Does it happen to you, go to a videostore and find some movies under some particular genre that you sure would have put on another shelf? Almost every adventure movie has a strong hold into comedy; sometimes it's pretty hard to tell them apart. 'Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom' can be pretty rough to an audience that likes adventure but abhors terror. Almost every movie has at least one potential couple, and I was told once that if the only plot of the story is 'will they or will they not get together in the end?', then that's a romance. But a romantic comedy is a romance or a comedy? What about those deep psychological love stories -- are they romance or drama? What's the bordering line between pornography and erotica?

For starters: Yaoi, Shounen Ai and Slash are NOT the same thing. Oh well, at least they weren't originally. I'm afraid they'll end up becoming the same thing, since language is alive and dynamic, and cares very little about precision.

We usually simplify things to unwarned readers, saying that Shounen Ai and Yaoi means male homosexuality; Shoujo Ai and Yuri, female homosexuality; while Slash works for both. So if your only concern is to make sure that no homophobic readers will stumble on material that might offend their private moral beliefs (and flame you for it), yeah, any of those codes will do. But then, if that's your only concern, why don't you just make things bluntly clear by marking your stories with a Homosexual Content label, instead of using obscure codes? Using codes in Japanese just because they're "cool" seems to me pretty pointless -- forgive me for my frankness.

Slash pretty much means Homosexual Content, if I'm not mistaken. I confess I don't know the origin of the term -- if you do, please email me and tell me. But I know Slash was a code adopted by Western ficwriters to label other genres of Fanfiction -- based on Movies, Games, TV shows, Books, whatever --, therefore symbolizing the Western concept of homosexuality.

[Later note: Theresa Ann Wymer reviewed this rambling and commented: "Every source I've seen defines "slash" as deriving from the "/" in Kirk/Spock or K/S fandom from the 70s. It took me some time to get used to the term K/S meaning Kirk/Spock; I was used to it standing for Kaposi's Sarcoma."]

A Slash story will describe that kind of situation, in which homosexuality defines the characters' relationships, the way society treats them, and the way they deal with their own sexual impulses.

Those who watched Card Captor Sakura -- not the American dubbing, but the original series -- will remember that Touya was Kaho's boyfriend when he was younger and that he loved her very much. But Kaho left to study abroad, Touya met Yukito and the two boys fell in love with each other. All that happened naturally. There's no mention to Touya "suddenly becoming gay". He doesn't freak out, "Oh no! I'm gay! What am I gonna do if my family finds out?" When Sakura realizes that Yukito is in love with her brother, she's sad because she had a crush on Yukito too, but happy that he and Touya love each other and can be together.

A good example is the anime 'Kizuna'. Ranmaru is lured by his teacher into a "homo club", and he's horrified when he realizes where he is. He already lives with his boyfriend and has a great relationship with him. So what's the problem? The problem is not the "homo", but the "club". That's the place where men go to have sex with other men, without love. The teacher is portrayed as a lewd man because his intentions with Ranmaru were purely carnal, never mind if he's what a Slash fic would call gay or not.

Yaoi, Yuri, Shounen Ai and Shoujo Ai stories will talk about homosexual relationships in this particular -- and probably utopian -- universe, in which the word "homosexual" actually holds very little meaning.

Yaoi is the acronym for 'YAma nashi, Ochi nashi, Imi nashi' (have in mind that in Japanese the smallest unit is the syllable) which means "no mountain, no point, no meaning". It describes a male/male relationship where sensuality reigns over romance. No one in the story cares if the characters involved are all men, but this kind of plot will deal more strongly with sex (either explicitly described or only suggested) than with the emotions of the characters.

Yuri is the female equivalent of Yaoi. Women in sexy situations, and no one gives a damn if they're of the same sex.

Shounen Ai means "boy's love'. Shoujo Ai, "girl's love". In both styles the plot will be more centered in the feelings of the characters towards each other (which might or might not take them to sex). Both terms come from Manga tradition, and were applied only to stories with original characters only -- not doujinshi. So yes, this is already an adaptation for Fanfiction needs.

