#fiction terminology

[fellharder]

Terminology quibbling

What defines a BL/GL/QL that makes it not a regular queer romance?

My short answer to that is "I don't have any fucking idea".

My long answer is that personally I go with whatever people decide something is called because it's easier to be understood when you operate within an agreed upon terminology. If the romance is the plot line and other plot aspects take the backseat, there's zero or very little Gay Angst, the themes are reasonably typical of BL since the start and how it has developed, sure, I'll call it BL/GL/QL.

From the manga A Man Who Defies the World of BL

To continue the long answer, I don't view queer romance as a subgenre of romance, but queer is a useful additional label (and an academic term) for not-straight and/or not-cis romance subgenres. Of course, genres are only commonly agreed upon labels, they're not cast in stone, and your mileage may and will vary depending on what you find relevant when categorising works. It's just, as I mentioned above, easier to do as the Romans when in fiction-discussion Rome.

Genre definitions based on themes and form make a fair bit sense to me personally, such as romance, satire and documentary, but genres as a tree structure don't make sense to me at all. A set of labels/tags for various important characteristics of the work in question do make the most sense to me - like "love story, LGBTQIA+, gay/bi/pan male lead character(s), gay/bi/pan male support character(s), South Korea, urban life, paranormal, comedy, animal-human transformation, bar setting" - I'd be interested in a queer love story, side-eye the paranormal bit but be intrigued by the transformation. This is me making a set of tags for a specific show that exists, by the way. It gets classified as a BL, not as a queer romance.

There's already a generally agreed upon characteristc of BL/GL that the most important part of the story is the love story, they're not for instance action shows with a love side plot, which makes the romance/love story label fairly mandatory. Labels indicating that the main love story isn't about heterosexuals would also be ever-present for what we call BL/GL/QL now.

The long answer also includes that romances are not limited to rom-com or lighthearted feelings, but include tragedies, tales of loss, tales of abuse, crime stories and so on and so forth. The number of fiction genres and subgenres is vast - and it makes no sense to me to make a branch on the fiction tree called queer, where pretty much all of the general fiction varieties get a second twig or leaf labelled "queer [insert usual subgenre term]" and then staple another branch to the queer branch and do the same thing all over again with "BL [insert usual subgenre term]". Or stick the BL branch somewhere else in the tree, for that matter.

Side note: a Tumblr post is probably not the best way to revolutionise how the world thinks about genres and labelling of fiction.

Another side note: I'm not dipping into how the terminology is used in Japan, but do read this great blog post by nicks-den. BL history is very interesting and it's always good to know some background. But as Erica Friedman says in the notes to "On defining yuri", "Fan language is free to shift and change with fashion and need, so that it often runs ahead of both commercial and research terminology (...)" - this fan language has shifted a fair bit in the export out of Japan, and the usage a lot of fans globally are familiar with is what I'm talking about.

However the category is defined, the outdated notion that BL/yaoi is more or less steamy gay stuff made for and by straight women shouldn't be a factor in the definition anymore, although some people do like to cling to that idea. There may however be a notable lack of queer community references, because the target audience is generally more widely defined than The Gay People, but as there are cultural differences between such communities, it may just be that as a queer moving in social circle A in region B you miss a reference that's well known in social circle C in region D.

Which means I can't really see how BL/GL differs all that much from any other queer romance, except possibly in that the plot conflicts, the obstacles to the love story, don't primarily have to do with being queer (i.e. the QL lack of Gay Angst). If there's a struggle with acceptance from the couple's surroundings, does that maybe make it a non-BL/GL?

Is SKAM season 3 a queer romance because the main character struggles with accepting his sexuality and with belonging to a community he doesn't feel is relevant, or is it a BL because it's an intense boy/boy romance with very little in the way of sexuality acceptance plot points and very much in the way of other forms of acceptance plot points?

tl;dr I don't like the BL/GL/QL terms all that much.

