Category talk:Pairings

I suggest subcategories for Category: Pairings. I would start with Category:Slash Pairings, Category:Het Pairings and Category:Femslash Pairings to make sorting and finding pages of interest easier and to get a better idea of what's already here and what's missing. --Doro (talk) 10:38, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

How do we categorize pages like Doumeki x Watanuki? Category:Yaoi Pairings?--æþel (talk) 10:56, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

That's how I would categorize it, but I'm not in yaoi fandom and don't really have a preference for that. That's why I said I would start with the slash/het/femslash pairings because those I know. --Doro (talk) 11:07, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

How would we categorize pairings involving one or more nonbinary/genderqueer people? I personally don't know of any that currently exist here on Fanlore, so maybe I'm looking too far ahead, but, for instance, Person of Interest could have a Root/The Machine pairing page at some point, or the Vorkosigan Saga could have a Miles/Bel Thorne pairing page, and I know there are other canons out there with characters that would not intuitively fit the slash/het/femslash distinctions. . . --PhoenixFalls (talk) 17:49, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

I would say we categorize them when we get to them. There is no need to force a page into a cat it doesn't fit. They are all under pairings anyway (Category:Pairing is part of the template). I would just like to make subcats for the pairings we can sort, because it would help when you are looking for more of the same. --Doro (talk) 18:08, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

I just worry that not having an obvious place for them could discourage people from creating the pages. (As with Gen Relationships.) When everything is mixed together in "Pairings" then defining a gender category for the pairing doesn't matter, because the only place for that information is in the infobox where you can fill in the blank with whatever fits the characters/fandom best. But as soon as we start additionally categorizing them by gender at this level we need to make sure that we aren't being inadvertently exclusionary. I mean, yeah, maybe at this point there aren't enough pages involving nb characters for there to be a subcategory for them, but I want to make sure it's clear somewhere that that lack of subcategory doesn't mean that the pages shouldn't be created in the future. (Does anyone know Homestuck fandom? I don't know anything about it, but it seems like a lot of the fic I scroll past on AO3 has the "Other" box checked instead of M/M or M/F or F/F. . . although it doesn't look like any of the 20 pages in the category at the moment are pairing pages, so maybe I'm still just borrowing trouble. . .) --PhoenixFalls (talk) 18:31, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Also I know the Transformers pairings have the actual transformers paired with humans (or at least I know the films do). I haven't gotten to that fandom yet but I'll definitely be making a few. Although I had to look up the definition of non-binary because I've never so maybe calling it something else?--Harpie (talk) 19:52, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure I follow the argument. I'm not suggesting changing anything about the Category Pairings as it is now (all pages belonging to a subcat would also still belong to the main pairing cat; they would be for example Category:Pairings and Category:Slash Pairings at the same time). So how would the pages not belonging to a subcat be worse off if it were easier to find m/m, f/f or m/f? To avoid misunderstandings we could explain in the scope of the pairing cat what the subcats are for and that there can always be more subcats for anything. --Doro (talk) 20:30, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

I guess I was bringing it up to ensure that there *will* be an explanation that makes it clear that if a pairing doesn't fit naturally in the slash/het/femslash(/yaoi/yuri) categories it doesn't have to be forced into one? And I was also worrying, a little, that this could lead to arguments over fans' differing perceptions of the gender of characters in canon -- for instance, when I mentioned Person of Interest, I was thinking of it because I got into a long discussion during Rare Women over whether the Machine qualified for the fest. I was arguing that the Machine has no confirmed gender in canon; another fan had nominated it because one character consistently genders the Machine as female. So someone creating the pairing page might put a Root/The Machine pairing page into the subcategory Femslash Pairings, and another would come along and argue strenuously that it doesn't belong there. Similarly, Harpie mentioned Transformers -- a canon/fandom I know very little about, but from watching the movies I would've instinctively called pretty much all the transformer pairings slash because they're voices by male actors, but I would not be surprised if others have argued that the transformers are genderless, being either aliens or cars. I personally would feel comfortable if a pairing page like that was in both a subcategory:femslash pairings and a subcategory:non-binary pairings (or something similar) or if it was neither subcategory, just included in the overarching gender-neutral category:pairings, but I would not be comfortable with it being in a subcategory:femslash pairings and no other gendered subcategory, because that turns what should be a neutral descriptive space (the categories/subcategories) into something that feels prescriptive, that is in itself shaping fans' perception of the ship.

Like I said, I'm probably borrowing trouble, but I'm always interested in how cases on the margins are handled, and I'm wary of implementing any system that doesn't have anything built in to handle them, because a lot of times when nothing is deliberately designed to handle marginal cases they get erased entirely as a result. --PhoenixFalls (talk) 21:26, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

We can include a note like This category is for m/m slash pairings. If a character's gender is uncertain or nonbinary, do not put the ship page here. Like Doro said, there's no need to put anything into the subcategories that doesn't fit there.