Those five labels, plus the Lemon label, will be the ones I'll be using in my site. (For the older habitués: some previously posted fics will be re-labeled as Slash, a code I didn't use in the first two years of the site. I'm afraid I'm becoming a cranky old lady that doesn't want to see the old values getting lost, so the least I can do is to try to point out the differences -- even if in a few years it probably won't make any difference anymore -_- )

You have no idea of how many different explanations I found to the lime/lemonish/citrus labeling. They're all supposed to mean "almost sex but not quite". This could mean the couple was disturbed at the worse possible moment. Or maybe one of the participants gave up at the last minute. Maybe all the story shows is someone masturbating. My friend Zoe Sionnach once defined lime with an example, "He smiled as he drew his lover down to the bed. Hours later..." I confess that when I see a lime/lemonish/citrus label I expect to find something like a hand worming inside someone else's pants and having to withdraw quickly when a third person comes into the room. I would be disappointed if all the label meant was a time ellipsis.

And using labels is our way of dealing with the readers' expectations. Most archivists use labels for three reasons:
#1 - keeping homophobic readers away from homosexual content.
#2 - denying access to the so-called "adult material" to underage kids.
#3 - informing the reader what will be found in each story - hence the creation of labels such as angst, fluffy, darkfic, PWP, original flavor, etc.

Reason #1 truly worries me. The intolerance between yaoists and anti-yaoists breaks my heart, and I don't want my guest authors to face flame mails because of my labeling system. I wish labels weren't necessary. I wish this rambling could be only about the stylistic differences between Slash, Yaoi and Shounen Ai. But the world isn't the way I want it to be.

About reason #2: we seem to forget that LOTS of Lemons are written by underage kids -- I'm yet to be given a good explanation about how they aren't old enough to read the stuff they are writing themselves. Furthermore, if we don't want a kid to read something, putting flashy warnings beside the links, with capital letters and effusive colors, yelling "if you're underage, don't open this" might not be the smartest solution. Be honest -- would that have stopped you?

About reason #3: some fics have so many labels attached to them that you don't need to read the story to know what it is about. Sometimes the labels list is longer than the fic itself ^^;;;;  Speaking for myself, I really don't like to know that much about a fic before reading it, and I know lots of people who share my feelings on this. Imagine you're reading this multi-chapter, very well written story, and the author is taking you along the narrative as a mother carrying her baby. In the last chapter one of the main characters dies. Okay, I know you're sad about it, but you can't say the story is bad just because the character died, can you? But now imagine there was this deathfic label beside the title. You'll probably spend the whole time you're reading the fic trying to guess who's gonna die and when. Either that, or you just won't read it at all, hence missing a wonderful fic of a very talented writer.

You can predict by the synopsis (and if not, by the beginning of the story) where a fic is heading and what kind of mood surrounds it. And if you're the kind of reader who likes to peep the last page of the book before reading it to make sure there's a happy ending ahead, you can scroll down the pages and do the same with the fics. Have in mind that no one's pointing a gun at your head to force you to read anything. If you see something that it's definitely not your cup of tea, that's why the 'Back' links are for, and so is the 'Back' command up in your browser and so is clicking ALT + <-, and so is asking your navigation bar to go somewhere else...

So... my definition of Lemon is... sex. Pure and simple. And I'll leave it straight at that. If the point is not having underage kids reading them, I don't see why having the scene completely described in all details would be less harmful (if it is at all) than a scene where the characters want it so badly but are miserably interrupted just when things were getting hot. Or than someone having the wildest fantasies while masturbating. Or than having the characters quietly sitting around the table discussing in all details what they like best in bed (some would say this is not a Lemon at all, since they're not doing anything for real...). So when a plot clearly debates sex, either graphically or intellectually, it will have a Lemon label above the fic synopsis.

I won't use the PWP label, but I do wish to point out something to the new generations of ficwriters. PWP is an acronym for "Plot? What plot?" I was really sad to find out that nowadays people are defining it as "porn without plot". It turned a clever, charming joke into a cheap, obvious thing. That's the kind of thing that has been turning me into a cranky old lady that whines constantly about the loss of the old values as the years pass by.

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