It's all (queer) romance, as far as I'm concerned. I also happen to be extremely tired of the main obstacle to love and happiness etc. in queer fiction being omg gay. I've practically stopped watching Western queer films because if I have to watch one more teary homophobia scene I may have to maim the director. I want some fucking escape, goddamnit, I want non-heterosexuality to not be a fucking problem all the time in our own fucking media. And this is why I have a permanent grin on my face when watching something where anything can be an obstacle except the queerness. I have actually slowly started to get rid of some of the annoyance with queerness obstacles, some soft BL approaches have been just fine with me, since I said to hell with it and dived into QL.

I don't really have any great suggestions for a better terminology than LGBTQ+ romance/queer romance (I quite like this overview of the genre, although it lacks some common Asian QL traits), but I do have some thoughts.

Perhaps what we in this age and place call BL/GL could be labelled idealised queer romance.

I mean, the usual expectance of a BL/GL is that it's pretty idealised anyway.

(Yes, I'm aware that "idealised romance" is a bit of a pleonasm. A romantic story can be pretty gritty, though. For an example of a romance narrative that's not very idyllic you have literally thousands of so-called regular queer films and books to choose from.)

Seeing as BL/GL often feature a queer semi-permeable bubble where the characters don't have to deal much with being surrounded by straights, and the obstacles to the romance often have little to do with struggles queer people face, the world in a typical QL can be viewed as a fairly rosy picture. In other queer romances, you can bet homophobia is going to rear its ugly head at some point.

Ditching the BL/GL terms would sort out some arguments about for instance I Told Sunset About You - it's romantic, it's Asian (which does tend to make a lot of non-Asian people think BL automatically), but Oh-aew's and Teh's struggles with identity and sexuality practically scream Gay Angst queer romance.

If everything is a variety of queer romance, then I Told Sunset About You is a queer romance, which could also be tagged as idealised by some, while 2gether is without doubt an idealised queer romance.

These two examples are naturally not randomly picked, 2gether is often held up as an example of extremely BL-y BL while there are arguments about which genre I Told Sunset About You belongs to.

(What's more, in Thailand the genres aren't called BL and GL, although they do use those terms as well so that the international crowd understands. It's called waai (วาย) from the letter Y for yaoi/yuri, which is basically as little helpful as BL/GL, but it neatly illustrates a shift in fan language.)

In more recent days and somewhat ambiguous, we have My Stand-In, which dips its toes into the cesspool of homophobia but resolves it BL style easily. Is it an idealised queer romance? Maybe. Do we have to argue at great length about that or can we just call it a queer romance? I think so. Would I call it an IQR (look, groovy acronym!)? I would, but I can see how it could be viewed as not sufficiently idealised.

All in all, I'd like to move on from arguments about whether something is a BL or not, based more or less on personal ideas about what a BL is (I've seen some who seem unaware that non-BL queer shows and films exist) to arguments about how idealised a show is and how central the love story is in it. The volume of arguments wouldn't be reduced in the slightest, but I think it would make more sense as the output of comics/novels/live action shows and films operate now.

Gratuitious My Stand-In gif as a separator before some parentheses finish up the post:

(I've talked a bit about terminology with some friends and I was very insistent to one about having spotted a Greek BL on Gagaoolala, and then I mulled over words and meanings for a while and I also looked in vain for that Greek BL, hence this post. I found two Greek films, but are they BL/GL or not? Gagaoolala has a BL/Yaoi category, but they don't tag films or shows as BL. Is it important how the films are labelled, when I'm able to find what I want to see? (Actually the 'Greece' tag does not work and I need to have words with Gagaoolala, but I digress.) Either way I'm planning on giving both a go. And possibly call them QR or IQR or just bloody IR as I see fit.)

(I may have to revamp this blog to try and make "idealised queer romance" happen instead of talking about BL/GL/QL.)