Incidentally, we have pages about genderfuck and transfic, but nothing about canon nonbinary characters or shipping them, if someone wants to start a page about it....--æþel (talk) 13:22, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

That seems fair enough, but I also think maybe a "see Category: Non-Binary (or whatever you're going to name it) pairings" after the above statement would be better, so that anyone editing/adding pages would know where to put them (even if the page isn't actually created yet but at least something would be there to give the editor a reminder).

Also remembered another non-binary(?) one, Sparrow from the video game series Fable can be portrayed by a female or male per author/gamer's choice. So the ship Sparrow/Reaver could be slash or het depending on the reader's choice. And I've been thinking the Impala from the Supernatural fandom is often shipped with Dean. While I guess most portray it as a woman, it still originally a car/machine.--Harpie (talk) 20:34, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

I´m a bit concerned about the meanings/limits of the term "slash" in comparison to "yaoi" for example (same with femslash/yuri etc.) Is it that clear cut which pairings fall under which term? It seems to me like there could be many examples of unclear/possible borderline cases, and I worry a bit that because we currently have more pages about Western fandoms/more editors more familiar with Western fandoms it would default to "slash unless clearly yaoi", giving one prevalence over the other, which we should try not to do whenever possible. Something like "M/M pairings" would seem more neutral to me. I´d love to have the opinion of some yaoi fans in this discussion. --Tiyire (talk) 10:58, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean in this context with limits. If something is considered yaoi by some and slash by others, there is no reason why the pairing couldn't have both categories, but in my experience there are not that many cases where that would be the case. (For example: From Eroica with Love is a manga series that spawned a slash fandom. It doesn't have a pairing page, though.) Most cases are pretty clear cut and if something doesn't fit the category, there is no need for it to be in that category. My point is that I would like to make it easier to find stuff. Sorting by the terms used in the respective fan cultures is a way to help members of these fandoms to find the things that are of interest to them. However, taking into account what has been said so far, I think what would be useful is to have an additional Category:Uncategorized Pairings for pairings that don't have their own category yet or where it's unclear how to sort them. That way they won't get lost among the hundereds of pairing pages and it would be easier to notice when we might need a new cat. --Doro (talk) 12:18, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

Proposal: Rename "Yaoi Pairings" to "BL Pairings"

So we were talking on Discord about how we feel awkward putting C-media ships in "Yaoi Pairings"

And at this point, BL seems to have supplanted yaoi as the general term for that kind of shipping (East&Southeast Asian fandoms, ships differentiated by top-bottom dynamics, tropes etc.)?? At least, I've seen it a lot among people who are into BL from multiple countries (e.g. https://absolutebl.tumblr.com/ ). Idk Japanese-only fandom -- I've definitely seen BL/ビーエル/ボーイズ ラブ used in Japanese contexts but Yaoi/腐向け has A LOT more results on Pixiv.

It's possible that we want a Japanese-fandom specific category (or a historical category), and also a BL category too. I'm pretty new to this whole area of fandom (and I can't read most of the relevant languages) so I'd really like to hear more opinions from people with more experience! -- Quaelegit (talk) 06:30, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

EDIT: also, rename "Yuri Pairings" to "GL pairings" -- probably?? Gotta admit I don't think I've seen GL being used on it's own, only in parallel construction to BL. Like when I see people talking about ships from ESEA fandoms involving to girls, I still mostly see it getting described as "yuri". With the possible exception of Thai dramas, I might have seen "GL" used in that context. -- Quaelegit (talk) 06:31, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

This is a discussion I've wanting to see for some time. Even though some people still uses yaoi and is recognizable, it is becoming obsolete, or it has already. Why not merge everything into slash, though? I know East Asian based fandoms don't normally use slash but just for conveniences sake. Same for femslash, although I agree that yuri is still broadly used as, unlike yaoi, it doesn't have negative connotations attached. I know it is a discussion for another category, but the doujinshi would also benefit from merging yaoi and slash. When I was going through doujinshi articles to fix their cats, my rule was: manga or anime: yaoi. Western: slash. But there are some fandoms that aren't that clear, like some videogame fandom etc. (I mention it here cause it's related). Alpha (talk) 08:57, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

Petition: Add M/M, F/M and F/F Master categories, make Gen all encompassing even if it's also terminology?

I've been making many ship pages for Total Drama, Danganronpa and Pokemon, and I've been having a lot of trouble with how the pairing system is currently set up. I think there should be M/M, F/F and M/M master categories, without any separation by term such as Slash, Yaoi, Het, Yuri, etc.

In Japanese-speaking fandom, all "pairings" are called "couplings". This is true for western media like South Park as well as Pokemon, they don't make distinctions. Sometimes they're called CP, short for character pairing, explained more on CP fan, but from a cat perspective, it should be labelled "coupling" for clarity since that's a frequently used word in particular while its never called "character pairing" in full, only CP.

