#But I haven't decided yet

[larissa-the-scribe]

The main two in Team CENCA!

Lead Agent Percival Stanton:

Head of his department and skilled field agent. Leads by example-- and by knowing everything. Personable and warm, but professionalism can make him seem standoffish or awkward. A nerd who likes all the things about his job, including the "monsters". Has an eye for strategy, and is good at placing people to tasks, or tailoring tasks for specific people.

Agent Jeanne Townford:

Field agent and weapons specialist. Knows how to use pretty much any weapon, and can train others to do so, too. A bit of a depressed mess, who cares a lot about helping people--maybe too much, as she has no qualms about throwing herself in the line of fire. Can be surprisingly helpful in comforting victims and the civilians caught up in cases. Typically paired with Stanton, as they do well together in the field.

[squealing-for-harusono-sensei]

Is Sasaki to Miyano BL? (Pt. 1: Genre is COMPLICATED)

I can practically hear some saying "Obviously??" And others yelling "NO IT'S NOT!!!" to that question.

For those of you who don't get why this is even in question, it's because Harusono-sensei doesn't classify Sasaki to Miyano as BL. The first volume cover denies that it's BL and on the site where it's published, it isn't categorized as BL.

Some may argue that it doesn't matter. It's about two boys who end up together, isn't that enough? "Death of the author" and all that.

I studied literature in college. Admittedly, I had a hard time understanding genre–so I had it as one of the main topics of my graduating thesis out of spite. And got the best possible grade. So I think it's safe to assume that I learned and know more about this than the majority of this fandom. And I say, that question? Is VERY complicated to answer.

The thing is, a lot of people think of genre as a binary. Either something is or isn't a part of that genre. In reality, it's closer to a spectrum and there are a lot of grey areas.

Take the arguments I presented for and against Sasaki to Miyano being BL. How much you buy into either of those arguments is largely depended on

1) Who you think has the most authority over what genre a work is. Is it the author or the reader?

2) What makes a BL BL? Is love between two boys really the only factor?

Neither of these have a clear answer. The reason why I was so confused about genre was because the academic world don't agree on what it even is. We all agree that genre is a thing, but we can't define it.

As I see it, genre is a byproduct of the human instinct to see patterns in things. We see a story and go "This is like that other story!" Once we have a large enough amount of stories that resemble each other and we give that group a name, BAM! We have a new genre.

Which is why defining it is so hard. Stories can be similar in a lot of different ways. But stories aren't similar if they only have one commonality. And yet we tend to boil the similarities down to only one aspect.

Take the isekai genre. Stories about going to another world goes WAY back. And yet, it's only within the last decade that we gave them that name. As I see it, it's because earlier they were similar enough to fantasy stories to simply be lumped into that genre. Whether the main character was born into a magical world or came into it later in life didn't change things enough for those stories to be dissimilar. At most it was a sub-genre of fantasy (e.g. portal fantasy). But suddenly we got a lot of stories about being transported into another world that were very similar in a distinct way. The main character was similar. They ended up in similar worlds. They were, for one reason or another, OP in this new world. They had similar tropes, characters, plot progressions. So these stories were given a name–isekai. Meaning different world. And then, because being transported to another world is the most distinct feature, all stories with that premise is categorized as isekai regardless of how well the term actually fits. (Although if it only has the premise as point of similarity, veterans of the genre will typically say that it is only technically isekai, or distinguish it from other isekai in some other way.)

Looping back to BL, if romance between two boys is the only defining factor, we can't call BL a genre...right? Well, yes, but once something is a genre things get even more complicated.

But does it have to be? Couldn't we just solve it by having the author decide the genre?

Sadly, authors are not immune misclassifying their works. Authors are not immune to misunderstanding genres, for one, though I think we can safely rule out any of those reasons in this case. Harusono-sensei clearly knows a lot about BL–a lot of Sasaki to Miyano's humor wouldn't work otherwise. However, that doesn't rule out not being able to see the forest for the trees. Sometimes an author is too close to their work to recognize the genre because they get bogged down in all the details that make their work unique. There is also the possibility of Harusono-sensei just plain lying to us. Because sometimes authors do that.

But why would an author ever want to lie about the genre? Because genre shapes expectations.

This is why the question of what genre a work is even matters. In worst case scenarios, it's like eating something sour when you were expecting something sweet. You probably wouldn't like it, even though you would have liked it if you had known it would be sour. The worst case scenario isn't relevant for this question, but the point is that being told that something is a specific genre is going to affect how you experience the story.

Regardless of whether or not Sasaki to Miyano is or isn't BL, Harusono-sensei did have something in mind when she called it Boys' Life instead of BL. So whenever you recommend it, I think it's worth pointing out that it's a Boys' Life story. Because that's the expectation that Harusono-sensei intended for readers to have.