[the-bar-sinister]

headcanon: "i have decided that this is true about the character, and it doesn't matter to me if the canon text supports my idea or not."

interpretation: "after considering elements present in the canon text, I have decided that this might be true about the character and here's why."

subtext: "I can show you strong evidence in the text and context of the work that this interpretation could be the actual authorial intent."

EDIT: reblogs are off AGAIN, because the copy that's being reblogged around now is once again the "divine revelation" goof which is completely against the spirit of actual education the post is intended in.

Please see this post for further information:

[noosphe-re]

"There was an exchange on Twitter a while back where someone said, ‘What is artificial intelligence?' And someone else said, 'A poor choice of words in 1954'," he says. "And, you know, they’re right. I think that if we had chosen a different phrase for it, back in the '50s, we might have avoided a lot of the confusion that we're having now." So if he had to invent a term, what would it be? His answer is instant: applied statistics. "It's genuinely amazing that...these sorts of things can be extracted from a statistical analysis of a large body of text," he says. But, in his view, that doesn't make the tools intelligent. Applied statistics is a far more precise descriptor, "but no one wants to use that term, because it's not as sexy".

'The machines we have now are not conscious', Lunch with the FT, Ted Chiang, by Madhumita Murgia, 3 June/4 June 2023

[skumhuu]

Proshipper = you're against censorship and harassment over fiction & curate your experience on the internet to have a healthy distance from things that make you uncomfortable

Antishipper = you're okay and even encourage harassment towards "freaks" and "weirdos" society deems acceptable to hurt

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Some Law-Related Vocabulary

for your poem/story (pt. 1/4)

Acquiescence - acceptance, compliance, or submitting tacitly or passively

Act of God - an extraordinary natural event (as a flood or earthquake) that cannot be reasonably foreseen or prevented

Amicus curiae - friend of the court

Bad faith - intentional deception, dishonesty, or failure to meet an obligation or duty

Bill of pains and penalties - a legislative act formerly permitted that imposed a punishment less severe than death without benefit of a judicial trial

Blackacre - a fictitious piece of real property

Causa mortis - made or done in contemplation of one's impending death

Cool state of blood - an emotional condition in which a person's anger or passion is not great enough to overcome his or her faculties or ability to reason—often used in statutory definitions of murder

Depraved-heart murder - a murder that is the result of an act which is dangerous to others and shows that the perpetrator has a depraved mind and no regard for human life

Dereliction - an intentional abandonment

Executrix - a woman who is an executor

Expunge - to cancel out or destroy completely

Extraordinary remedy - a procedure for obtaining judicial relief allowed when no other method is available, appropriate, or useful

Ferae naturae - wild by nature; not usually tamed

Fighting words - words which by their very utterance are likely to inflict harm on or provoke a breach of the peace by the average person to whom they are directed

Fifth degree - the grade sometimes given to the least serious form of a crime

Fruit of the poisonous tree - evidence that is inadmissible under an evidentiary exclusionary rule because it was derived from or gathered during an illegal action

Gift causa mortis - a gift of especially personal property made in contemplation of impending death that is delivered with the intent that the gift take effect only in the event of the donor's death and that it be revoked in the event of survival

Hot blood - heat of passion; an agitated state of mind (as anger or terror) prompted by provocation sufficient to overcome the ability of a reasonable person to reflect on and control his or her actions

Inveigle - to lure by false representations or other deceit

Lucri causa - intent to obtain a gain

Mystic will - in the civil law of Louisiana; a will signed, sealed, witnessed, and notarized according to statutory procedure; called also mystic testament, secret testament

Naked promise - gratuitous promise

Obligor - one who is bound by an obligation to another

Penumbra - an area within which distinction or resolution is difficult or uncertain

Quaere - question—usually used to introduce a question

Recusant - refusing to submit to authority

Solatium - compensation for grief or wounded feelings (as from the wrongful death of a relative)

Third degree - the grade given to the third most serious forms of crimes

Uberrimae fidei - of the utmost or perfect good faith

Vitiate - to make ineffective

Word of art - a word having a particular meaning in a field; also called "term of art"

X - a mark used in place of a signature when the maker is incapable of signing his or her name (as because of illiteracy or a physical ailment)

Year-and-a-day rule - a common-law rule that relieves a defendant of responsibility for homicide if the victim lives for more than one year and one day after being injured (Note: This rule dates from at least 1278, and is frequently criticized as anachronistic since modern medicine makes pinpointing cause of death easier than it was formerly. However, the rule still exists or is reflected in the law of some jurisdictions.)

