VS: So here I am taking a whack at pure fiction. Actually, this is technically nonfiction, but who cares? I hope you all enjoy my story. It's mostly humorous drabble, but you know, everyone has to start SOMEWHERE. I'm happy with any reviews--even flames are appreciated at this point. This may or may not be better as an essay and it would be nice if you told me so.

I don't recommend that you read this in the company of yaoi-haters. If you are a yaoi-hater, get the hell out of here, unless you want to turn over a new leaf.

Disclaimer: I am a yaoi fangirl, so I reserve the right to be as cruel as I please about them in this story. In fact, all quizzes I've taken on the subject have branded me a "Scary Yaoi Fangirl--the worst kind of fan!" so nyah. All opinions are my own and have nothing to do with other people. I also didn't make the quiz that the story links you to.

Confessions of a Yaoi Fangirl

Foreword/Prologue

--

"Without yaoi, my life would be incomplete. It's like how the muscles of astronauts atrophy when they're in space from the lack of gravity. My soul would atrophy from a lack of Gravitation." - Sue

Yaoi: (n) Homosexual love between men as found in anime, fanfiction, and the ramblings of teenaged girls everywhere.
See also: june (yaoi outside of animeland, perhaps in Harry Potter land, for example)
--

Have you ever entered an internet cafe to see a girl furtively minimize her window at the sight of you? Ever wonder what she could have been looking at that would make her so embarrassed?

Whether you knew it or not, you encountered a yaoi fangirl. Or someone doing their banking at an Internet cafe (hint: NOT a good idea).

You're in Barnes and Noble and you find yourself wandering into the graphic novels corner while looking through the trashy romance section. A girl is reading a comic but looks up constantly to make sure no one is looking.

That was probably a yaoi fangirl too. Especially if the comic was titled "Loveless."

As you wait in line the opening weekend of a Harry Potter movie, amongst the kids in costume is a girl with a tee shirt that says "Draco + Harry Forever."

You may have thought she was being sarcastic or was joking, but I bet you she wasn't. That was most definitely a yaoi fangirl, making one of her rare excursions into the world outside her computer.

These elusive creatures are often found participating in the activities mentioned above or similar ones. For the record, the first girl was probably a) reading a homo homo fanfic, b) watching a homo homo anime or c) both at the same time. It can be done, trust me.

Not all yaoi fangirls fit the stereotype that is commonly perpetuated--that they're complete losers. For the most part, a lot of them seem pretty normal. Until you mention anime, Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings. Then it gets a little strange. But, in general, they blend in with the rest of society. Some have friends, jobs, and even boyfriends. It sets them apart from many male nerds, who may have similar obsessions but have become complete outcasts from the world.

However, all those wonderful assets belonging to the well-camouflaged fangirl can be taken away in an instant if any of her friends, coworkers or boyfriends happen to find the animated gay porn she keeps on her computer. This looming threat leads yaoi-lovers everywhere to live their lives in a constant state of paranoia, worrying that they will be found out. Especially non-asian yaoi fangirls. The punishment for them is twice as harsh, I am sad to say.

The problem is, the yaoi fangirl in question is usually the one to blow her own cover. It could be by trying to convince a male friend that he's gay, putting random pairs of men in compromising and homosexual situations, or simply by letting it slip that she watched ten episodes of Gravitation in one sitting yesterday. Whatever it is, suddenly everyone is slightly afraid of her, straight men and girls alike. All she'll have left are the boys that either were gay when she found them or were more easily convinced by her than the first guy I mentioned.

What happens when parents find out about your love of homo homo sticky sticky can will probably be the scariest thing that will ever happen to you. I'll dedicate a chapter to that in good time.

So, why am I writing about this species (of which I am a part), anyway? Why open myself up to the flames and homophobic comments I will probably receive for posting this? What makes it worth it?

Love? No, but good try.

Power? I don't think so, but maybe.

Wealth? I wish, but no.

Glory? Yes, that's it, glory! Psych.

My goal here is to try and explain the mindset of the yaoi fangirl, who is, at this point, only understood by her own kind. We tend to creep people out for the most part and are ostracized even by other anime fans for our antics. Our fanfiction, even sometimes our forum posts are deemed offensive, and, well, gay. We ruined Lord of the Rings for straight men by rushing in with our Aragorn/Legolas pairings as well as some hobbit foursomes. Preteen boys looking up YuGiOh fanfiction are scarred for life every day by Ryou/Bakura, Yami/Bakura, Yami/Yugi, Yugi/Ryou, Yami/Seto...etc. We made J.K. Rowling so uncomfortable she had to make a press release establishing that no, Sirius and Remus were not a couple. Sure they weren't.

Anyway, the point is, we are some of the most misunderstood (and hated) writers on the net and I hope with this to remedy that a little. Just a little. Maybe explain why we're really not so bad. It could be because I'm from California (where gay marriage recently became legal) that I think it's possible to do this. Naive little me.

Girls everywhere are forced to accept that their boyfriends would love to see them make out with another girl. Why can't girls be the same way? Why shouldn't we be allowed to say a couple of gay guys are hot together? I see you are stunned into silence by my profound words.

Now then, on to how I got into this situation in the first place.

I suppose it all started out innocently enough.