Does that then exclude Sasaki to Miyano from the BL genre? Not necessarily. Partly because I think that Harusono-sensei is half lying about the "not a BL" thing. More about that in part two, where I explore what I think Harusono-sensei intended with calling Sasaki to Miyano a Boys' Life story, NOT a BL.

But I did mention that the author might not be the most reliable source of what genre the work is. So I probably should try to answer the question instead of just making it more complicated.

If you try to rationally figure out the answer instead of just going by "I know it when I see it," there are a couple of different ways to do it.

One way of thinking about genre is that it's a collection of common traits that might occur in a genre. It might common character types (e.g. badboy uke), common tropes (e.g. kabedon), common plot developments (e.g. misunderstandings), etc. etc. Some are more critical than others. If there is no romance between two boys then it is categorically not BL.

Another is seeing genre as there being an imaginary story that perfectly exemplifies a genre. Whether or not a story is a part of that genre depends on how close it is to that ideal genre story.

These are just some examples, but the problem is that there isn't really a clear cut answer no matter how you try to figure out a genre. A lot is up to personal interpretation. Plus genre keeps changing. Each new story that is widely accepted as a part of that genre broadens what the genre can be.

Plus the simple fact that no one can read every story that may or may not be a part of a specific genre. I tend to avoid dark stories and have gotten less and less tolerant towards non-consent with age. So there are parts of the BL genre that I don't really engage with. Which then affects how I view the genre.

As I see it, the more you read a genre, the better your understanding of it is. And everyone who are avid readers of a genre will have similar but slightly different understandings of the genre.

Trying to figure out what genre Sasaki to Miyano is the rational way is way more work than I am willing to do. And realistically, kinda impossible. So I'll just give my two cents as someone who has read a lot of BL.

Sasaki to Miyano is partly BL. Which probably sounds like a cop-out answer, but I do mean it. While wholesome, it works a lot more on real world logic than BL logic and also focuses on things outside of Sasaki and Miyano's relationship. But the focus on the romantic aspect of Sasaki and Miyano's relationship, dealing with some of the same themes as BL, and the importance of the BL genre on the story can't be ignored either. So I consider it a fusion of BL and slice-of-life.

But if you read a lot of BL and have a different take? Then it's just as valid as mine.

[feltpool]

Cuddly, but deadly

It took four days of using whatever time I had while the recipient was out of the house but I have completed my knitted gift object:

I lost my game of yarn chicken, which I suspected I would from the start, but it isn't noticeable unless the Dalek falls over so that's fine

The flash makes the whole base look a lot lighter than it really is, that lighter circle in the middle is way less obvious in person.

[thelittlestspider]

may have an entire new cast of characters inspired by a dream

[rememberthelaughtermp3]

i also need suggestions for which gerard to put in my phone case because the current ones very tiny and blurry but very sweet nonetheless

[the-darkness-does-not-bargain]

you say twitch au i fling myself into your askbox at the speed of sound. terrible at guessing but i think ava and lilith should play against each other in a game on stream and whoever loses has to [redacted][redacted][also redacted]

Oh, the fans would absolutely adore that. On the surface, it's for a charity stream, but off-camera it's like, the most charged sex game anyone’s ever conceived of. They would have to find a game that Lilith could compete in despite her inexperience 🤔, maybe a puzzle game like The Witness or a strategy game like Civ or something. And they play in separate rooms because otherwise the looks they'd be giving each other would set the computer on fire.

[laracrofted]

re-opened my doc because i had an idea to maybe fix some of the issues i was having and felt a visceral spike of anxiety 🙃

[pokimoko]

Asexual bird? Please

How about two asexual birds?

[rpvlix]

//Especially for fellow multimuses and folks with more long term relationships with my own muses, if you ever want me to tag threads with YOUR characters name, or if you wanna make a ship tag for example, feel feee to get in my dms :)

I try to tag well enough for stuff to be easy to track down for rereading purposes (bc i know i love rereading and referencing old threads, and i gotta be able to find them to do that) But i know that just tagging a blog url is not so handy when you have multiple muses and maybe want to search my blog for a specific one.

[densewentz]

a quick silly sketch based off my earlier post about the Cat King having a mistaken identity crisis when Edwin and Co. don't recognize him in his new cat form post-esther

[onebadnoodle]

[🍒]

[lotus-pear]

mourning black and the death of ideals

[snarkspawn]

I really enjoy playing through tnp again like hi it's been a while

[otiksimr]

Mangled!

[flickering-nightfall]

How long do you think they would last if a pink lizard walked in here? 10 seconds? 20, maybe,

[hoofpeet]

Girl freak nation ❗