Zone of danger - the area within which one is in actual physical peril from the negligent conduct of another person

If any of these words make their way into your next poem/story, please tag me, or leave a link in the replies. I would love to read them!

More: Law-Related Words ⚜ Word Lists

[threeyrslost]

“Proshipping actually means problematic ship, and proshipping is bad. Proshippers are bad because they think abuse and toxic relationships are okay in REAL LIFE!”

So self-declared proshippers. By this logic. Call themselves. “Problematic shippers.” Because they “see nothing wrong in toxic and abusive relationships”. So they. Apparently turn around and. Call it. Problematic. The supposed group that “thinks abuse is okay”. Would then turn around and call it “problematic”…?

Okie, u know what buddy, so real, so true; I’m gonna lie, you are spitting! <3

[cripplecharacters]

I'm writing a story set in the 1800s that has an intellectually disabled character. how would you recommend I get across that they are intellectually disabled given that the respectful terms wouldn't really have existed then?

Hey!

I think that the best idea would be to just show the symptoms of their disability. Show them struggle with tasks (which ones would depend on the severity of their disability), if they are able to do so they could speak differently when compared to other characters - I often forget words when speaking, repeat myself because I didn't understand the answer to a question (or realized that it was the answer), or have to ask someone for a TLDR because I got lost in what they were saying (even if I'm actively paying attention). Sometimes I also have to circle multiple times to a single idea to "get it out" properly because it's hard to conceptualize it all at once. Your character could also get overwhelmed or stressed more easily.

Also, often ID comes with physical symptoms so they could have dyspraxia like me (and a lot of other people). In case their ID is caused by a syndrome, it could work to describe the facial features that come with it, e.g. I think most readers would be familiar with how a person with Down Syndrome looks like. But the most important part is to show the actual symptoms of the disability.

If you want to name the disability without using slurs, "delayed" or "mentally disabled" or "having a slower thought process" could also work. They wouldn't be my primary choices in most contexts, but for historical fiction it's a bit different. "Handicapped" also started being used in the late 19th century, it's not necessarily a slur, but it's still offensive. You could go for something like "fallen behind their peers" if you want.

I think that it would be a good idea to mention in some kind of author's note that your work is a piece of historical fiction and that those terms aren't preferred now (and show those that are, i.e. intellectual disability in most places and general learning disability in the UK). A lot of people don't know this, so it could be genuinely educational.

Thanks for your ask,

mod Sasza

[ultra-phthalo]

Tech Used On Bots

Came up with some tech ideas of how the Reverse Contact AU restricts a bot's movement. - 'Magnetised anklets'. Slowing down the bot’s movement inside the zoo. [Slows down the bot. Prevents ramming against glass and enclosure walls. Tech functions only within zoo premises. - Stepping out of range will restore a Cybertronian's movement speed.] - Electric collar. Prevents transformation outside of the facility and curbs undesirable traits. - ‘Sleep Tags’. A red patch containing a liquid that tranquillises the Transformer. Used for repairs and check ups. [Don’t run out of Sleep Tags]. - ‘Piston Breakers’. A Safety feature that pins sections of the bots body to prevent accidental unconscious movement. These bars make a cracking noise and beeps depending on the degree of PSI strain being pushed against the ‘piston breakers’ or ‘bar breakers’ when a bot moves. [Tracking a bot’s consciousness during procedures is important but difficult. Sometimes they may suddenly move, slouching and potentially crushing the engineer operating on the bot.]