I was ten years old and watching my fiftieth episode of Sailor Moon when I realized for the first time that I liked anime. It wasn't that big of a deal at the time. Liking anime, that is. Sailor Moon was kind of cool anyway, as far as gateway drugs go. I would eagerly await the next episode, even though I knew that it would just be another attempt on Queen Beryl's part to steal energy from pathetic humans. It was silly, but I loved it--the ridiculously sparkly eyes, the exaggerated movements, the downright lame incantations. My parents didn't understand at all when I said I wanted to be Sailor Moon for Halloween. One minute of trying to explain her hair style to my mother and she just gave up. I had short hair at the time, by the way.

But my parents still tried their best to indulge me and let me watch it to my heart's content. It's not like it was a bad show or anything. At that point I still lived in my happy, innocent, gay-sex free world, doodling pictures of the Sailor Scouts on everything I owned.

I guess things started going downhill when CardCaptors first premiered on the WB.

I don't know if you know the storyline of Card Captor Sakura, but it's a very addicting blend of action, fantasy and romance. Alas, the show was canceled after a few short months (there isn't really a market for shoujo anime in the US) and I was left hanging. Desperate to find out if Sakura and Syaoran ever DID get together, I did the only thing I could think of--I went on the internet.

What I found was the entire manga scanlated (a clever combination of "scanned" and "translated") online, as well as all the anime videos ripped and presented for my slightly illegal viewing, english subtitles and all. I had the entire story at last! And yes, they did get together. Eventually.

However, without the US government to check over and edit what I watched, I was exposed to the truth: Touya and Yukito (both boys and side characters in the story) were a couple! I found this odd, but did not mind, being an open-minded girl of twelve at this point. It's not like they were depicted having sex or anything. (Note: homo homo love without the sticky sticky is referred to as shounen-ai, or boy-love).

Additionally, Yukito looked so much like a girl it didn't even matter.

Cut to my first day at my new middle school. At my old school we had formed an "anime club" of sorts and I was very comfortable with it, but here I was in an alien environment populated by rich kids who had better things to do than indulge in Japanese cartoons. I didn't really fit in at first, having actually gotten into the prestigious school for my brain power rather than my parent's money. I wandered, wondering which of these prattling idiots was going to be my friend for the next six years.

With me being the picky person that I am, my search was fruitless and I retired to the library.

I soon found myself in the company of a girl who had calmly sat down next to me without saying anything. We'll call her Sue. She was doodling a picture of Duo from Gundam Wing in her notebook, not minding the fact that she was alone. Recognizing the character, I struck up a conversation with her, which she readily accepted. Things were going rather smoothly (I had seen several episodes at that point and sort of knew what I was talking about), when she suddenly exclaimed,

"Heero and Duo are so cute together!"

I froze, unsure of how to respond. You see, Heero and Duo were both men. I decided it would be best to nod in agreement. She continued without having noticed my hesitation.

"I bet you Heero would be the Seme and Duo would be the Uke," she said, sighing happily. I continued to agree, not having the slightest clue as to what "Seme" and "Uke" meant.

That night, of course, I decided to find out. What I got was this link on quizilla which fp wouldn't let me paste properly, so you only have the tail end of it:

/quizzes/286001/what-yaoi-stereotype-are-you

As well as a multitude of pictures and videos, the links to which I couldn't paste here without getting into serious trouble. It was mostly gay anime porn, anyway, which you can all easily find on your own.

My result on the quiz was that I was a Protean Player, with an 80 percent chance of being seme and a 20 percent chance of being uke. I'm curious to know what other people get, so please do tell me in a review of some sort. If you're into that sort of thing.

Desperate to find out what this meant, I actually ended up watching some dudes kiss. From the description of my quiz result, I got this:

1. The Uke is the often reluctant, cute, and feminine partner who is easily cajoled into taking it up the arse.

2. The Seme is the often abusive, sadistic, and totally hot partner who is good at cajoling and bonking.

Anyway, armed with this newfound knowledge of the world of yaoi, I told Sue about it the next day, confident that I would at least throw her off a little bit. On the contrary, she was ecstatic and rushed to take the quiz. She was, of course, a Supreme Seme. That's 100 percent seme, by the way; no chance of ever being on the bottom.

This was the start of a beautiful friendship between me and Sue, and my transformation into the yaoi fangirl you see today.

Afterthoughts:

What I meant by Sailor Moon as a gateway drug was that it was what got me hooked onto other animes, kind of like how marijuana is reportedly supposed to get you hooked on other drugs. Slightly obscure reference if you don't live in the US.

By the way, Seme is the one on top, if that makes any sense to you. I hope I haven't scarred you for life or anything or made you want to vomit. Sue still remembers to this day (about six years later) that I have an affinity with the Seme, much to my happiness.

I know this because she bought me a pair of pink fluffy handcuffs for my eighteenth birthday. I may or may not have used them on the boyfriend that I quite miraculously have. I mean, I have a 20 chance of going Uke on you, so you can't really be sure. That's one thing I'll never tell.

VS: That's it for the Foreword and Prologue. I combined them together for the sake of making a post of decent length (2300+ words, baby!). Anyway, this story probably won't have a plot overall, but each individual chapter will, so it won't be complete drabble or anything. Maybe I should put this in the Essay category or something. The events I will describe may or may not have happened. Does it really matter anyway? I'll end up hitting twincest, shota, and what happens when your perverted ways are discovered by non-anime fans. Please review or I will just be so sad and not update for months. I want to know your results on the quiz, anyway. Next chapter: Awkward.