So "pairing" in it of itself is terminology, not an all-encompassing category since not all "pairings" are called "pairings" by fans. Same can apply to Category: Gen Relationships. In Japanese, these are always called "Combi" instead of Gen. So that's also "terminology" and not all encompassing.

I've been adding Japanese-media ships to the Category: NL Pairings, because these are all called "NL Couplings" in JPN, but western fans do not call these ships that. From what I've seen, they're likely to have it be unlabelled. FFN never distinguished ships based off of gender, and I think that trickled down to most fandoms on there such as Pokemon, because I think rarely were F/M Pokemon Relationships called Het. I was never there, but I know 2017-2019 Danganronpa fandom didn't use the terminology "Het," it was mostly unlabelled or called F/M if they really needed to.

In my experience, 2017-2019, M/M Danganronpa ships were never labelled as Slash, Yaoi, BL, maybe they were called MLM couples or M/M, maybe Slash if it was on Archive of Our Own, but these terms are never used by Doujinka, who all call them "Boys' Love Couplings" or simply BL Couplings. It was never labelled as Yaoi on Tumblr or Instagram, which was my earliest fandom website around 2015-2018, but I feel like it would be incorrect to label Danganronpa ships under Slash. Even Team Fortress 2 ships I don't feel 100% confident as labeling as "Slash". It has a decently sized non-western fandom who are unfamiliar with the term, and many shippers consider the ships (all Male/Male) unlabelled or MLM or M/M. If asked, most fans nowadays would call it MLM.

Meanwhile, when I was researching for Cody/Noah from Total Drama, the vast majority of artwork for them back during 2007-2014 was called yaoi. There's a big argument that by Fanlore rules, it should be labelled as a "Yaoi Pairing", but the cartoon is Canadian and it has little to no Japanese fandom, so right now it is under "Slash Pairing" even though few fans back then called it that. Fans nowadays call it MLM or Slash, maybe, if its on Archive of Our Own, but many fans would call it MLM if asked.

TL; DR, JPN media fandoms terminologies are incredibly inconsistent and will always be inaccurate, (for example, what do Thai fans call Danganronpa pairings? Korean? Chinese? I know many Danganronpa fans speak these languages,) so I think that to make archiving those ships a lot easier, there should just be M/M, F/M, F/F, Moresomes, what have you -- Gen, since that's hard to define and out of my ballpark, should also include what JPN-speaking fandom dubs "combi" pairings. There's also "Cargo" ships, terminology used on Shipping Wiki and elsewhere, but I know there's probably a Japanese term for that too. Either that, or do what the Shipping Wiki does and have everything labelled as Slash, Femslash or Het. --Cavewomania (talk) 05:44, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

I seem to remember that there was a discussion some time back that reached a consensus to adopt "relationship" as a unified term for ships in categories. It's simple, straightforward, and avoids many of the pitfalls of other possibilities. It encompasses gen/platonic relationships, unlike "pairing," "coupling", etc. I know PPOV is a thing but sometimes it becomes necessary to make a judgment call for the benefit of readers. Consistency and clarity in categorization will improve navigability, especially for those readers unfamiliar with international fan terminology. If that means imposing a Western ship taxonomy on non-Western fandoms at the category level, well, so be it, I guess. You can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs. We ought to try not to see the perfect as the enemy of the good. No system can be made perfect. But it can be made better.

I can see the utility in switching to a framework of "M/F," "M/M," and "F/F." My main concern is that this will – unintentionally or otherwise – cause certain ships to be categorized by (perceived) sex rather than gender. And, to be frank, I find the possibility of ships being categorized in way that misgenders trans characters much, much more concerning. That said, I've never been fond of "femslash." I know the term has a history, but it feels dated in a not-good way. It arguably falls into the trap of framing women as a subset of men. So I propose adopting "sapphic relationships" or "sapphic pairings" instead. Heck, we could even adopt Japanese terminology as the standard. "Yaoi" and "yuri" for everyone! Night Rain (talk) 07:40, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Night Rain Totally agree with the "relationship" idea, we already do it for fandom relationship categories. And I agree about the "sex over gender" concern. F/M is how AO3 handles things, and I think it's the best solution. Adopting Sapphic and its Male equivalent Achillean would be acceptable since they don't necessarily imply gender, but I think those terms are too new to be relied upon in an archival/documentation setting. Most people don't know what either mean and the dust isn't settled yet on their connotations, I worry it can be used by bad actors to gatekeep pairings and who can ship them or to reenforce gender stereotypes by saying a M/M pairing with two effeminate dudes belongs in the Sapphic category or something. Maybe we can put a banner under Category: Relationships saying to put trans characters under their preferred gender instead of their birth one? Then it can be called upon as a rule if someone accidentally, or purposefully, breaks that rule. The terms are also non applicable to F/M. Non-binary pairings is a good catch-all if the above rule wouldn't apply.--Cavewomania (talk) 08:18, 29 December 2023 (UTC)