[princehendir]

No one is going to like this but the solution to people misusing mental health terminology like hyperfixation & special interest is to bring back the concept & framing of Nerd Culture. Also the term "squee".

[planetwhitetaillondon]

QUASI-LEGAL TERMINOLOGY AND IDEAS ABOUT HOW CENSORING DATA OR INFORMATION OR OBSERVATION AND OR FABRICATION OF INFORMATION MIGHT MAKE SENSE REGARDING PERSONS OF HIGH PUBLIC INTEREST AND RELATED TOPICS ONLY EXIST BECAUSE OF TIME TRAVEL CRIME. PUBLIC FIGURES NEED PUBLIC SCRUTINY. RELATED TO THE TERM SCANDAL. OFTEN RELATED TO PUBLIC FIGURES PRESENT IN AREAS UNFAMILIAR REQUESTING LIMITED INFORMATION RELATED TO THEM BE SHARED.

[the-bar-sinister]

"it's true to me because I want it to be true" is great and fine and wonderful in the context of fiction, but you cannot under any circumstances deliberately confuse the issue by pretending or insisting or joking that it's actually a real part of the source material.

You have to acknowledge that a separation exists between what you have made up about the characters from nothing and what's actually included in the story as text or you lose all grasp on media literacy.

[gcballet]

Physically exhausted now just from four hours close-reading fr where did my stamina go

[lurking-latinist]

🐈

[literaryvein-reblogs]

A Writing Refresher: Basic Grammatical Terms

Adjective: A word which qualifies or modifies the meaning of a noun; as in a 'red hat' or a 'quick fox'. They can be used to complement the verbs 'to be' or 'to seem' ('Sue seems happy today'). Adjectives are sometimes formed from nouns or verbs by the addition of a suffix such as '-able' (lovable), '-ful' (heedful), '-ic' (heroic), '-ish' (foolish), '-ive' (combative), '-ous' (famous), or '-y' (needy).

Adverb: A word which qualifies or adds to the action of a verb: as in 'he ran quickly', or 'he ran fast'. Adverbs can also qualify adjectives, as in 'the grass is intensely green'. They are usually formed by adding '-ly' to an adjective: 'playfully', 'combatively', 'foolishly'. They can also sometimes be formed by the addition of '-wise' to a noun ('the hands went round clockwise).

Clause: The word is often used but very hard to define. It is a sentence or sentence-like construction included within another sentence. A main clause might be a simple noun plus verb ('I did it'). A co-ordinate clause is of equal status with the main clause: 'I did it and she did it at the same time.' A subordinate clause might be nested within a sentence using the conjunction 'that': 'he said that the world was flat.' Here 'he said' is the main clause and the subordinate clause is 'the world was flat'. Relative clauses are usually introduced by a relative pronoun: 'I read the book which was falling to pieces'; 'She spoke to the man who was standing at the bar.'

Conjunction: A word used to connect words or constructions. Co-ordinating conjunctions such as 'and', and 'but' link together elements of equal importance in a sentence ('Fish and chips' are of equal importance). Subordinating conjunctions such as 'because', 'if', 'although', connect a subordinate clause to its superordinate clause ('We will do it if you insist'; 'We did it because he insisted).

Noun: A word used as the name or designation of a person or thing, such as 'duck' or 'river'. Abstract nouns denote abstract properties, such as 'invisibility', 'gentleness'. Proper nouns are nouns that designate one thing, as, for example, personal names.

Object: Usually the thing to which the action of a verb is done. More technically a substantive word, phrase, or clause, immediately dependent on, or ‘governed by’, a verb, as expressing, in the case of a verb of action, the person or thing to which the action is directed, or on which it is exerted; that which receives the action of the verb. So 'the man patted the dog', 'the woman was reading the book'. An indirect object of a verb denotes that which is indirectly affected by an action, but wihch is not the immediate product of it, as ‘Give him the book’, ‘Make me a coat’.

