Love Knows No Gender: Gundam Wing Yaoi and Yuri
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| Title: | Love Knows No Gender: Gundam Wing Yaoi and Yuri |
| Creator: | kkscatnip |
| Date(s): | March 22, 2001 |
| Medium: | online |
| Fandom: | Gundam Wing |
| Topic: | |
| External Links: | Love Knows No Gender: Gundam Wing Yaoi and Yuri |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Love Knows No Gender: Gundam Wing Yaoi and Yuri is a 2001 essay by kkscatnip.
"Love Knows No Gender" is the title of the author's regular column at Fanfiction.net. "Gundam Wing Yaoi and Yuri" is the name of the essay.
This essay functions as a basic primer for the show, Gundam Wing.
Some Topics Discussed
- Gundam Wing
- slash
- the essay has many links and fic recs
- yuri and yaoi
- pairings
From the Column
Basics
If you don't know already, yaoi (and most slash) pairings are done in terms of 'person x person' or 'person + person'. The x is used when the two paired have sexual relations, the + when they are just 'good friends' or have relations that fall under the ‘G/PG’ rating. Usually, the person who comes first is the seme (from the Japanese verb semeru, to attack). After the x of course is the uke (from the verb ukeru, to receive). A few writers don’t always follow this and it is unknown to me if that is lack of knowledge or wanting to be different.
The Gundam Wing yaoi fandom has idiosyncrasies, other than the yaoi ones. The main unique quirk is numbers-- almost every main character has one. Partly because most of their names revolve around numbers, but the numbers evolved mainly because numbers are much easier when writing pairings! They are as follows: Pairings between main characters are usually written with numbers rather than names, since it is faster. It took me a while to find out the entire story behind the numbers, but trust me when I say it makes a lot of sense.
Each person’s name in the above table also hints at the number they were given. For an easy example of this, a duo is two of something, and Duo’s number is 2. If you want another example, Une is one in French. Take into account her double personalities, and thus we have her number, 11. Another quick trick is the numbers in the series-- All five of the pilot's numbers are the same.
Strangely enough, not all of the women and none of the lesser characters have numbers. This may be because there aren't many fics that they are used in (or I haven't looked hard enough), most of the pairings aren't popular, or because their names have nothing to do with numbers (the most likely reason). In pairings, the first letter of their name usually represents them (D for Dorothy, R for Relena, and so on).
For a little age reference, all of the pilots (Heero, Duo, Trowa, Quatre, and Wufei) are 15 years old at the beginning of the war. Noin, Une, and Zechs are all 19 years old, and Treize is 24. With all basics wrapped up, that brings us to the second, and most likely longest part...
Pairings
For every fandom there are pairings that are the usual pairings, the ones most hinted at in the series. A few examples would be Harry/Ron (Harry Potter), Hiei/Kuruma (Yu Yu Hakuasho), and Aya/Ken (WeiB Kreuz). Gundam W is no different in that respect.
Some of the usual pairings are (e.g.: the ones the writers of the Anime tend to promote): 2x1 / 1x2, 3x4 / 4x3, 13x5 / 5x13, 6x13 / 13x6.
The most common way they're paired is first, followed by the opposite. In Anime and Manga, there is something called 'the Height Rule' where characters tend to be given the place of seme simply because they are taller. One of these instances is 6x13. Zechs is taller than Treize, so he gets the default seme position, even though Treize is the commanding officer. The usage of this rule is more common in doujinshi (amateur comics in Japan) than in fan fictions, and even there it is more of a rule of thumb.. Now, to discuss specific pairings, the fun part. ^_~
One of the most popular Gundam W pairings is 2x1 / 1x2. This may be because Duo is the most popular character (check the manga, he received #1 in a character contest), or because the relationship between he and Heero is often full of tension and the writers give it as much (or more) attention as Trowa and Quatre's relationship. Either way, when looking for Gundam Wing yaoi it is impossible to not run across the pairing.
As with any pairing, there are certain stories that become cliché, and there are multitudes of those. One cliche with the 1x2 pairing is the 'afraid to say I love him' fiction. I can't say this enough, but I will again. If you are going to write fan fiction, write something with a new twist to it. There, now that I've got that cleared up, I can tell you about a couple of great 1x2-oritented writers!
A small warning before you read the yuri pairings— I am not all that familiar with Gundam Wing yuri. I have no objections to reading it, but it is often hard to find. I found one page totally devoted to the women of Gundam Wing. Not strangely, the page is calledShrine to the Women of Gundam Wing.
One of the pairings I ran across at almost every yuri page I visited was Dorothy/Relena. Dorothy and Relena don’t seem to get along too well in the canon, but the fiction is there none the less. It actually reminds me of the Harry/Draco pairing in Harry Potter. I stumbled across one very good Dorothy/Relena fic while looking, called Valkyrie. It’s massive (16 chapters) but worth every single word.
The other two common pairings I have seen are 9x11/11x9 and 9/Sally. One fic on fanfiction.net that is 9x11 is Feelings. I can’t really provide any other links to fan fics with those two pairings, but if you look on the shrine page that I provided earlier, there are fics there. ^_^
So, those are the main pairings. There are many of the more rare ones, or not so rare, but as those are the main ones and I don’t want to make this column 20 pages long; that is all I am going to discuss.