Luthorne said:
No, a lot of fanboys pretty much are straight out homophobic, or at least find it exceptionally distasteful, regardless of the characters involved or how likely or unlikely it might be, and the fact of the matter is, most of the rage and bile they get will be from people making knee jerk reactions prompted by their general hatred of yaoi, rather than an actual awareness that this is out-of-character, suffers from poor buildup, and ignores pre-established canon...but then again, the latter three are rampant amongst fanfiction in general, not just yaoi fanfiction.
And as for being demonstrated in their character, frankly, in the vast majority of cases, most of the characters involved have not explicitly stated that they uniformly do not find men to be sexually attractive. They may have, at some point, demonstrated that they do find women to be attractive, and even that they find specific men who pursue them to be repulsive in rare cases. Now, you might assume that you can safely presume that a given character is neither homosexual or bisexual unless there have been given very specific indicators that they are, but the fact is that other people presume that they can portray someone as being bisexual or homosexual unless there have been given very specific indicators that they are not.
This is even more enhanced when you deal with younger characters, who may, hypothetically, not entirely have come to grips with their sexuality, puberty being an awkward time for many, particularly given the generally traumatic past of your typical anime protagonist, as well as many of the other characters within. To someone inclined to want to see such things, the suggestion that said character may be 'confused' is a popular thought, or that they don't really understand the difference between sexual and nonsexual love, confusing a desire for close friendship with sexual attraction. You can certainly scoff and call bullshit, but to them, it seems a not unreasonable premise, admittedly one greatly influenced by their own personal preferences when it comes to romance.
What it all boils down to is this: Most yaoi fanfiction authors are not writing fanfiction solely to annoy people. Some may be doing so, but for the most part, like many fanfiction authors out there, they are simply creating fanfiction to indulge their personal tastes, as well as for the tastes of their audience. Many of them view their favored pairings as being realistic, regardless of whether or not this is actually the case, and the reasoning behind this realism are not often particularly thought out. It may, in the long run, simply boil down to them liking the way the two look together, or interact together, or interact in someone else's portrayal of those two (or three, or four, or more) characters.
Do I like it? No. Do I think Ranma is going to realistically be attracted to any guy? No. Do I think that Naruto is going to be attracted to any (non-Haku) guy? No. Do I want to read stories where either happen? No. But, at least in my opinion, they're just writing what they and their target audience wants to read...much like the vast majority of most fanfiction everywhere, in all its character-raping, canon-destroying, buildup deficit. and thoroughly sucky glory. :mellow:
I'll accept that for the most part. It is obnoxious, and yes, we really wish you didn't share that piece of crap with us. Coming from a guy that spent a lot of time with Ranma fanfics back in the days of TASS Awards and whatnot, it's obscene the things they do with the characters, ripping them so far from IC it's a 50/50 shot if they even look the same. Yaoi is just the icing on the cake for me. Primarily because time and time again, I find the most lamest, agonizing, horribly-raped plots and summaries in FFN, it's enough to make me want to go gay just to see if it'll stop the agony. I mean, OMG, I couldn't dream the horrible shit they're passing off as stories.
I almost wish anime and manga stayed a niche thing. $16.95 for a manga volume seems like such a small price to pay now... fanfic writers back then tended to be older and a bit more competent about writing.
yasuhei said:
I'm not a big fan of yaoi at all, but people in this forum constantly act like there's no closeness between Naruto and Sasuke.? I don't really think they are gay, but pre-timeskip there's no one in Naruto's life who he's closer to than Sasuke and vise-versa.?
It's not the enormous stretch that people keep making out to equate their antagonistic friendship to the way that younger teen guys often display interest by insulting or picking on their interests.? They are a better match for a yaoi story than many Male pairings that get written about.
My biggest problem with yoai Naruto fiction is that none of it is well written.? Authors tend to assume there is already this homosexual thing between them, instead of actually going to the trouble of developing it themselves.? I hate how so few yaoi Naruto fics seem to have well developed characters, but to be fair this is true of fics in general, it's just easier for us to ignore poor writing when we already inherently like the subject matter.
1) I understand perfectly the friendship aspect between Naruto and Sasuke, It's my number reason why I get so irked by NaruSasu-SasuNaru fics. They're best friends, or at least that's how Naruto still sees Sasuke. Thus, he's going to do everything in his power to save him. You'd go out of your way to save you best friend from something stupid and dangerous, right? (if not, get the fuck away, you heartless bastard!) It doesn't mean he's only doing it because he loves him desperately and wants to suck the cum out of his balls. I get so offended with that sort of thing, it's a mockery of the entire story.
Probably because I'm one of the few people that actually
likes the story as is.
2) It's a horrible travesty we let everyone and their momma near a keyboard. If the OOCness of the characters isn't bad enough, the quality makes my fecal matter puke. I've said before I'll read even a yaoi story if it's well-written, but problem is, no one can step to the plate. I've yet to hear of one that is not only well-written -- meaning, the idea is sound and simplified, you actually took the time to look up your subject, developed the story at aa steady pace, involved lots of suspense and tension, spellchecked it with machine and by hand (this is important stuff; take notes), have event open up and end naturally, reasonably, plausibly and believably (no asspulls or deus ex machina), had a story arc (the opening, the situation, building suspense, apex, falling down, moment of truth, and resolution), and is engaging -- but also makes sense. Basically, you'd have to be able to believe it can in fact grow into this form. Being based in canon helps, as quite frankly, it's not going to work if you're placing them in anything other than their established universe. High school, corporate life, even accidental strangers from around the way have their own rules, and they don;t match the Narutoverse. Far as I'm concerned, they're just cosplayers.
Dumbledork said:
I've been thinking the same thing for a long time. If there's one plausible yaoi pairing it's Naruto/Sasuke. And Naruto even promises to get the asshole back and tries everything to do just that instead of... I don't know, doing the logical thing and kill the traitor.
And Sasuke must have some feelings for Naruto too or he would have finished him at the Valley of the End.
What, wouldn't you go out on a limb for your best friend?
To be fair, we're talking about someone who never had friends -- let alone be told he was someone's
best friend -- until he was twelve, and admittedly sought to be praised and approved of. Sasuke approved of him, but more importantly, SAKURA approved of him when she asked him to bring Sasuke back.
Yeah, Naruto's a masochist. It doesn't change the fact that he's loathed to just say, "You know what, you're a fuckhead," and off Sasuke. Not unless he killed Sakura, which in that case, all bets are off.
As for Sasuke, he cared. Cared enough to call him his best friend. This is why we're in the muck we're in today in the Narutoverse.