Participle: a word derived from a verb which functions like an adjective, as in 'let sleeping dogs lie'. More technically 'A word that partakes of the nature of a verb and an adjective; a derivative of a verb which has the function and construction of an adjective (qualifying a noun), while retaining some of those of the verb'. Present participles usually end in '-ing' and usually describe an action which is going on at the same time as the verb: so in the sentence '"Go and play on your own street," she said, kicking the ball', the saying and the kicking are simultaneous. Past participles usually end in '-ed' or '-en' ('the door was kicked in'; 'the door was broken'). They are used in two main ways: combined with the verb 'have' they form a past or 'perfect' tense (so called because it describes an action which has been completed or 'perfected'), as in 'I have smashed the plate'. Past participles can also be used in passive constructions (which describe what was done to something rather than what something did), as in 'the plate was smashed'.

Preposition: A part of speech which indicates a connection, between two other parts of speech, such as 'to', 'with', 'by' or 'from'. 'She came from China', 'He gave the chocolates to me'.

Pronoun: A part of speech which stands for a noun: 'he', 'she', 'him', 'her', 'them'. Possessive pronouns express ownership ('his', 'hers'). Reflexive pronouns are 'herself', 'himself', 'myself' and are used either for emphasis (he did it all himself'), or when an action reflects back on the agent who performs it ('he shot himself in the foot'). Relative pronouns include 'who', 'which', 'that' and are usually used in the form 'he rebuked the reader who had sung in the library'. Interrogative pronouns ask questions ('Who stole the pie?'; 'Which pie?'). Indefinite pronouns do not specify a particular person or thing: 'Anyone who studies grammar must be mad.' 'Somebody has to know about this stuff.'

Sentence: This is a term which professional linguists still find impossible to define adequately. It is usually supposed to be 'A sequence of words which makes complete sense, containing subject, object and main verb, and concluded by a full-stop'.

Subject: Usually the person or thing who is performing the action of a verb. More technically the grammatical subject is the part of a sentence of which an action is predicated: 'the man patted the dog'. It can be a single noun, or it can been a complex clause: 'the bald man who had just picked up the ball gave it to the dog.'

Syntax (Greek 'together arrangement'): a term designating the way in which words can be arranged and modified to construct sentences. Writers characteristically use syntactic sub-ordination when they aim for a highly formal effect, and syntactic co-ordination when they aim for a simpler, more straight-forward effect.

Verb: Usually a word which describes an action (such as 'he reads poems', 'she excels at cricket'). More technically 'That part of speech by which an assertion is made, or which serves to connect a subject with a predicate.' This technical definition includes the most frequent verb in the language: the verb 'to be' which can be used to connect a 'subject', such as 'he', with a 'predicate', such as 'good at hockey'. There are verbs which take an object ('he raps the desk'), which are called transitive verbs. Other verbs do not, and are termed intransitive verbs ('I sit, he lives'). Some verbs can be used either transitively or intransitively: 'I sing' is an intransitive usage; 'Paul McCartney sings "God save the Queen"' is a transitive usage. The main verb is the verb on which the structure of the sentence depends, and without which the sentence would not make any sense. In the following sentence the verb 'fell' is the main verb: 'The boy, who had run too quickly, fell'.

[thebiballerina]

I've seen quite a few people here criticize the use of the words "consume" and "content" in reference to various media and art forms. I understand why this might be; it has some very commercialized implications.

However, please, I beg of you: Understand that some of us are trying not to be specific about medium. I refuse to write something like "read/watch/listen to/play/view/etc." every time I want to be more general.

Either someone suggests a better way to phrase this, or you are consuming content and you're going to have to deal with it.

If it helps, you can always think of it in an erotic cannibalism way. People are into that, right?

[fromfiction]

What label should I use for characters that I get genuinely upset, as in shaky, to see getting hurt?

Comfort character might perhaps be the best label.

Others might chime in with alternatives.