OK, so, you wanna know what the above are? Well, they refer to pairings or couples in fandom (fic/art/whatever) and basically, yaoi means gay and yuri means lesbian.
YAOI is an acronym for Japanese meaning something along the lines of "without plot, meaning or point" (I think - if I'm wrong, please laugh at me. Then tell me...) so in terms of a fic it suggests that it's basically a (gay) sex scene and doesn't actually "mean", in the literal sense, gay.
YURI, well, I haven't a clue, but it means lesbians so if you don't want to read/see anything pertaining thereto, look out because you'll see a lot of it around and there will be some on our site. If I have my way, anyway... If you think it's sick, see the banner at the bottom of this page...
Anyways, a couple more terms you might need - shonen ai and shoujo ai. These translate literally as boy-love and girl-love, and also refer respectively to gay and lesbian relationships in fandom. These, however, tend to focus more on the sweet, cute, aw-kawaii-love side of the aforementioned relationships rather than the steamy sex. *^_~* |
