "OOC". I'm pretty sure that Kishimoto never came out and definitively stated what every character's orientation was. Some we can take a pretty solid guess at; some other characters do not appear to have any orientation, like Sasuke, who's never shown a bit of interest in anyone, period. That's because it's not an issue in canon. Which is good, because it gives us more leeway in fanon.

Therefore, most of the yaoi pairings themselves aren't any more OOC than the uncommon het ones.

Hm... except, to make the characters 'accept' the yaoi pairing, the writers tend to bend the character more then they do for het pairings. It's more a case of the typical yaoi author is more likely to try and put two characters together without caring about what those characters, themselves, would feel about it, rather then

And even utterly outlandish pairings with zero basis in canon can be made somewhat plausible if the writer is willing to rise to the challenge. It's an all too rare event, but yes, it's been done. Whether you're talking about yaoi, yuri, or het.

So, sorry, but as for the sullied rep of the Naruto fanfic community, I'll continue to point my finger at the fact that most of the people writing...can't write.

Which is true of ANY fandom I've seen (save, oddly, Lois and Clark fanfiction... but then, I've only found one decent-sized archive of Lois and Clark fanfiction, and they have a quality filter on their site). However, the reputation of the Naruto fanfic community is bad even among fanfic communities -- in fact, is one of the worst, outside of crossover fanfiction, in the entirety of fanfiction.

And remember, we aren't talking the 'best' here, we're talking the 'average.' The sheer number of people who can PULL OFF good yaoi fanfics just aren't there. A good yaoi fanfic can be good -- that is not the question -- it's whether most of the writers are good at it. Good het is hard to find, too, but -- in terms of percentages -- it's higher, even if in terms of numbers its lower. Plus, repetition of a theme tends to weaken the quality, and there are only so many ways to make two obviously het characters (like, say, Naruto and Jiraiya, who often are found in yaoi pairings) become yaoi before you start beating a dead horse in a theme... and the Naruto fandom beat that dead horse to dust years ago.

It's happened to more then one fandom I'm aware of, but... even though I've often heard the 'predominant male sexual fantasy is two women' (or some varient of that) I've never known a fandom to be taken over by YURI fanfics.

No, because girls account for the vast majority of fanfic writers. And for the most part (there are exceptions, of course), girls don't write yuri, because it doesn't push their buttons.

Um, wrong. MOST fanfic writers are male (Unless you mean Naruto in particular, in which case you may be right). By far. Animerica did a study on it a while ago (I'll see if I can find the article, and if so I'll post the exact reference, and it is admittedly a couple years old... but, at the time, the proportion of yaoi to yuri was MUCH higher then it is even now) and found almost four out of ever five fanfic writers was male.

I'm totally fine with yuri--there are even a couple of pairings I support, like Tatsuki/Orihime--but I almost never go out of my way to read it, because, well, I'm not a dude who thinks LESBIANS ARE TEH HOT. Therein lies the major appeal of yuri--just as yaoi's appeal primarily lies in "two dudes are better than one."

Yeah, but I've never seen yuri dominate a fandom the way yaoi does, save perhaps in the above example someone mentioned of Utena (where it is, indeed, canon), even in series where the writers are definitely more male then female (like, say, Slayers). I've been into the anime fandom and fanfiction in general for more then a decade, now, and I've NEVER seen such a dominating force as what yaoi presents, in terms of fanfiction, versus yuri.

Nope, this argument doesn't fly -- it's not just that 'most fanfic writers are girls.'