Something has to give: Yaoi Guys

I'm pretty sure there's a trope in here but it's currently a mess. It's being used for everything from Ho Yay between side characters, Ho Yay between protagonists, Shipping of two male characters (who may or may not have Ho Yay), established relationships between two guys in ensemble casts, established relationships between protagonists of Boys' Love works (which is very definitely not this trope, but is also probably the easiest assumption to make if one looks at the title alone). It's also got non-humanoid examples (can you be a Yaoi Guy if you are a goat? That's a sincere question).

Reading through the description, it seems like the original intent was a trope about female-oriented media including male homosexual romance among two side characters for fanservice. Whether any of the drifts in meaning are better or worse is up for debate, but I think we should pick one definition which goes best with the name, and send any other tropes picked out of the muck to ykttw or to already existing tropes (Ho Yay probably covers a good deal of these already).

Thoughts?

I always see this potholed as "a group of guys who were homosexuals and are friends or grouped/seen together" and/or "two or more homosexuals who are part of a relationship of some kind"

Yeah this is pretty much the Gay Couple although it should be restricted to the Seme Uke dynamic that is pretty much the way Yaoi (EDIT: grr stop that fucking custom titling) "Yaoi" goes.

The Boys' Love Genre is the genre these are the characters.

edited 13th Sep '11 1:06:12 PM by Raso

So what should we do with it? A "gay couple of any kind" is too broad to trope, one would think. And as we already have Seme and Uke, having a separate trope for a Seme-Uke pair would seem redundant. It's also worth remembering this trope started out being about the Shoujo Genre rather than the Boys' Love Genre, so where would all the non-BL examples go if we made it only about the main characters of those works?

We could start a Token Gay Couple trope for when it's used for fanservice or inclusiveness, and let Yaoi Guys be what Raso describes: the main characters in a yaoi or boys' love work. Then again, since we have Seme and Uke, do we really need a page for "couple consisting of a seme and an uke"? I'd prefer sticking with the original intent of the page (gay couple not as main characters, not in a gay-themed (e.g. yaoi) work, usually as fanservice in anime with a female target audience. Or a male one, I suppose, for reasons related to Bishounen Jump Syndrome).

I think the page as it currently is described is definatly a trope, to extent that it was openly refered in the Genre Savy Ouran Highschool Host Club anime adaptation with Tamaki refers to himself and Haruhi as the Official Couple and the rest of the Host Club as homosexual side characters (a description they don't take kindly).

As far as I understand the history, Yaoi Guys was split off from Boys' Love as a trope to cover 1) BL-style couples that aren't in a BL manga, and 2) the BL-tease stuff like Betrayal Knows My Name, where the series is obviously interested in having the reader ship the characters but never comes out and does anything that explicitly makes them a couple. I don't see anything wrong with the trope as such, but if people are getting confused then maybe it needs a cleanup and a re-write to make it clear that it is about BL-couples and/or BL-tease in non-BL series only.

People are definitely getting confused considering all the misuse, so I guess the question is do we put this trope up for a rename and cut all the bad examples, or keep Yaoi Guys as a title for one of the things this is being misused as and send the original trope (and possibly others) to ykttw or the sandbox to sort them out.

Well, I think there's a value for "BL-couples and BL-tease not in an actual BL series", since it's very common and otherwise the Boys' Love Genre page will be filled up with stuff that doesn't fit there, so I'd go for cleanup, tweak the description, and maybe rename.

Actually, having thought about it a bit, there might be value in splitting it into two: BL Side Couple, for cannon BL-style relationships among secondary characters, and Totally Not BL (or something), for the series that exist to provide a solid wall of Ship Tease but aren't officially BL. Then we might keep Yaoi Guys as a sort of disambiguation page for the three options (Boys' Love Genre, BL Side Couple, and Totally Not BL or whatever we end up calling them). Opinions?

I can see the merit in that.

Hmmm. The Totally Not BL option may already be covered in practice by the list of manga that are commonly mistaken for Boys' Love on that page. Turning Yaoi Guys into a disambiguation page sounds like a good idea though, because the wicks are a mess.

Well, the "commonly mistaken for BL" section is long enough that it may merit its own trope. Anyone object to me throwing these onto YKTTW?

Disregard me; I can't read.

edited 22nd Sep '11 10:18:39 AM by DoktorvonEurotrash

YKTTW for BLSideCouple

YKTTW for TotallyNotBL

Opinions and suggestions solicited.

Please, please don't use initialisms. Not everyone knows what you mean with them.

Spelled out "Boys Love" on both YKKT Ws; the downside to that is if those are chosen as the final titles they will need a Custom Title to add an apostrophe.

Why is that a downside?

Because custom titles seem to be causing a lot of bugs, no? Anyway, the existing titles are off-the-cuff suggestions, so please shout if you think of anything better.

Generally only when namespaces or funny characters are involved. Apostrophes in Main/ haven't caused any harm, AFAIK.

Custom titler causes bugs when a Name Space is a Wiki Word or when somebody submits the non-standard character coding.

Why is this a trope? I mean, its basically Gay Men in Relationships. This isn't a trope to me, its just something that is. I mean, I'd have the same objection to Heterosexuals in Relationships, for what its worth, for the same reason.

No, it isn't. Read the description.

I did. Its still just Gay guys. At worst its Gay Guys In Japanese Cartoons.

Not Tropeable. There literally is no trope here.

edited 4th Oct '11 10:10:08 AM by Worldmaker

I also fail to see how this is a trope. I can't be sure it isn't one, but if it is, then it needs a vastly improved description.